bringing sanity to the office
It’s Monday Morning
Your team gathers for the weekly planning meeting. One by one, everyone takes a turn sharing what they’re working on for the week. People nod along, maybe jot down a note or two, and then the meeting wraps.
And that’s it…
Everyone walks away with a general sense of what’s happening, and there’s an unspoken expectation that the things people said will get done. No follow-up, no clarity, no accountability. Just the assumption that spoken words equal completed work.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: while holding the meeting is important, and every team should be doing it, but if that’s all you’re doing, you’re selling your team short. In fact, without knowing it, each participant is being a little rude and unsupportive to one another, to the team, and to the business. And the manager is the one allowing it to happen.
Why Meetings Alone Aren’t Enough
Don’t get me wrong, weekly planning sessions are valuable. They keep people connected and aligned with what’s happening. But they are only part of the solution to helping your team become high-performing.
Why? Because planning meetings without visible follow-up rely on memory, assumptions, and wishful thinking. Everyone leaves with their own interpretation of what was said and promised. And when expectations aren’t explicit, confusion and frustration creep in fast, eating away at the delicate team cohesion.
There are ways to avoid this and even improve how your team collaborates with one another, without adding to mental overload.
The Power of Making Work Visible
When your team starts to visualize their work to the group, they show where they are applying their attention.
And no, it’s not just about putting colorful sticky notes on a wall. Teams can use any device to show what’s being shared and who owns the work. The point is to capture who’s doing what in a way that’s easily seen by all involved.
This visualization approach helps teams:
The weekly discussion quickly evolves from each individual hurrying through their list of seemingly non-related items, to one of everyone seeing how the work fits with what they are doing and how their work may compliment or be impacted.
This matters because not all work fits neatly into a Monday-to-Friday box where it’s completed by one individual. Some efforts span multiple weeks or quarters, and possibly shared by multiple people on the team. By setting clear expectations about when things will be revisited or delivered, and who is responsible, you reduce surprises and increase trust.
Why Teams Resist (and How to Help Them Change)
As Tali Sharot and Cass Sunstein write in their book Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There –
“Change is hard because it makes us feel as if we are losing control.”
This can be especially true if your team has always run their weekly meetings on verbal check-ins or traditional sharing habits. Introducing a new process like this may feel like overkill and to some overwhelming.
But there’s a payoff for this new way of doing things: transparency and clarity
One of the keys to helping teams adopt new habits is to use a common approach applied in the Learning & Development field; always show them the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?). That is, how does what’s being asked improve my life, happiness and/or purpose?
It’s not always straightforward, but if you can achieve this for everyone on your team, you see positive outcomes quickly.
More Communication = Fewer dropped balls
More support when priorities shift = Less undue stress
Less isolated efforts = A shared sense of progress
Your Role as Manager
We like to pick on Managers. And this approach is no different. It’s a manager’s main role to remove obstacles and set your people up for success. Your job isn’t just to host meetings and make sure everyone is present. It’s to make sure everyone can see the team’s work, be accountable and own the outcomes, and set realistic timelines together.
Because when work is visible, expectations are explicit and accountability is shared, your team moves from “talking about work” to actually doing the work better, together.
So ask yourself after this Monday’s meeting:
Am I still being surprised work is not getting done, or do I feel more comfortable than ever my team is performing like I expect?
I’d love to hear what you think.