This week marks a full year since the first time I held a meeting of my team via zoom. We’d been due to have one of our full-day team meetings on 17th March 2020, but with the looming threat of COVID-19, I decided on the day before to switch to a virtual meeting. (As it turned out, it’s very fortunate that I did, because that evening I developed COVID symptoms and was probably infectious on the day I’d planned to spend with my team!)
After the full day session (and after I’d had a few weeks off sick) we started having a weekly hour on zoom. Initially, we just chatted about what was going on in the world, how we felt about it and whether or not we could deliver our workshops and coaching on-line.
Then we progressed to using our meetings to experiment with the technology and to discover what we could (and couldn’t) do virtually. I confess I was a reluctant convert. I would so much rather wait until I could get face-to-face with people again, but as the weeks ticked by waiting ceased to be an option.
Now, twelve months later, our bi-weekly meetings have evolved into really productive sessions. Different members of the team have conducted CPD sessions for their colleagues and we’ve successfully integrated two new people into the team.
I thought it was timely to take stock of what we’ve learned and how we’ve benefited from this change of approach. So I asked the team…
What have you enjoyed the most? What have been the benefits for you?
And they told me…
Keeping in contact; the connection and learning; keeping in touch with things professionally during times when there was no work; getting to know each other more deeply; the structure it gave to the week in the early days of lockdown; keeping my brain alive; revisiting some of the models we use and delving in more deeply.
For me, one of the greatest pleasures has been watching each of these talented individuals sharing their knowledge and skills. And as client after client deferred, delayed or cancelled the work we had in the calendar for 2020 it became ever more important to me to make sure we supported each other and that when the lockdown was over I still had a Brilliant team.
I also asked…
How can we build on what we’ve done together in the past 12 months?
And they said…
Do more client work together!! (The number of large projects for corporate clients is still well below the usual levels and most of the work we’ve all done in the last 12 months has been coaching work)
Maintain the virtual meetings even when we can meet in person again – we can have remote meetings more frequently.
There was also some great discussion around the way that relationships have gone to a deeper level through people showing vulnerability and not always needing to put on the professional face for each other.
There’s more, but we have to retain a few secrets.
It was a valuable meeting and enjoyable to review what has been a very challenging twelve moths on a number of levels. To discover that we have learned and grown as a team is gratifying, to say the least!
Oh and – we’re available for work.
