https://www.edutopia.org/article/14-effective-opening-and-closing-routines-for-teachers?utm_content=linkpos1&utm_source=edu-legacy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly-2023-08-30
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Friday, September 1, 2023
David Brooks on Moral Education 2.0
from MM 1000
David Brooks on Moral Education 2.0
In this article in The Atlantic, David Brooks says he’s obsessed with two questions:
Why have Americans become so sad – increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and suicide?
And why have Americans become so mean – polarization, conspiracy theories, mass
shootings? Several explanations have been offered:
- Technology – social media are driving us crazy.
- Sociology – people participate less in community organizations and are isolated.
- Demography – white Americans are in a panic about increasing racial diversity.
- Economy – high levels of inequality and insecurity make people feel afraid, alienated,
and pessimistic.
These are all real, says Brooks, but they don’t fully explain why Americans have become so
sad and so mean.
The most important reason “is also the simplest,” he believes: “We inhabit a society in
which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our
society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein.” That’s
happened because a web of institutions – families, schools, religious groups, community
organizations, and workplaces – are not doing the job they used to do: forming people into kind
and responsible citizens who show up for one another.
“For a large part of its history,” says Brooks, “America was awash in morally formative
institutions” that taught people three things:
- How to restrain their selfishness – keeping their “evolutionarily conferred egotism
under control;”
- Basic social and ethical skills – how to welcome a neighbor into the community, how to
disagree constructively;
- Finding a purpose in life – “practical pathways toward a meaningful existence.”
For 150 years after the nation’s founding, says Brooks, leaders focused on perfecting what they
acknowledged were flawed human beings. Moral education was a centerpiece in schools and
universities; the McGuffey Readers and other textbooks were full of tales of right and wrong.
Churches, Sunday schools, the YMCA, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, settlement houses,
professional organizations, unions had similar themes. One 19th-century headmaster said the
purpose of his school was to turn out young men who were “acceptable at a dance and
invaluable in a shipwreck.”
3Marshall Memo 1000 August 28, 2023
The two premises of this moral drive, says Brooks, were (a) “training the heart and
body is more important than training the reasoning brain,” and it is accomplished through “the
repetition of many small habits and practices, all within a coherent moral culture,” and (b)
“right and wrong are not matters of personal taste; an objective moral order exists.” Underlying
both was a belief in human fallibility. “The force of sinfulness is so stubborn a characteristic of
human nature,” said Martin Luther King Jr. a century later, “that it can only be restrained when
the social unit is armed with both moral and physical might.”
Coexisting with this crusade, says Brooks, were “all sorts of hierarchies that we now
rightly find abhorrent:” beliefs about racial superiority, men dominant over women,
antisemitism, homophobia, and more. “Furthermore,” he continues, “we would never want to
go back to the training methods that prevailed for so long, rooted in so many thou shall nots
and so much shaming, and riddled with so much racism and sexism.”
Yet the old push for morality was egalitarian, says Brooks, at least in theory. “If your
status in the community was based on character and reputation, then a farmer could earn
dignity as readily as a banker. This ethos came down hard on self-centeredness and narcissistic
display. It offered practical guidance on how to be a good neighbor, a good friend.”
And then, just after World War II, “it mostly went away,” says Brooks. A series of
phenomenally successful books – Peace of Mind, The Power of Positive Thinking, Dr. Spock’s
child-rearing manual, and others – preached a new gospel of self-actualization. “According to
this ethos,” Brooks writes, “morality is not something we develop in communities. It’s
nurtured by connecting with our authentic self and finding our true inner voice. If people are
naturally good, we don’t need moral formation; we just need to let people get in touch with
themselves.” A mid-1970s Girl Scout handbook asked, “How can you get more in touch with
you? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?”
By the 1960s, says Brooks, K-12 moral education was in full-scale retreat, with an
increasing focus on SAT scores and getting into elite colleges and universities. In higher
education, the “research ideal” replaced an earlier humanistic ideal of cultivating the whole
student and thinking about how to live a good life, which now seemed hopelessly antique.
An analysis of words used in the nation’s books in the post-war era showed bravery
dropping 65 percent, gratitude down 58 percent, and humbleness 55 percent lower. Incoming
college students increasingly said that being financially well off was their leading goal in life.
Asked by researchers about their moral lives, young people said they hadn’t given it much
thought. “I’ve never had to make a decision about what’s right and what’s wrong,” said one. A
common refrain among students was that their teachers steered clear of controversies.
“Moral communities are fragile things, hard to build and easy to destroy,” wrote
psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Brooks believes that people raised in a culture without ethical
structure become “internally fragile,” without a moral compass and permanent ideals, with no
personal why. “Expecting people to build a satisfying moral and spiritual life on their own by
looking within themselves is asking too much,” he says. “A culture that leaves people morally
naked and alone leaves them without the skills to be decent to one another. Social trust falls
partly because more people are untrustworthy.”
4Marshall Memo 1000 August 28, 2023
The result is “vulnerable narcissists… people who are addicted to thinking about
themselves, but who often feel anxious, insecure, avoidant. Intensely sensitive to rejection,
they scan for hints of disrespect. Their self-esteem is wildly in flux. Their uncertainty about
their inner worth triggers cycles of distrust, shame, and hostility.” Not surprisingly, suicide
rates have risen more than 30 percent since 2000. The pandemic made things worse, but the
underlying conditions were there before and remain in full force today.
“Over the past several years,” says Brooks, “people have sought to fill the moral
vacuum with politics and tribalism. American society has become hyper-politicized… For
people who feel disrespected, unseen, and alone, politics is a seductive form of social therapy.
It offers them a comprehensible moral landscape: the line between good and evil runs not down
the middle of every human heart, but between groups… The culture war is a struggle that gives
life meaning.” One study found that young people who are lonely are seven times more likely
to get involved in polarized politics than non-lonely youth. Politics gives them a sense of
righteousness, purpose, and identity.
Brooks points to a couple of glimmers of hope: people openly weeping in theaters as
they watched Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the film about Mister Rogers “in all his simple
goodness – his small acts of generosity; his displays of vulnerability; his respect, even
reverence, for each child he encountered.” And Ted Lasso, the series about an American coach
transplanted to U.K. soccer, who said his goal was not the championship but “helping these
young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.”
That is a “description of moral formation,” says Brooks. “Ted Lasso is about an earnest,
cheerful, and transparently kind man who entered a world that has grown cynical, amoral, and
manipulative, and, episode by episode, even through his own troubles, he offers people around
him opportunities to grow more gracious, to confront their vulnerabilities and fears, and to treat
one another more gently and wisely.”
The question before us, says Brooks, is how to “build a culture that helps people be
better versions of themselves.” His suggestions:
• A modern version of how to build character – What we used to do was gendered and
old-fashioned, he says, and points to Iris Murdoch for a better idea: a moral life as something
that goes on continually, “treating people considerately in the complex situations of daily
existence.” Channeling Murdoch, Brooks says, “I become a better person as I become more
curious about those around me, as I become more skilled in seeing from their point of view.”
• Mandatory social-skills courses – Some possible components: how to listen well, be a
good conversationalist, disagree with respect, ask for and offer forgiveness, patiently cultivate
a friendship, sit with someone who is grieving or depressed. “If we’re going to build a decent
society,” says Brooks, “elementary and high schools should require students to take courses
that teach these specific social skills, and thus prepare them for life with one another.”
• A new core element in the college curriculum – Brooks points to several college
courses, including “Life Worth Living” at Yale and “God and the Good Life” at Notre Dame,
that have students read classic literature and grapple with questions like: What is the ruling
passion of your soul? Whom are you responsible to? What are my moral obligations? What
5Marshall Memo 1000 August 28, 2023
will it take for my life to be meaningful? What does it mean to be a good human in today’s
world? What are the central issues we need to engage with concerning new technology and
human life?
• Intergenerational service – Brooks suggests “at least two periods of life when people
have a chance to take a sabbatical from the meritocracy and live by an alternative logic – the
logic of service.” These might be right after school and at the end of one’s working years,
when young people and seniors come together to serve their communities in meaningful ways
– and cooperate with people unlike themselves.
• Moral organizations – Most institutions serve both instrumental and moral goals, says
Brooks: hospitals heal the sick and make money; newspapers and magazines inform the public
and try to generate clicks; law firms defend clients and maximize billable hours; nonprofits
serve the public good and fundraise. But too often the instrumental eclipses the ethical, he says.
“Moral renewal won’t come until we have leaders who are explicit, loud, and credible about
both sets of goals.” Here’s how we’re going to forgo some financial returns in order to better
serve our higher mission.
• Politics as a moral enterprise – “Statecraft is soulcraft,” says Brooks. “We can either
elect people who try to embody the highest standards of honesty, kindness, and integrity, or
elect people who shred those standards… Yes, of course people are selfish and life can be
harsh. But over the centuries, civilizations have established rules and codes to nurture
cooperation, to build trust and sweeten our condition. These include personal moral codes so
we know how to treat one another well, ethical codes to help prevent corruption on the job and
in public life, and the rules of the liberal world order so that nations can live in peace, secure
within their borders.”
“Look, I understand why people don’t want to get all moralistic in public,” Brooks
concludes. “Many of those who do are self-righteous prigs, or rank hypocrites. And all of this
is only a start. But healthy moral ecologies don’t just happen. They have to be seeded and
tended by people who think and talk in moral terms, who try to model and inculcate moral
behavior, who understand that we have to build moral communities because on our own, we
are all selfish and flawed. Moral formation is best when it’s humble. It means giving people the
skills and habits that will help them be considerate to others in the complex situations of life. It
means helping people behave in ways that make other people feel included, seen, and
respected.”
“How America Got Mean” by David Brooks in The Atlantic, September 2023 (Vol. 332, #2,
pp. 68-76)
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
When You’ve Lost Trust in an Employee
from Harvard Business Review
| When You’ve Lost Trust in an Employee |
| Leaders who don’t trust their employees are often more anxious, hesitant to delegate, and prone to micromanaging. A lack of trust can also diminish innovation, morale, and team performance. Here are five steps to take if you’re in the uncomfortable position of not trusting one of your employees. First, separate facts from assumptions and focus on specific problematic behaviors. What exactly did this person do or not do that has led to your distrust? Next, make a list of the areas in which you do trust your employee, and consider how you might incrementally build on these areas in low-risk ways. Focus on clear and frequent communication—checking in regularly one-on-one—as you delegate and add to their responsibilities. It’s crucial to provide feedback on the behaviors that are leading to your distrust. Be specific; is it their competency, consistency, or character that’s degrading your trust? Ask for their feedback too, and honestly reflect on what you might be doing (or not doing) to contribute to the situation. And finally, ask yourself if the breach of trust is repairable. If it isn’t, it might be time to part ways. |
Friday, August 25, 2023
A Simple Formula for Making a Great Pitch
| A Simple Formula for Making a Great Pitch |
Even if you don’t have “marketing” or “sales” in your job title, to be an effective communicator, you need to know how to pitch your ideas, concepts, and perspectives. Here’s a four-step template to help you craft a concise, relevant, and persuasive pitch—without using any strong-arm tactics or gimmicks.
Imagine you have a new product that helps users clip and organize meaningful moments from their favorite podcasts and videos. Once clipped, the product saves, sorts, and aggregates them in one place. You want to develop a pitch for your audience. Your pitch might be: What if you could capture, collect, and categorize short-form audio and video content? So that you can quickly access and combine content together to make your own meaningful playlists to help you learn, exercise, and be more productive. For example, athletes are curating playlists that contain snippets of podcasts and video advice to help them with particular stretching exercises. Then, they can easily access the content they want, whether they’re in the gym, at home, or getting ready for a track workout. And that’s not all. There is a social element to this product. You can share your personal playlists with friends and even build communities of people with similar interests. Now, let’s look at a non-sales example. Let’s say you’re part of a committee at work to suggest more eco-friendly initiatives for your entire office. You have an idea for hiring a local firm to create an organic garden in an unused portion of your roof area, and you want to pitch this concept for adoption by the committee. Here’s what your pitch might look like: What if we could have fresh produce available on-demand, onsite? So that we can offer locally grown, organic fruits and vegetables to our employees and role model innovative sustainability ideas. For example, we could have fresh strawberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers right from our own garden on our roof for snacking or for employees to take home. And that’s not all. The group that manages the garden hires at-risk youth and also encourages employees to take an active part in caring for the garden and serving as mentors for their workers. As a result, we’d be helping the larger community and establishing important relationships that benefit us all. |
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
6 Foundational Ways to Scaffold Student Learning
From Edutopia:
1. FIRST, CLARITY
Before jumping into a lesson, review your materials for brevity and clarity. All too often, students are stuck, not because the lesson is too difficult but because the instructions aren’t clear or handouts are haphazardly designed.
Audit your instructional materials year to year, with the aim of gradually simplifying and improving them. Another effective way to provide greater clarity is to use headings and annotations to direct student attention to key ideas. For example, the thoughtful use of underlining, highlighting, and arrows to call attention to crucial ideas can boost student retention by 36 percent, a 2020 study suggests. Don’t overdo it, though. Consider what is absolutely necessary and useful, and avoid extraneous details and eye-catching adornments, which can occupy valuable attentional resources and reduce comprehension.
Pro tip: After a lesson, check in with students to see how well they understood the directions and objectives. You may think that your lessons are the perfect balance of being brilliant and easy to grasp, but not every student will see things clearly. Highly effective teachers often check in with their students, asking questions such as “Are my lessons and assignments clear?” to unearth pain points, bottlenecks, and other obstacles, a 2019 study found.
2. BUILD BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
Tackling a new topic without sufficient background knowledge is like exploring a cave without a flashlight: Without a foundation of familiar terms lighting up the path ahead, students will struggle to grasp the lesson. That’s because the brain always seeks connections to previously stored material, which ties ideas together and reinforces the conceptual scaffolding.
How important is background knowledge? According to a 2019 study of over 3,500 high school students learning about ecology, being unfamiliar with roughly 59 percent of terms in the topic resulted in “compromised” comprehension. If students didn’t know key terms like habitat or biodiversity, they had a harder time following a lesson, falling behind their peers who were also new to the lesson but had a stronger vocabulary to draw from.
Before exploring a new topic—or after having students read an introductory text—have students identify words that confuse them, or draw up your own list of academic terms that all students should know beforehand, which you can share on a word wall or play vocabulary games with. During a lesson, pause for a moment and explore those terms, so that all students can keep pace and not be tripped up by gaps in background knowledge. To get students to begin connecting new material to already-learned material, you can read an introductory text and have them engage in small group K-W-L activities, or you can sequence lessons so that overarching connections are made explicit, helping to reactivate prior knowledge on a regular basis.
3. BE MULTIMODAL
Provide multiple ways for students to learn the material by pairing a written or verbal lesson with pictures, diagrams, or video, or by asking them to physically act out concepts, write songs, or reenact historical events. Relying on multiple sensory pathways encodes learning material more effectively—leading to more durable memories.
The research is clear, and the effect sizes are considerable. In a 2015 study, for example, researchers discovered that handing illustrated diagrams to students who listened to a physics lecture boosted performance on a follow-up test by 70 percent, compared with their peers who listened to the lecture with no visual aids. And a 2020 study found that 8-year-old students learning a new language were 73 percent more likely to remember vocabulary words if they acted them out—spreading their arms and pretending to fly when learning how to say “airplane” in German, for example.
4. USE GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS AND ANCHOR CHARTS
Visual scaffolds can serve as a road map for students, helping them navigate unfamiliar conceptual terrain by providing a bird’s-eye view of the lesson. Distilling a complex topic into a handful of key ideas not only promotes comprehension but also can greatly enhance long-term recall of the material.
When middle school students used graphic organizers while learning about the seasons, factual recall increased by 45 percent and comprehension by 64 percent, compared with their peers who weren’t given the scaffolding aids, a 2021 study found. Novice learners are often overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information presented in a lesson, the researchers observed, and have difficulty telling the difference between key ideas and supporting details. Graphic organizers and anchor charts, however, can guide “students’ selective attention” to what’s important, giving them a leg up compared with their peers.
In the early stages of learning—as students are grappling with unfamiliar information—it’s helpful to supply prompts, hints, or even partially completed anchor charts and graphic organizers to make learning more effective. Asking students to start from scratch can overload their working memory, but pre-filling core concepts in a graphic organizer can “scaffold and guide the learner’s cognitive processing,” resulting in a 155 percent boost to comprehension, according to the 2021 study referenced above.
5. USE PRE-LESSON ACTIVITIES
In a 2021 study, researchers concluded that giving students ungraded pre-lesson practice quizzes boosted follow-up tests of retention and transfer by 49 percent, compared with simply jumping into a lesson without any warm-up activities. Surprisingly, the researchers found that pre-testing also outperformed post-lesson practice quizzes as well, improving scores by 27 percent over the tried-and-true strategy.
While embedding practice tests during—and after—a lesson is an effective way to strengthen student memory for the material, pre-lesson quizzes provide a different benefit: They scaffold the to-be-learned material, helping students to organize their thoughts, sparking curiosity as they venture guesses, and encouraging them to “search for the correct answers” during the actual lesson, the researchers point out.
Periodically, you might start a new lesson by asking students to solve challenging questions—ones that are just beyond their ability to solve. Used strategically, in small doses and for high-value concepts, the approach helps students learn how to deal with frustration in a supportive, productive environment. While many will struggle, that’s the point, says learning scientist Manu Kapur. “These problems should be just beyond students’ reach—they’re designed in ways that will activate prior knowledge and motivate students, clarifying what they know and what they don’t know,” Kapur told Edutopia in 2022. “If the challenge hits that sweet spot, that’s where deep learning happens.” Let students explore different avenues, and then step in, building off their ideas and solutions as you elucidate and clarify, he suggests.
6. ASK METACOGNITIVE QUESTIONS
When students encounter new material, it can feel like a flood, overloading their ability to process the information. While external scaffolds—outlines and anchor charts, for example—provide valuable support, it’s also beneficial to encourage students to develop their own portable strategies for managing novel information.
Metacognitive questions provide students with a template for interrogating new material, putting them on the path to becoming independent learners. Students can ask questions like these:
- What stands out to me about this new material? What makes me wonder?
- Which parts or terms are unfamiliar to me, and which parts do I recognize?
- How does this connect with what I already know?
- What follow-up questions do I have?
- Why is this idea important?
You can pair these metacognitive questions with new assignments, suggests Kimberly Tanner, a professor of biology at San Francisco State University, in a 2017 study. “The instructor’s decision to make these kinds of questions part of an assignment—and part of the grading scheme for the assignment—can prompt students to bring a more metacognitive stance to their everyday coursework,” she writes.
Monday, July 24, 2023
Communicate with Kindness
from Harvard Business Review
Most of us want to communicate with kindness, but it can be challenging to convey warmth and compassion under frustrating, stressful, or maddening circumstances. Three practices can help you in your day-to-day interactions, as well as big, difficult conversations. First, meet confrontation with grace. This means wearing a smile and exuding patience and courtesy when an employee brings you difficult news or challenges your decision-making. An open-minded tone will signal that you're there to listen, process, and problem-solve—not to reprimand or enforce your own authority. Next, give credit whenever you can. Recognizing your employees and showing them gratitude will engender their enthusiasm, hard work, trust, and loyalty. Finally, give people space and clarity so you don’t catch them off guard. Schedule conversations in advance or ask them if it’s a good time to talk—and give them a quick preview of what you’d like to talk about. These kind, simple gestures will give your counterpart an opportunity to prepare, and make it clear that you’re interested in listening to their response.
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
4 Distractions that Derail Meetings — and How to Handle Them by Luis Velasquez
From Harvard Business Review
Meetings are critical for achieving goals, as they foster unity and facilitate communication, planning, and alignment — but only if they’re run effectively. Poorly run meetings negatively affect a team’s performance, cohesion, and ultimately its success in meeting its goals.
In a survey of senior managers, 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient. And a study of 20 organizations revealed that dysfunctional behaviors in meetings — like complaining or criticizing others — are associated with lower market share, less innovation, and lower employee engagement.
See if the following scenario sounds familiar: You receive a meeting invitation whose title is simply “Product Launch,” with no further details. You attend the meeting because your team handles a launch component and you want to ensure you’re not missing anything. Lisa, the team lead, introduces the new product line. However, within minutes, the conversation takes a turn when John, a senior marketing executive, starts complaining about the company’s culture and lack of support from upper management. This sparks an unrelated, heated debate about the company’s culture instead of the product launch. Everybody is confused and frustrated.
Over many years of working with teams and coaching team leaders, I’ve observed four dysfunctional behaviors that cause meetings to derail. To ensure productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness, managers need to know how to spot, prevent, and deal with these behaviors when they appear.
Four Dysfunctional Meeting Behaviors
Four dysfunctional behaviors, or meeting derailers, tend to show up in meetings that lack focus and clarity and can be summarized using the acronym GAAS:
Gravity problems
These occur when team members get sucked into discussing a challenge or issue that’s fundamentally unsolvable at the team level, much like the force of gravity. Trying to solve a gravity problem diverts time, mental capacity, and motivation away from solvable issues, leading to team frustration. In the previous example, company culture and leadership support are gravity problems that are distracting from the solvable issue: the product launch.
Assumption overload
This happens when team members make excessive or unverified assumptions about a specific issue, person, or even themselves. While some assumptions are necessary, relying on them too heavily and without validation can lead to decisions based on inaccurate or incomplete information.
This behavior also extends to team members making assumptions about each other, fostering an environment of mistrust and suspicion, which hampers collaboration and productivity. For example, Mark and Mary are working on a presentation for leadership. Mary suggests an approach, but Mark assumes she’s trying to take control and claim the credit. Consequently, he withholds information from her. Had Mark addressed his assumption, their collaboration would have been more efficient and successful.
It’s also common for team members to unconsciously assume that others have the same background knowledge or understanding as they do. Even worse, they believe they can solve their peers’ problems without adequate context. Both scenarios lead to frustration and mistrust.
Annoying negative thoughts
Common “cognitive distortions,” or the unproductive thinking patterns I refer to as “annoying negative thoughts” (ANTs), can affect meeting outcomes as well. Here’s how they might show up:
- All-or-nothing thinking: A graphic designer dismisses an entire product line as a failure because they believe the packaging design isn’t perfect. Their pessimism makes it difficult for the team to come up with constructive solutions and dampens the overall mood of the meeting.
- Overgeneralization: A team member sees a single negative customer review and concludes that everyone dislikes the product. Their overgeneralization derails the conversation, causing the team to focus on defending the product rather than identifying areas for improvement.
- Catastrophizing: A team member learns about a minor budget cut. They claim it will result in layoffs and massive project delays. Their alarmism distracts the team from discussing practical solutions for managing the reduced budget.
- Emotional reasoning: A team member interprets her colleague’s lack of enthusiasm about her idea as a sign that her contributions are terrible. The team then wastes time reassuring her instead of discussing the merits of the idea.
Squirrel chasing
Some team members have difficulty staying focused on the purpose of the meeting and introduce unrelated tangents (i.e., squirrels). For example, in a team meeting focused on finalizing a sales pitch for a potential client, one team member keeps discussing the details of a separate project he’s managing. Although relevant to the team’s ongoing work, it’s unrelated to the team meeting’s focus. His interjections distract the team, preventing them from finalizing the sales pitch effectively and efficiently. When the team chases squirrels, it wastes time and frustrates other team members.
Prevent Meeting Derailers
Good team meetings start before they actually take place. Thus, how you prepare and plan a meeting can significantly impact its efficiency and outcomes.
Focus and clarity are two different yet interconnected concepts that will help prevent GAAS behaviors. Without them, team members are usually confused and show up in a way that negatively affects the meeting — or they don’t show up at all. For example:
- Team members who are important to the meeting goal think their attendance is merely a formality and therefore don’t feel they need to prepare, participate, or even attend.
- Team members think their presence implies they have decision-making authority, relevance, and expertise on the discussion topics, even if that might not be the case.
- Team members see these as networking opportunities to connect with colleagues they might not see often rather than focusing on the goal.
- Team members assume no pre-meeting preparation is needed, which wastes time.
Here’s how to keep your team’s meetings on track:
Enhance your meeting focus.
Ensure team members stay on topic and address only the relevant issues without getting sidetracked. To achieve this, organizers must:
- Determine the primary objective. Is the goal to make a decision, brainstorm, get people aligned, or something else? Keeping your eye on the overarching goal will help you develop a focused and clear agenda. For instance, in a decision-making meeting, the objective is to make a choice among different options. Thus, organizers must clearly understand the options, supporting data, decision-makers, and decision-making processes.
- Reframe goals as inquiry-driven statements. For example, instead of listing “goal-setting” as a topic, frame the agenda item as, “What are our deliverables for project X?” By doing this, team members can start thinking about potential solutions even before they attend the meeting.
- Invite only team members who have a direct role in achieving the meeting’s objective. For example, in a brainstorming meeting, you want to invite individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives to stimulate diverse and innovative ideas. Conversely, in a decision-making meeting, attendees must clearly understand the options, relevant data, and have the appropriate decision-making authority. While inviting everyone connected to the topic is tempting, be aware that GAAS behaviors thrive in crowded, unfocused environments.
Communicate with clarity.
Clear communication reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings and distractions, particularly from GAAS behaviors. To communicate the meeting’s focus effectively, ensure invited team members clearly understand three key elements:
- Importance: Explain why the meeting is needed and the potential impact of its outcomes. If this is clear, attendees will see the urgency and significance of the meeting and why their attendance is essential. For example, you could say, “This meeting will determine the marketing strategy for our upcoming product launch, which will impact our sales and brand recognition.”
- Relevance: Clearly communicate how the meeting’s focus is directly related to invited team members’ work or goals. For example, you could say, “As head of the design department, I need your input on the packaging design to determine our marketing strategy.” This helps them see the direct connection between their responsibilities and the purpose of the meeting.
- Involvement: Communicate the expectations for each participant, including any pre-work you need them to complete, to help ensure they come prepared.
Do not take shortcuts in drafting the invitation. Use straightforward, easy-to-understand language, and avoid jargon or overly technical terms that might create confusion. This helps attendees understand the message, especially when they have different levels of expertise.
Handle Meeting Derailers
Introduce your team to the concept of GAAS behaviors by painting a mental picture of our natural response to the smell of gas: a) Identifying the source, b) shutting off the gas supply, and/or c) evacuating the building right away. Provide them with a simple sheet that lists each behavior and its description.
Encourage everyone to refer to these behaviors by name, such as “the gravity problem” or “the squirrel.” This helps the team recognize and address these behaviors quickly while keeping the atmosphere light and positive. Then, address GAAS behaviors in a non-threatening way when they show up. For example, if a team member goes off-topic or exhibits a GAAS behavior, call it out by name, saying something like, “That’s a squirrel, right?” This approach is less threatening than saying “you’re off topic” and can be a gentle reminder to stay focused.
A smile is the shortest distance between two people, so humor can help establish a connection and positive relationship between team members during meetings. Introducing some levity can create a comfortable environment where people feel more at ease to take risks and challenge each other. It can also build camaraderie and trust, lighten the mood, and make meetings more enjoyable.
In a meeting I recently attended, for example, a team member who was known for throwing out “squirrels” said, “Is it OK if I throw in a squirrel here?” The rest of the team laughed and gave permission; somebody else added, “It better be one squirrel worth chasing.” The team member threw the squirrel in, but instead of going after it, everyone remained focused and stayed on topic. This approach effectively kept the meeting on track while maintaining a lighthearted atmosphere. It was a fascinating experience to watch this approach in action.
. . .
Understanding, preventing, and addressing GAAS behaviors will enhance your team’s productivity and turn your meetings from time-consuming, unproductive, and painful exercises into powerful instruments for success. Don’t let them get in the way of achieving your goals.
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