One Meeting Minute Thought for Your Week
You’ll never regret doing things to help your coworkers shine.
At least that’s what I’ve decided based on what I’ve experienced in my 30+ year career.
And meetings are a perfect place to help your teammates showcase their abilities.
I was reminded of this recently by an experience I had with one of my coworkers.
I’ll tell you that story in a moment, but first let me share 5 questions you can use as you prepare for your meetings so you can help your coworkers shine.
5 questions to help your coworkers shine in meetings
To clarify, these questions aren’t ones you’ll ask DURING the meeting.
You can ask yourself these questions now as you prepare for the meetings you’ll be in this week.
(And, I know you’re Preparing for your meetings, right? Don’t forget the 3Ps for productive, effective meetings!)
Here’s what you can ask yourself:
- Which quiet teammate would share their wisdom with the right prompting?
- What question can I ask to set the stage for a peer to show their expertise?
- What top performer would appreciate being praised in front of a group?
- How can I adjust my agenda to give a newer employee more visibility?
- Whose recent success story can I share during my staff meeting?
Let’s take a quick look at each of these questions.
1. Which quiet teammate would share their wisdom with the right prompting?
To answer this question, you’ll need to take a couple of steps.
First, you’ll have to notice the teammates who often go unnoticed.
This is the person who slips in quietly to meetings, listens intently, takes notes, then quietly leaves.
They don’t draw attention to themselves before, during, or after the meeting.
But they’re in the meeting for a reason.
And they have valuable insight and wisdom.
You’re not going to know that by only interacting with them during meetings.
So you’ll need to talk with them at other times to understand what they’re an expert on.
That’s step number 2.
Once you have that information you’ll know when their expertise can add value to a meeting.
But asking them to share their input with a group may not help them shine at all.
Instead, it may make them feel awkward and totally stress them out causing them to be unable to share their knowledge with the group.
Some quiet people are like that.
But other coworkers who are perceived as shy actually WANT to share their wisdom.
They’re just waiting to be prompted.
As you’re getting to know a quiet coworker, you can simply ask them something like this when they’re providing insight to you in a personal, one-on-one conversation.
“The insight you have into this problem we’ve been trying to solve has really helped me understand the challenges we have to address as a team.
Would you be willing to explain what you just told me to the group during our next project team meeting?
If you are, I’ll add this topic to the agenda and ask you to talk us through it.
Would you be comfortable doing that?”
You’ll be amazed at how much a person who is typically quiet will open up when they’re prompted in the right way at the right time.
By asking yourself this question you’ll help a coworker like this get positively recognized in meetings instead of constantly being overlooked.
You can do the same for all your coworkers – not just the quiet ones.
2. What question can I ask to set the stage for a peer to show their expertise?
Asking powerful questions is something the best leaders do.
And investing the time to think of questions to help your coworkers shine during meetings will help you be an even better leader.
As you’re preparing for your meetings, take a few moments to think about who the experts are on certain subjects that will be covered.
Then make a quick list of questions you might ask to give them the opportunity to explain what they know.
Here are a few examples to get you started:
“Kathie, I know you’ve been through this on other projects. What insight do you have based on your previous experience?”
“This sounds like what we were discussing yesterday, Joban. Could you tell the group what you told me please? Your explanation gave me a better perspective.”
“Skip, Discernment is your Working Genius and you’re great at critiquing ideas. What are we missing in our analysis of this possible solution?”
By preparing your questions in advance, you won’t stumble over your words during the meeting and miss the opportunity to draw out the best from your colleagues.
3. What top performer would appreciate being praised in front of a group?
You might think everyone who performs well will appreciate being praised in front of everyone in a meeting.
Who wouldn’t want to be asked to stand up and listen while you sing their praises?
The answer is many people.
Some people on your team would prefer words of affirmation be delivered by you in private not in public.
Others, however, are filled with energy and motivation when you praise them in front of others.
So as you’re considering how and when to show appreciation to those who’ve contributed at the highest levels for your business, pause and think about who each of them are as individuals.
The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace assessment is an excellent tool to help you know your team members better.
I’m an Appreciation at Work Certified Facilitator and use these resources with my teams and my clients regularly.
The results from the assessments will equip you to help your coworkers shine in meetings and feel honored (not embarrassed!) when you recognize their contributions.
You can learn more about the Appreciation at Work resources and tools on their website.
4. How can I adjust my agenda to give a newer employee more visibility?
It’s hard when you’re new to an organization.
You may have done incredible things at your last company and everyone there knew how much you’d contributed.
You might be an expert in multiple areas and can add value in many different roles throughout your new company.
But not everyone has read your LinkedIn profile or reviewed your resume that helped you land your new position.
It’s frustrating to see how you can contribute but don’t want to go around telling everyone about your experience because it might seem like you’re boasting.
You may remember feeling like this. So you can empathize with the new person who’s attending your meetings.
When you’re the leader of a meeting and have a new employee attending, you have the opportunity to help them, your coworkers, and your business.
You can put them on the agenda to share what they know.
Talk with your new coworker to learn more about them and discover what skills they have.
Then schedule time for them to present on a relevant topic during your next meeting.
This step to help your coworker shine will obviously benefit them. But it does more than that.
You’re also making your colleagues aware of a valuable resource within the company and sparking conversations about how your new team member can maximize their contribution to the overall business.
5. Whose recent success story can I share during my staff meeting?
This question is probably an easy one for you to answer because I expect you’ve built an outstanding team of individuals who are doing great things for your business.
In fact, when you ask yourself this question as you’re preparing for your next staff meeting you’ll probably generate more success stories than you have time to share.
That’s a great problem to have.
Just take a few minutes to reflect on the past week when you’re putting together the agenda for your next team meeting.
Think about all your team has accomplished.
Which of the many success stories do you want to share to help your coworkers (your direct reports in this case) shine the brightest?
Personally, doing this is one of the most enjoyable parts of my job as a supervisor!
Which brings me to the story I promised you in the introduction.
A story of how I got to help a coworker shine
Not too long ago, I was working with a member of my team who’s just a few years into his career.
He’s a talented young man with an abundance of talent, energy, and enthusiasm.
For those who are familiar with the 6 Types of Working Genius model, his Working Geniuses are Tenacity and Enablement.
That means he can be described as a “Loyal Finisher” who gets energy from completing tasks and responding to the needs of others in the pursuit of getting things done.
And that’s exactly what he’d been doing on the project we were working on together.
Preparing for the meeting
It was time for our monthly project review meeting with senior leadership and we had just finished the slide deck.
I had already created the Project Review Scorecard and included it as a single slide – a “one pager”.
It looked something like this (with different content obviously!)
Project Review Scorecard Example
We’d worked together to build the Executive Summary and the rest of the slides based on the topics on the agenda with most of the content focused on the project schedule details.
We confirmed we were ready to distribute the presentation for pre-read by the senior leaders then I asked my teammate this question:
“Which of these slides would you like to present and which would you prefer I cover?”
I had my opinion, but I wanted to give him the opportunity to take the lead.
He thought for a moment as he scratched his tightly trimmed goatee then told me he’d like me to cover the Project Review Scorecard slide and he would do the rest.
Keep in mind that he would be presenting to senior leaders several levels above him in the reporting structure – and one of their titles started with the letter “C!”
In other words, there was some risk involved. He could mess this meeting up and negatively impact his career.
But his recommendation matched perfectly with mine.
In fact, I knew he could do the entire presentation if he needed to.
We agreed on the plan and talked through how he would cover the slides then invite me to add my comments as beneficial to make the meeting most effective.
Meeting time!
When the early morning meeting time arrived (we had participants around the globe in different time zones), we were ready.
The participants had reviewed the presentation he distributed in advance, and he started exactly on time.
This young professional walked us through the presentation covering every topic on the agenda.
The leaders were engaged and the conversation was productive. We uncovered risks that needed to be mitigated and recorded actions items (with owners and deadlines of course) in the meeting notes he sent out after the meeting.
My teammate nailed it just like I knew he would!
And it was a joy to be a part of helping a coworker shine during a meeting.
I get so many blessings from my day job and my work with clients in my side business.
This story is just one example of more than I can count.
Why I shared this story with you.
So why did I share this story with you?
The answer is simple.
I want you to know what it can feel like to help your coworkers shine during meetings.
By taking some simple steps like I outlined in this article, you too can feel the thrill I felt when I got watch to someone on my team show others what they can do.
It was super encouraging for me, and I hope you get to experience moments like this in your job too.
More Resources to Help You Build Your Career and Your Business
The process I described my team member and I following included many of the elements I outlined in this article:
🔷 How To Use Structure To Effectively Lead Meetings (click here)
And if you’re interested in learning more about asking powerful questions, this post will help.
🔷 How To Ask Powerful Questions – Getting Started (click here)
And Now a Word from Our Sponsors
The Project Review Scorecard like the example above is something I’ve used for years.
It’s saved me hundreds of hours by helping me prepare for project review meetings quickly then communicating clearly and concisely with project stakeholders during the meeting.
It works for me and it will work for you.
Click here to see how you can get the exact Project Review Scorecard templates I use.
If you decide to buy these templates and for some reason, they turn out to not be a good fit for you, don’t worry.
I’ll give a full refund with absolutely no hassle.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
That’s All for this Issue
You work with talented, hard-working people.
They deserve to be recognized and praised for their contributions to your business.
And, here’s a nice bonus for helping your coworkers shine and showcase their talents and abilities.
When you take steps like these, you’ll get personal satisfaction like I described in my story AND you’ll shine brightly as a leader yourself!
You won’t be seeking the spotlight, but others will inevitably turn it on you and give you praise.
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence!
Greg
Here are 3 ways I can help you when you’re ready:
- Get more free resources you can use today (Click here to Start)
- Improve on your own with digital courses (Click here to Improve)
- Accelerate your progress with coaching (Click here to Accelerate)
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