In our series on employee self-advocacy, we've covered why self-advocacy matters and how a culture of open dissent can invite folks to advocate for themselves.

A super quick recap so we're all on the same page:

✅ Self-advocacy is critical for an engaged, motivated team — but it's often hard to encourage people to speak up.

✅ Inviting feedback and being transparent about what you do with that input can help promote self-advocacy. We refer to this as "open dissent."

Today, we'll highlight the second way to promote employee self-advocacy: query and people-focused meeting agendas.

How to P.L.A.N. for your meeting

Meetings — whether 1:1 check-ins or larger group talks — are an opportunity to build trust, alignment, and community. For that to be true, however, you should come to each meeting prepared.

We recommend you develop a P.L.A.N. for your meetings:

Prepare a streamlined agenda

Set yourself up for success before your meeting kicks off.

Remember those principles of open dissent? Ask for input from team members when you're creating your agenda. If you choose not to use someone's suggestions, tell them why!

Try listing your agenda topics as questions to be answered instead of points to be made. This opens up the conversation and encourages folks to weigh in.

For example, instead of the agenda item, "Team member retreat," try, "When should we host a team retreat?" or, "What would make you excited to attend a group retreat?" Posing the item this way can urge people to offer their opinion when they might not have otherwise.

Always be sure to send your agenda out before the meeting. Include time estimates of how long each item will take, the purpose of each topic (are you sharing info, looking for input, or making a decision?), and let people know how to prepare for that discussion item. This way, there are no surprises when the meeting begins.

Lean out, lean in

Your goal is to create a shared space during each meeting. When you lean out, you stop thinking of yourself as the meeting "leader" and start considering yourself the meeting "facilitator."

Leaning in refers to seeing the meeting attendees as your co-facilitators. You are all there on a level playing field, hoping to invest in the organization and hold each other accountable. This disrupts current power dynamics and shifts your perspective.

Practical ways to lean in and out include:

Kick off the meeting by asking for any adjustments to the meeting agenda.
Set norms or agreements for the meeting (for example, ask everyone to be present during the time you're together).
Assign roles. Having different team members lead specific topics, take notes, and track time gets everyone engaged and democratizes the process.

Actively engage participants

As the meeting gets underway, make sure that there's room for all the voices in the room.

Try to create low-stakes ways for people to engage. Maybe that's casual check-in questions to start the meeting, or perhaps you send folks to breakout groups to talk over a question in a more intimate setting.

Other ways to engage people virtually:

Let people choose whether they unmute or drop comments in the chat
Use polls to quickly share sentiment and allow people to be anonymous
Try the sticky note functionality (like the one in Miro) to let people build off each other's responses, while still protecting their privacy

A note on anonymity: One Forbes survey revealed that almost 75% of people are more inclined to give feedback when it's anonymous. Use that info to create a protective space that lets people speak up without compromising their comfort.

Next steps should be evident

Finally, be clear on the next steps you've decided during the meeting. Everyone should understand who is responsible for a task, what they're responsible for doing, and when the deadline is.

Keep momentum going between meetings, too! Always send the next steps out to the group after the meeting, and bring them up at the next touchpoint so everyone can hear any relevant updates.

Here's what the entire P.L.A.N. process looks like at a glance:

While developing meetings in this way takes more time at every step of the process, it's a necessary endeavor if we're truly committed to shifting power dynamics and benefitting from the full, diverse range of our teams' perspectives.

Coupled with open dissent, intentional agendas foster self-advocacy

The P.L.A.N. method is a thorough way to approach your meetings and ensure that people feel safe and included as you work through each meeting agenda topic. Together with open dissent, you're not only accepting input from your team — you're encouraging it.

If you want to go deeper with these concepts or would like some help implementing open dissent and query and people-focused meeting agendas, we can help. Reach out to us below!

LET'S TALK!