Many teams start afresh in September after a summer of covering for each other’s holidays, with leaders booking Sep-Oct meetings now into everyone’s calendars.
The chances are that your team will be spread thinly over the summer as parents in your midst take their family away during the school holidays, and others take advantage of days off during good weather.
For these teams, it’s a smart move to get the team together – away from the office if you can – as soon as possible after the holiday season to re-focus minds, re-energise and re-align.
So what does a great agenda look like for such a ‘restart meeting’?
red10 structure their work around 9-Dimensions that are the essential and sufficient conditions for increasing the likelihood of the team’s success, and for quick ‘post summer’ restarts, 5 Dimensions come to the fore:
- Reality – Who’s who, who’s doing what and what’s new?
This is the perfect time for each of the individuals in the team to check-in with each other on who’s on the team now, who’s doing what, and what’s changed over the summer. If you’ve not been away, all the small incremental changes that almost washed over you, may surprise your colleagues on their return.
- Partnerships – What’s the latest on our clients or those we serve and supply?
If things have changed for you, they will have changed for your clients too. What is new for them? What does this mean for your team and your business?
Have you noticed how many conflicts in teams happen just because members of the team don’t have the same core information on who’s doing what, and what’s happening for their clients?
- Vision – Agreeing updated goals for the team and the business
The discussion about clients often naturally leads into fine-tuning the purpose of the team and their vision. Fluid environments call for more frequent changes in direction. Outstanding teams then turn their discussions into a visualisation.
- Strategy – What’s priority now?
A small sub-set of a team I worked with recently brainstormed 42 different initiatives they would like to see happen to make their vision a reality, and realised that when the whole team came together the list would be even greater. The team leader encouraged team members to do the things they had real energy for, but the team had come to the point where trade-offs were now necessary to reduce the burn-out and the chaos people were experiencing. Agreeing the handful (3-8) of strategic priorities that mattered most right now, together with who would lead each, was a huge step forward for them. Would your team benefit from this too?
- Execution – Given all of the above, how will we work together?
Is your team still meeting optimally? What are standing items on your agendas? Will you have a drumbeat check on each of the strategic priorities each meeting? How will you continue to communicate in-between meetings? These are great questions to finish your ‘restart’ meeting with.
If you’re looking for a template for restarting your team after the summer break, you will not go wrong with these 5-steps. If you think the team could use some external support to work through these questions, let us know. And if it’s time to invest in the full 9-Dimensions then why not put 2-days aside and contact a red10 coach to help you?