Our university is undergoing accreditation next year so committees are in the process of gathering documents and preparing reports. As part of this, I was asked to provide minutes and plans from my annual all-staff gatherings. I don't have any.
So much of our time and routine meetings are focused on output -- creating the strategies, executing the plans, orchestrating logistics, etc. that I like to spend my semi-annual time together focused on input. We had a common reading this year* (which became optional instead of mandated -- see blog #31!) and discussed what it meant for us and ways we could apply it. We focused on the possibilities instead of the details and spent time on the inputting of ideas to play out in our work throughout the semester. We have notes from our groups and from our flip charts, but nothing formal or fancy to share with the accreditors.
What I want to share with them is a comment from one of my support staff members, who said that her favorite part was when we reviewed what we discussed last year and gave multiple examples of how we had made changes because of it. Clearly, there are expectations that the input will be put into action and evidence of our work together will permeate the individual work we do throughout the year.
Despite the pressures to do so, try not to focus all of your time on output. I hope that you create structures in your work to allow time for input, such things as: reading an article every day at lunch, starting your morning with an on-line newsletter, reading a non-fiction book each month, attending one conference per year -- and keeping your all-staff time sacred for big picture thinking instead of the details, even if there are no formal reports to show for it.
-- beth triplett
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@leadershipdots
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* 2011 Poke the Box; 2012 We Are All Weird -- both by Seth Godin
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