Gregarious Gabrielle loves the weekly brainstorming meeting. She enjoys getting together with big groups of people for a high-energy discussion, where ideas are ping-ponged around, passionate views are exchanged, and decisions are made on the fly. The energy she gets from these meetings keeps her going for days.
Gabrielle talks fast and is always ready to offer her opinion on new ideas. She misses traditional in-person meetings and is trying to bring that same excitement to Zoom meetings, which is not always successful, but she keeps trying anyway.
Her colleague, Thoughtful Tim, enjoys their team meetings too. He finds them useful because he feels it gives the team an opportunity to reflect on important ideas together. He especially likes the smaller meetings of three to four people where he is not rushed to speak, the vibe is personal and calm, and integral decisions are made deliberately.
Tim is a deep thinker and wishes that Zoom meetings could have an “I’m thinking” button so people would stop checking if his connection has dropped when he’s simply weighing his words before speaking.
These might sound like two extreme examples, but every team has people who may remind you of Gabrielle, Tim, and everyone in between. Ensuring that your meeting culture matches the needs and personalities of each person on your team is really hard. But the value obtained from an inclusive culture, where everyone is valued for who they are and what they bring to the table, helps drive amazing results.
Speaking as someone who oscillates between being a Gabrielle or a Tim depending on the day, I’m here to tell you that, yes, it’s hard to structure meetings that work for varying personality types. But as managers, we can and should put in the effort required to make meetings inclusive, respectful, and beneficial for everyone.
If you’re a manager who wants your team members to succeed at their highest level, here are the specific steps you can take before, during, and after your meetings in order to make the environment psychologically safe and respectfully structured.
By covering these small tasks before, during, and after a team meeting, you send a strong signal to each member that you value the team’s diverse perspectives.
Team diversity drives engagement and creativity, leads to more out-of-the-box thinking, and prevents groupthink, which is better for business. The richer your team is in terms of personalities, aptitudes, and communication styles, the better for business. The stronger your team culture is—where everyone feels valued, respected, and energized—the better for business.
Understandably, managing different personality types can pose challenges to bosses. When they are first implemented, some strategies may feel artificial, forced, or like needless additional work. Sometimes the talkative types will need help in passing the mic and giving the quieter ones opportunities to reflect. Other times introverts will need to be encouraged to make an effort to contribute and engage in discussions even if they haven’t fully formulated their thoughts yet.
But if you put in the work of implementing a mix of techniques to provide psychological safety and help each member of your team thrive, you benefit over the long term.
Remember, this is ongoing work. Personalities aren’t binaries, and how people behave moves on a spectrum. Humans change, situations evolve, and, as the pandemic has so clearly demonstrated, the ways we work together can and will continue to radically shift.
A good team leader is one who recognizes that fluidity and tries to improve working conditions as circumstances and people change because they know that when each person wins, the team wins.