Managing Voices in the Room






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When we seek input from our teams, it's important to honor and manage all voices in the room. In this video, Dr. Pat Greco explains how to build a healthy team culture with ground rules and strategies for getting the perspective from each person at the table. She uses a survey data rollout example to share how she facilitates rich two-way communication with all participants.
Reflection Activity
View Video Transcript
Reflection Activity
Reflect as you watch:
- Do you have ground rules for team meetings or feedback interactions?
- Ideas for hearing all voices:
View Video Transcript
00:01
hi I’m Pat Greco I’m a senior director
00:03
for the Studer education team and I have
00:07
a long history in public education
00:10
I’ve been an associate dean at a State
00:13
University as well as the superintendent
00:15
of schools over the course of my 37 year
00:18
career in education I’m spending a
00:22
little bit of time today talking about
00:24
sustaining a healthy work culture and
00:26
then as you’re seeking feedback how do
00:29
you manage the voices within the room so
00:32
that you’re seeking input from your
00:34
quietest members of your team and the
00:36
ones that would be naturally more vocal
00:39
and balancing out that team level of
00:42
contributions so that everybody’s voice
00:44
is honored we spend a lot of time at
00:47
work and when we’re thinking about
00:49
building a healthy culture among a team
00:52
we want to think first about how do we
00:54
improve the outcomes that sense of
00:57
belonging team member to team member and
00:59
to remove barriers within conversations
01:02
and making sure everybody’s voice is
01:04
heard when you’re in a team and you’re
01:06
focusing on getting that feedback back
01:09
and you’re doing a survey rollout you’re
01:12
trying to make sure that you’ve got
01:13
voices from everyone around the room and
01:16
that their true feelings
01:18
you want to start with what are going to
01:20
be your ground rules how do you make
01:22
sure that a dominant voice is not
01:25
overshadowing the quiet quieter members
01:28
of your team we have the ability to seek
01:33
out information in a variety of
01:35
different ways but we also want to start
01:37
first with why are you doing the process
01:39
to begin with why survey why do the
01:43
survey roll out we know that we commit
01:47
to listening and strong communication
01:49
and this process really demonstrates
01:52
deep listening among a team that you
01:55
care about and the ability to seek their
01:58
input directly so that two-way
02:00
communication has to be facilitated we
02:04
think about starting with the purpose of
02:06
the survey the roll out making sure that
02:09
you’re starting with those ground rules
02:11
a very simple ground rule at the start
02:14
of the meeting
02:15
is everyone’s time is valuable and we
02:18
want to hear everyone’s voices in the
02:20
next few minutes so in the amount of
02:23
time that we have if you’ve heard a
02:25
topic you can say I feel the same way
02:27
but keep the conversation moving you can
02:31
start the conversation with a
02:32
think-pair-share what that means is with
02:35
the person sitting as your elbow partner
02:37
start thinking about what are some of
02:39
the positives related to those top three
02:42
strengths that we have as a team and
02:44
then what are some of the things that if
02:46
it were a five how would that look
02:48
differently then pull the conversation
02:51
back to the full group so that they have
02:54
the ability to hear all of the voices
02:57
across the room if there’s an individual
03:00
that’s dominating take their feedback
03:02
honor it because there’s part they’re
03:05
part of that work team and then put it
03:07
on the parking-lot board of poster board
03:11
saying I hear you I’m going to come back
03:13
to it but we also want to make sure that
03:15
we have the ability to listen to that
03:17
full group and get all of that input
03:20
remember the biggest part of that deep
03:23
listening process is to make sure that
03:26
you’re honoring everyone strong
03:30
personalities the individuals that are
03:33
listening but not ready to weigh in and
03:36
the individuals that are a quieter
03:37
temperament but have a lot to contribute
03:40
to that team and you want to be able to
03:42
demonstrate that you’re really willing
03:45
to listen and to create those actions
03:56
you