Team meetings: Despite the pushback, keep having them
In a global world, you’ll typically work with professionals that are time zones apart. You’ll sip your morning coffee and start your day as mates across the Atlantic raise pints in celebration of the day’s accomplishments. Your dev team might be in Brazil, the QA team might be in Bulgaria, while you live in the US.
Throughout my career, I’ve heard and seen a common thread emerge as the world gets smaller and the hands of the clock never cease: we are all super busy, yet there needs to be time to stop and connect with the team.
Despite our overloaded schedules, people yearn to ask their fellow co-worker:
- Could I offer some help?
- Are there common synergies where we can help one another?
- Maybe there’s a campaign or product plan that we could work on together?
The idea of teamwork will forever be vital to an organization, but companies should NOT routinely push aside team meetings. A face-to-face team meeting or team call doesn’t need to tax everyone’s schedule enough to become a dreaded invite, but it should happen enough to help us stay connected in a maddeningly quick, disconnected world. We all have more than enough work to keep us busy from today through many weekends.
Set a meeting, follow an agenda, add value to everyone invited, and ask for feedback on how the meetings could get even better. That’s mandatory, no matter the time zone.
Until next time,
Dan Naden
