This week we started Chapter 8 (Results). There are ten sections: 1:1 conversations, staff meetings, think time, “big debate” meetings, “big decision” meetings, all-hands meetings, meeting-free zones, Kanban boards, walk around, be conscious of culture.
We covered 1:1 conversations, staff meetings, and think time.
Formatting note: I’m trying to strike a balance of codifying the useful tips the book covers, but we as a group skip because we don’t have anything noteworthy. Sentences in italics are those where we spent time discussing; non-italics represents elements worth sharing but without discussion in the group.
1:1 Conversations
- Our book club has read several other books that covered 1:1s; we are seeing many common subjects to help us deliver and participate in these meetings.
- “‘Remember that global off-site meeting your team wanted but we had a hard time getting budget for?’ Sheryl asked. ‘Let’s take another crack at getting the budget. That way you can fly everybody here. They want to come, and you don’t want to go. Seems like a win-win.'” Geoff noted this is a touchy subject: women choosing family over career. Also, it must be nice to have the funding to fly everybody to where you live.
- “I found that when I quit thinking of them as meetings and began treating them as if I were having lunch or coffee with somebody I was eager to get to know better, they ended up yielding much better conversations.”
- “…to avoid meeting proliferation, I recommend managers use the 1:1 time to have ‘career conversations’ (see chapter seven) and, if relevant, to do formal performance reviews.” Geoff noted: But the author later says these meetings should be driven by the employee; now you’ve coopted them for something else.
- We talked about situations — both from a manager’s and employee’s perspective — how comfortable people are approaching managers with constructive feedback. Even though your door may be open as a manager, not everyone will come to you.
- “However, I recommend setting basic expectations for the agenda and how it’s delivered.” Geoff’s current boss asks for an agenda twelve hours in advance, which works for both of them. Jameson prefers more informal conversation structures in his 1:1s. Jamie also does free-form except for things that need to be covered (e.g., professional development, performance reviews, compensation).
- Geoff took the content from “Some good follow-up questions” and added it to his list of team check-in questions. Houston said these are good questions to ask of yourself.
- Under “Signs you’ll get from 1:1s that you’re failing as a boss,” Geoff mentioned that he supervised someone in this category — i.e., tick all the boxes for the meeting with rarely anything to ask of their manager. Perhaps some people don’t want to open up. Houston said caring personally for your rock stars is fine; some people are happy where they are.
- We discussed our experiences with some of the signals that 1:1s aren’t going well (e.g., cancellations, good news only, no criticism, no agenda). Jameson hasn’t received any criticism, even though he’s asking; this probably depends on culture, trust, and team cohesion.
Staff Meetings
- “An effective staff meeting has three goals: it reviews how things have gone the previous week, allows people to share important updates, and forces the team to clarify the most important decisions and debates for the coming week.” Geoff said this is essentially the agenda for his group’s weekly Scrum of Scrums.
- Jamie liked the agenda laid out in the book: Review key metrics, put updates in a shared document, and identify key decisions and debates. Houston found it interesting that those three sections total to 65 minutes. Jamie said maybe this discourages others from booking a meeting right behind it, as staff meetings generally run over time because of questions.
- Jameson worked at a large company that had off-site staff meetings because there were so many employees. At Lirio, we have monthly company meetings toward the end of the day; this allows people from more western time zones to attend as well.
- “Notes from this conversation should almost always be made public.” Geoff agreed; don’t make metrics a surprise, or only available to a chosen few. Jameson said that making expectations — not just metrics — shared and understood is helpful.
- We discussed managing expectations for roles and responsibilities. Having clear delineations is helpful. Jamie recommended defining the minimum set of expectations rather than having those expectations be limiting. If people only adhere to specific bullet-points for a role, you risk wandering into “that’s not my job” territory.
- “Most people hate to be excluded from decisions relevant to them, but they hate attending meetings that are irrelevant to them even more. With a little transparency, it all sorts itself out.” Geoff agreed in general; however, it takes time to find that balance. Depending on the quality (and length) of the notes, people may or may not enjoy catching up asynchronously. The first point is certainly salient, coming from our Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team training: You shouldn’t accept commitment from people who couldn’t participate in the debate first.
Think Time
- “Block time to think, and hold that time sacred.”
- We all agreed blocking time off on the calendar is important to do, and all of us have tried this to some degree. It’s useful to have heads-down time to get work done; you also need heads-down time to do free-thinking.
- Try to make it a habit to set aside time to do this kind of generative work. Jamie shared an example for writers: sitting down to write for one hour at the same time every day. Maybe you’ll write well, maybe you’ll get stuck; but at least you build a routine that leans toward discipline rather than motivation. The Pomodoro technique is another approach for structured think time.