A good meeting is a magical thing. Ideas flow, decisions are made, and everyone leaves invigorated and ready to take on the world. The problem is that good meetings – like most magical things – are rare beasts indeed. What should be a fantastic team tool often turns into a slogging, frustrating experience where nothing gets accomplishedRead… Read more »
Please share a success story from your work in the last month. Last year, I asked staff to respond to this request in a meeting. And the response I got surprised me: silence. Unfortunately, staff could not identify one; not because they hadn’t done great work, but because they were lost in process, policy andRead… Read more »
Even if you’ve left Chemistry 101 behind, note-taking is still a skill that can help you through life. Studying for a certification, taking notes at a lecture, or even just remembering the results of that hour-long meeting you just sat through will all be easier if your notes are effective. Studies done on learning retentionRead… Read more »
What do you know about the clerk working in your city our county government? We’re guessing probably not a lot. However, a clerk in your local government is constantly doing a lot of work — mostly behind the scenes that you may never know about. And the fact is, the job of a clerk is criticalRead… Read more »
We just completed the first step of our City strategic planning process for the next three years. Regardless of your status in the pecking order, if your organization has a strategic plan, someone is likely to ask you how you connect to it. This is a valid question. If your assignment obviously aligns with yourRead… Read more »
Some days you sit in meetings, with deadlines looming and emails piling up, and wonder to yourself, why am I even here? It’s great to have a fun, friendly, and social environment at work, but sometimes it can be a time-suck. Oftentimes meetings take up much of our days, detracting from time that could beRead… Read more »
If I asked you to think through your career and remember notable meetings you attended, ones where ideas were flowing, decisions were made and you left feeling like you and your team really accomplished something…how many come to mind? Now, what if I asked you to recall meetings where no decisions or very little progressRead… Read more »
Everybody loves a good kickoff meeting and a lot of planning goes into making them go well. I agree…a great kickoff meeting gets everything moving in the right direction. However, I think the process should actually be backed up a step. Many times before starting an engagement I will ask for a Pre-Kickoff meeting. TheRead… Read more »
Ever feel like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland frantically rushing around the office exclaiming, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date/meeting?” Well, what if I told you there’s a way to help alleviate some of that hysteria and cut down meeting times with a little something called “Standing Meetings?” Riding onRead… Read more »
This week, I attended a 3-day federal supervisory/managerial training class on building and sustaining teams. Day 1 began with the facilitator explaining that we were to define our roles in teams behaviorally, by observable or measurable movement or activity. In other words, we were to state the behaviors that we see exhibited in ourselves andRead… Read more »