Why don’t my colleagues engage in our important weekly meeting?

We have a major team meeting every week. I’m a manager in this team and I, along with my management peers, have noticed that we seem to be the only ones doing the talking. This wasn’t always the case. We think it’s partly to do with the fact that the meeting has finally returned to in-person after several years of being online.

How can we encourage other members of the team to contribute?

Getting everyone on the same page in a meeting is important, but first make sure you’re clear on your objectives.Credit: John Shakespeare

It sounds like this is an important meeting and I understand your frustration that just a few leaders are the only verbal contributors. But I have a couple of questions that might get to the heart of the problem here: what do you want non-managers to talk about in these meetings and why?

I’m not trying to be obtuse or pose a “gotcha” question. But, having attended – and often not spoken in – hundreds of meetings myself, and had many conversations with friends, colleagues and Work Therapy readers, I’m always surprised by how loose the conventions and expectations around meetings tend to be.

There’s so often an assumption that everyone has experience with work meetings, so everyone should know how to participate in them. And on a very basic level, that’s true.

We all know you don’t talk over the top of other people, you try to stick to the topic at hand, you stay within the time allotted. But not all meetings or workplaces are the same, and something as simple as the make-up of the team can have a huge influence on how meetings run.

Are you proposing something unpalatable? Or unwanted? And if so, why?

If, say, you have a team of six, three of whom have been at the organisation for years, and three who haven’t been there long at all, a loose meeting may naturally be dominated by the more experienced team members.

And the same goes for things such as extroversion and introversion, or familiarity with the subjects of the meeting or any number of other things, in including, as you mentioned, a shift in format.

What may seem like team members failing to contribute may be team members not knowing how, when or why they should be putting their two cents in.

You should feel comfortable discussing this with team members – both your management colleagues and non-managers. Not in an accusatory manner or by “leading the witness” – have you noticed the team meeting isn’t as good as it used to be? – but in the spirit of honest enquiry.

You may come across an important factor or obstacle preventing people from contributing as they used to. If you don’t, maybe it’s time to start again. Don’t throw the meeting away – it sounds too important to be dispensed with – but perhaps approach it minus the assumption that this is an organisational institution everyone knows about and understands.

Talk again about what makes it important, what you want attendees to get out of it and how you’d like them to contribute.

When addressing why you’d like to hear more people speaking up, you might be tempted to settle on some inoffensive sentiment like “the more the merrier” or “every voice counts”, but this may come across as superficial or motherhoody. Be specific without being prescriptive or focused on consequences of not contributing.

Be careful about leaning towards suspicion or cynicism as you work out how to address this problem. When it comes time to discuss the changes you’d like to see in the meeting, you should be careful with the wording.

When people understand why something needs to change and why that change will benefit them and their peers, they’re much more likely to get involved in the move to something new. Trust the intelligence of the non-managers.

If your reasons are good and fair, there’s a good chance they’ll understand your concerns and begin participating in the best way they can.

Send your question to Work Therapy by emailing [e-mail]

Get workplace news, advice and perspectives to help make your job work for you. Sign up for our weekly Thank God it’s Monday newsletter.