Meeting Activity: Getting Unstuck in Your Leadership
We published a popular post, How to Get Unstuck in Your Leadership awhile ago. It’s a great read—if I do say so myself. 😂 While you may have passed that article along to your team and colleagues, this post is about how to USE it as part of a team meeting, leadership retreat or board meeting.
Framing: This assumes as starting point that you, your clients, constituents, stakeholders, team or board are feeling jaded, tired, overwhelmed and worn out. And that you are ready to break out of that stuckness.
Start by acknowledging these feelings with the group. Invite them to talk about the things/ situations that are bringing them down. Acknowledge that we are experiencing stuckness. *Important note: Being stuck is temporary. It’s normal. It happens in the life cycle of every team and leader. So, make sure you’re discussing this as a current state, not a forever state.
Share this video that the team may be able to relate to. (It’s not the best quality, but it’s the best video for this situation. You’ll see.)
Ask the team for their thoughts. What did they notice? What stood out to them? How do they relate to this?
Offer that: We are going to figure out how we can avoid the same stuckness.
Divide the group into triads or small groups.
Give each group one of the quotes below.
Ask them to discuss the wisdom of the quote and how they can use this wisdom to help us get unstuck. Give them 10 minutes to come up with a recommendation that they will share with everyone else.
Once time is up, ask each group to share their quote and the recommendation(s) they have—based on the quote—to help the team get unstuck.
After each group has presented, invite everyone to choose one small step they would like to take to get unstuck.
If it’s helpful, use this Microstep Action Planning template.
Wrap Up: Invite those who are willing to share the one step they plan to take to help the team/organization/themselves get unstuck.
I can’t wait to hear what your team generates from this discussion!
Here are 8 Quotes about Getting Unstuck
Copy and distribute one to each group or print these out, cut them apart and distribute. It’s OK if you don’t use them all. And there are no right/wrong answers. You want the small group to discuss and generate their own take on how to use this wisdom to get unstuck. Feel free to substitute or add other quotes you like related to stuckness.
