Reflective entry by Yuchen

As coach, this week’s coaching session was conducted with three steps. First, we discussed the two scenes that she posted in the blog, more in details. Second, we evaluated the pros and cons of these meetings. Finally, we summarized the coaching with two questions: “what are the conditions of a successful meeting?” and “what are the competencies a manager should have to organize an effective meeting?” My expectation with these steps was that to help my coachee to crystallize the supportive factors of an effective meeting and the reason why participants were not engaged, and then I would conclude with the two questions to see if the coaching session has exceeded my expectations.

After the small talks to warm up a bit, we continued with my questions on the first meeting my coachee introduced in her blog. As she was saying, there were actually two types of meeting in her company, one was conducted on a weekly basis concerning employees’ performance, their KPI etc, and the other one was a 30-minute daily informative meeting concerning the sales data of each person. The organizer of the latter one was the manager on his shift at that day. According to my coachee, neither of them was constructive and effective until the intervention of top management due to the planning and preparation of the management team. As for the second meeting experience, my coachee expressed her learning on the situation where she was surrounded by senior employees who were mean to her at first.

In the next step, I planned to evaluate the pros and cons with two aspects, the aspect of manager and the aspect of meeting process. As we discussed, we found that the managerial skills, especially the communication skills of a manager are important since he will need to convince participants with authority as well as respect. The way he communicates in the meeting may influence the result whether it’s a decision-making or brainstorming meeting. On the other hand, we found that sometimes the participants are not fully engage with the meeting due to the clarity of the meeting purpose, the process and the planning. As my coachee’s first meeting experience shows, one way to improve the participants’ moral and commitment in an informative meeting is to recognize their work before discussing the statistics. My coachee connected this with motivation theory as the recognition of their works improved their job satisfaction and therefore motivated them. In this regards, they were more committed to the meeting.

Finally we concluded our coaching session with the two questions mentioned above, and I think my expectations were mainly exceeded. Personally I think this coaching session was really helpful as it actually gave me clear methods to organize my coaching process and I'm grateful for having Awa and David sharing their priceless experience on organizational meetings.