Most leaders organize meetings with their staff on a regular or semi-regular basis. Sometimes those meetings are productive, while other times they feel pointless, or even like a total waste of time. What makes a healthy staff meeting? How do you keep the meeting focused, purposeful, and engaging? While not every meeting needs to look the same, at 7 City Church we’ve incorporated five elements into our staff meetings that can be easily applied to any organization.
- Celebration – Start your staff meeting by celebrating wins. A win might be a changed life, a testimony shared by a member or a customer, a big event, growth, or positive movement in any metric you track. By celebrating wins, your team is reminded of the value and meaning of their work. (Recommended Time: 5-10 Minutes)
- Connection – Part of building a healthy team is cultivating healthy relationships. Taking a few minutes to add a fun or relationally focused activity or discussion to the meeting can increase a sense of connection and increase relational equity. (Recommended Time: 10 Minutes)
- Communication – There are usually a few housekeeping items that need to be communicated during a staff meeting. I always do a quick run through (2 minutes or less) of our calendar for the next 30-60 days. This helps eliminate surprises and keeps the team in the know. I’ll also share any important updates relevant to the entire team. (Recommended Time: 10 Minutes)
- Collaboration – This portion of the staff meeting is where we dig into any items that require more concentrated discussion. We might collaborate on an upcoming event, discuss a staff-wide goal, or brainstorm a new initiative. If it’s something that requires significant time, we’ll schedule a separate meeting. (Recommended Time: 20-40 Minutes)
- Coaching –The final part of the staff meeting is focused on coaching. This is a staff development opportunity. I might do a leadership teaching, or we might discuss a couple of chapters from a book or watch a leadership video. (Recommended Time: 20-40 Minutes)
While there are five parts to a staff meeting, you might not include all five in every staff meeting. For example, we tend to do the “connection” portion once per month. Also, the coaching part is weekly if we’re reading a book or watching a series of videos; otherwise, it’s once per month where I do a leadership teaching.
In addition, being a church, we always spend 15-30 minutes in prayer at the beginning of every staff meeting. We pray for church-wide needs, personal requests, visitors who attended the previous four Sundays, as well as a handful of other needs that we rotate throughout the month.
Our meetings are scheduled from 10:30 am – Noon each Tuesday. On the first Tuesday of the month, we meet from 10:00 am – Noon (this is when we allocate more time for connection and coaching). In addition, every week our staff goes to lunch together after our staff meeting. This enhances the connection time, and sometimes we’ll extend a discussion into lunch if it’s helpful.
