The Power of Team Huddles How brief team gatherings can align, motivate, and connect

Flipped Teaching

The Oracy Lab

Team alignment and communication can be challenging. Miscommunication and lack of cohesion often result in inefficiencies and missed opportunities. As a key tool of Conversational Leadership, Huddles offer a quick, effective way for teams to connect, share updates, and maintain focus on common goals, ensuring better communication and team cohesion.

What is a Huddle?

Huddles are casual, short meetings for team members to enhance communication and collaboration and ensure everyone is on the same page. These short, focused gatherings aim to build team spirit and unity.

A huddle is typically a 10-15 minute, often spontaneous, meeting where team members exchange ideas, solve problems, offer encouragement, celebrate wins, or review priorities.

Unlike formal meetings, huddles have a casual, conversational flow without a rigid agenda or structure. Their intimate setting and participatory nature promote active listening, equal involvement, and organic dialogue.

Benefits of Huddles

Well-run huddles provide many advantages:

• Align groups by providing a regular connection point.
• Motivate teams and boost morale.
• Strengthen relationships and team cohesion.
• Allow quick sharing of updates, concerns, and feedback.
• Promote inclusive discussion and collaboration.
• Help teams problem-solve, strategize, and reset.
• Create moments to recognize milestones and wins.
• Keep priorities visible and all members focused.

When to Huddle

Here are some good times to hold huddles:

• Start of the day – Gather the team for a quick stand-up huddle to review priorities and set the tone.
• Before a project – Huddle before kicking off a new initiative to get everyone oriented and excited.
• Milestones – When reaching a key milestone, huddle to recognize the achievement and recalibrate.
• Problem-solving – Huddle to put heads together when an issue arises or a decision needs to be made.
• Stumbling blocks – If the team struggles with something, huddle to reset.
• Encouragement – When energy is low, huddle to motivate and uplift team spirit.
• Celebrations – Huddle to congratulate after accomplishments.
• Change management – If processes change, huddle to align on new procedures.
• Onboarding – Huddle with new hires to introduce the team and share an overview.
• Virtual teams – Occasional virtual huddles help remote teams stay connected.

The key is to use huddles purposefully during critical moments, transitions, milestones, or when the team needs a spark. Daily or multiple times per day huddles are common for close-knit teams.

How to Run Effective Huddles

Here are some tips on how to run effective huddles:

Set a clear purpose
Define the huddle’s specific purpose. Is it for status updates, problem-solving, project planning, or decision-making? Ensure that everyone understands the meeting’s main objective.

Keep it short and focused
Huddles should be brief and to the point. Aim for 10-15 minutes or less. This will encourage participants to stay engaged and prevent the meeting from becoming a time-wasting marathon.

Schedule at a convenient time
Choose a consistent time for your huddles that works for all team members. Make sure it doesn’t disrupt their workflow and occurs at a time when everyone can attend.

Have a designated leader.
Designate a leader or facilitator for the huddle. This person is responsible for keeping the meeting on track, ensuring everyone has a chance to speak, and summarizing key points.

Huddles are brief, informal gatherings that bring team members together to communicate, collaborate, and align. As a core practice of Conversational Leadership, when used consistently and effectively, huddles can motivate, unite, and connect teams, fostering stronger communication and collaboration.

Resources

• Forbes: How Simple Team Huddles Can Make A Business Better

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