Making meetings work: For Managers and Team leads


As a leader or manager, meetings are the medium of the work. This is where much of the work of bringing teams together, aligning on common goals, agreeing how you work together, building trust, being creative, generating and improving ideas, having productive conflict, making and committing to decisions, learning to improve as a team should be happening.

And yet, all too often the opposite is true. In too many teams meetings are boring, uncreative experiences where disagreements are avoided, a few people dominate the conversations and time, energy and enthusiasm are wasted. As a result, this can often lead to a lack of direction and a multitude of confusions and misunderstandings. This costs your company, both in the short term through wasted effort, and in the longer term as it saps the motivation of your talented people.

This programme is for leaders or managers who want to improve the quality and effectiveness of the meetings that they lead. In this programme you will learn how to navigate and lead meetings with confidence and make them an invaluable tool for helping your teams, feel more aligned, trusted and creative and enable them to do their best work.

Over the course of 4 practical and interactive sessions you will learn a range of structures and formats that you can use in group sessions and meetings to help guide the teams that you work with. We will also practice techniques to use when things go wrong and ways that you and your team can continue to reflect and learn to improve how you work together. You’ll also get to connect with a peer group that shares similar experiences and who can support you to work through specific challenges.

All the structures and formats that we share are suitable for use in both online and in-person contexts.


Upcoming programme dates

The next programme will take place online on the following dates:

Weds Oct 1, 12-2pm (UK time) Session 1: Building shared understanding and commitment
Weds Oct 8, 12-2pm (UK time) Session 2: Exploring ideas and challenges together
Weds Oct 15, 12-2pm (UK time) Session 3: Prioritisation, Decision-making and navigating conflict
Weds Oct 22, 12-2pm (UK time) Session 4: Being reflective

View more detailed session overview.

Costs

Standard price: £400 (Plus VAT)
Reduced price for small organisations (less than 10 people): £300 (Plus VAT)

Meet the trainers

RAY COOPER

Ray is a queer autistic facilitator who has worked within diversity, equity and inclusion for over a decade. With a varied background they’ve experienced a range of team dynamics. Prior to freelancing they were Director of People at a fast-growing organisation, and held many other team lead positions within publishing, charity and tech. They also ran their own social enterprise delivering community engagement projects and supporting young people to thrive within their work.

JOEL CHIPPINDALE

Joel is a CTO Coach who supports talented leaders to accelerate their development both 1-1 and in groups. He is also an experienced facilitator and has built a career out of helping people think more clearly and have better conversations together in the 20 years that he has spent leading teams.

Programme overview:

Session 1: Building shared understanding and commitment

Weds 1 Oct, 12-2pm (UK time)

This session will both build understanding and commitment between participants in the programme, and demonstrate how to do that with your teams in different contexts. 

We’ll explore the things we find hard and why we want to make things better. We’ll introduce the group to some approaches for laying the foundations for healthy collaboration and communication within group settings. 

You’ll learn and experience three facilitation techniques during the session:

  • Shared containers

  • Deep listening

  • 9 Whys

#2: exploring ideas and challenges together

Weds 8 Oct, 12-2pm (UK time)

This session will introduce you to new ways of structuring conversations that challenge people to think and engage differently.

Through the practices we’ll explore the unique challenges you face in your organisation and explore the tensions that are present in how we facilitate collaboration.

You’ll learn and experience three facilitation techniques during the session:

  • Troika Consulting

  • Wicked Questions

  • 1-2-4-all

#3: Prioritisation, decision-making and navigating conflict

Weds 15 Oct, 12-2pm (UK time)

This session will allow us to explore how to agree ways forward as a group, how to unearth differences and disagreements, and reactive approaches for dealing with unexpected conflict within groups.

We’ll also look at what you can do when you or the group are uncertain, and how to find shared commitment and ways forward even when things feel unsettled.

You’ll learn and experience three facilitation techniques during the session:

  • Drawing conflict

  • Using scales for prioritisation

  • Grounding

#4: Being reflective

Weds 22 Oct, 12-2pm (UK time)

This session will both make space for us all to integrate what we’ve learnt during this programme and commit to some continued practices beyond the space, and demonstrate how to invite your teams to do this type of reflection collectively too. Together we’ll celebrate our time together, collate the new knowledge we’ve gained and commit to some onward actions. 

You’ll learn and experience three facilitation techniques during the session:

  • Journey mapping

  • What, so what, now what?

  • Meditation & embodied commitments