By Roger Schwarz
If you want to have effective team meetings, you need ground rules—and agreement about how to use them.
Through 30 years of helping leadership teams, I’ve developed eight ground rules that can help teams improve their performance, working relationships and individual well-being.
• State views and ask genuine questions. Shift from monologues and arguments to a conversation in which members can understand everyone’s point of view and be curious about differences of opinion.
• Share all relevant information. Develop a comprehensive, mutual set of information to solve problems and make decisions.
• Use specific examples and agree on important definitions. Ensure that all team members are using the same words to mean the same thing.
• Explain reasoning and intent. Enable members to understand how others reached their conclusions and how their reasoning differs.
• Focus on interests, not positions. Move from arguing about solutions to identifying needs that must be met to solve a problem. Thus, you reduce unproductive conflict and increase your ability to develop solutions that the whole team is committed to.
• Test assumptions and inferences. Make decisions based on valid information rather than private assumptions about what other team members believe and what their motives are.
• Jointly design next steps. Reinforce everyone’s commitment to moving forward as a team.
• Discuss the undiscussable. Air the important but unaddressed issues that are hindering the team’s results and can only be resolved in a team meeting.
Roger Schwarz is president and CEO of Roger Schwarz & Associates.