Nowadays, many companies chose to set aside a consistent day or time each week for their entire team to gather and have a group meeting. Martin Sunday Lighting Design is no stranger to team meetings, and we have a standing one each week scheduled on Monday morning at 10:00am.
What sets our team apart is how we begin each team meeting. Instead of jumping right into the nitty-grittiness of the business, we start by centering ourselves, checking in with each other and learning something new that will benefit each team member’s personal growth. We call these three valuable activities: Meditation, Weekly Individual Check-In and Personal Development Teaching Piece.
Let’s take a moment to dive a little deeper into what each of these activities looks like for us.
Meditation
Once the entire team is seated around our meeting table, the meeting starts with a group meditation session led by either Martin Sunday (Founder and Principal Designer) or Stathis Kafoglis (Chief Operating Officer). Martin and Stathis rotate each week on who leads the meditation as our company finds it important for a leader on the team to start the week with centering everyone.
The style of meditation for each meeting is up to the individual leading it that day. Sometimes we meditate on specific words or phrases, other times we are guided through a meditation. Regardless of the style, starting our week feeling grounded and centered through group meditation is important to both the wellbeing and production of our team.
Weekly Individual Check-In
After the room has settled, everyone has completed their meditation and opened their eyes, we begin going around the table and “checking in” with each other. By “checking in“, we mean that we discuss how we’re feeling in that moment, any good/bad things that may have happened over the weekend, what we’re looking forward to during the upcoming week and how we’re feeling going into the new week. And to clarify, we don’t just focus on work-related topics during our time checking in with each other. Our company values each team member as an individual and because of this, we want to support each other both in and outside of the office.
Personal Development Teaching Piece
One of our Company Values is Personal Growth and the Personal Development Teaching Piece that is delivered each week is how we continue to empower personal growth within our team on a regular basis.
We move into this activity once each team member has had their turn checking in. This activity is shared by all, meaning that we rotate who will lead the teaching piece each week.
The person responsible for leading this activity is also responsible for choosing the topic of discussion – the only rule being that whatever is discussed must teach the group something that can be useful in either our personal or professional lives and promotes growth.
Our teaching pieces come from an array of different sources such as insightful articles found online, self-help books, inspirational YouTube videos and personal development podcast episodes. An example of this is the Brene Brown article that we discussed last week titled “The Practice of Story Stewardship“.
How We Intend to Inspire You
Now that you understand how our company continuously works towards empowering and inspiring growth within our team, we’d like to extend this empowerment and inspiration to you! Beginning on Monday, April 18th, we will be posting both our teaching piece and the discussion that our team has around it each week after we conclude our Monday Team Meeting. We hope that our Personal Development Discussions will bring about new ideas and awareness that sparks growth in both your personal and professional life.
Want to ensure you never miss an update? Sign up to receive Personal Development Discussion articles for free directly in your inbox each week!
Ready to dive into our weekly Team Teachings? Below are our first three that we’ve decided to share with you. We hope that you will benefit from these teachings as much as we have!
8 thoughts on “What Sets Our Team Apart”