Gary walked out of the meeting with his team discouraged. The team functions well, but team meetings are a drag. Most of these weekly team meetings are the same. Everyone leaves discouraged and often frustrated. Team meetings are a low point of the week for team members. Gary is frustrated as well. He cannot understand why. His team works together well. They accomplish tasks in a timely manner and with high standards. But coming out of team meetings, the valley of morale is obvious to even Gary.
Perhaps you can relate to Gary and his team members. Many organizations, for profit and non-profit alike, have similar responses to team meetings. There are several topics we could address for this. But for this post I want to look at a couple factors to assist in improving the participation and morale of team meetings, communication at home, or any volunteer organization you are involved with.
People will not learn if we cannot engage their higher order thought processes. There are proper ways to do this and leaders must be willing to step out and implement some of these. Learn to use leadership techniques that engage the higher order thought processes leading to healthy discussion. Then as a leader, you must be ready to accept and welcome the discussion.
Within the first sixty seconds of speaking to another person or group of people, your listener’s attention will drift from your speech at least twice. You are the same. When listening to someone else you will drift away briefly from what is being said. This drifting is not from outside distractions. Rather it is due to memory focus. As a speaker, teacher, or leader shares, our minds have a tendency to pick up on certain words or phrases and we begin thinking about an event or experience in our own personal lives. In most cases the listener will quickly pull himself back into the current discussion.
We should remember that learning builds upon learning. As we speak, the new material is being processed and attached to something similar in our listener’s memory bank. This is what creates the learning experience and causes new information to be added into our memory bank. Since it is happening to our listeners every time we speak, why not take advantage of this natural occurrence and use it to produce learning experiences that produce results.
In certain conferences I will pull a plastic circular disc out of a book bag. I never have to tell anyone what it is. They know it is a Frisbee disc. I can proceed to relate new information to what the conferees already know about a Frisbee. Within a few short minutes, the conferees tell me the truth of the lesson. They have attached the new material to something they already know. And the lesson sticks. The new information is now in their memory bank. Learning builds upon learning.
Learning to use statements and objects that employ the higher order thought processes can be vital to your team remembering and carrying out the details of the project ahead. Planning and using these type statements requires discipline on the speaker’s part. Like a question, if you issue a thought provoking statement, be certain to allow time for your listeners to process the information. These can be great discussion starters and can bring out great and creative ideas and enthusiasm from your team members. A good leader knows it is not only a good practice but vital in the learning process to not give all the answers, but to lead your people in discovering answers for themselves. Jesus used this type statement in various places including John 14: 2 and 4.