Dive directly into the heart of your team's dynamics with a skip-level meeting. This strategic tool empowers you to grasp ground-level insights and fine-tune your leadership approach. Explore our skip-level meeting template to lead transformative conversations that can truly empower your team.
What is a skip-level meeting?
A skip-level meeting is a dialogue between senior managers and team members who aren't their direct reports. This meeting format encourages transparent communication, helping higher-ups to gauge the day-to-day happenings within teams and allowing team members to grasp departmental or company strategy. It's an essential tool in any organization's arsenal for bridging communication gaps.
When to use a skip-level meeting?
Skip-level meetings are a fantastic way to foster a culture of open dialogue where team members feel their voices are heard directly by decision-makers. As a senior manager, it can be insightful to get the perspective of team members you normally don’t have regular contact with. Here are some other times a skip-level meeting is useful:
1. When senior management seeks firsthand insights from the ground level without the filter of middle management.
2. When identifying and addressing challenges or roadblocks that might not be evident in regular meetings.
3. To align the team with broader company goals and strategies.
How to use a skip-level meeting template
- It can sometimes feel intimidating talking to a senior manager, so try to get the meeting agenda sent to participants in advance of the meeting so they can clearly understand what is expected.
- Work through each of the questions provided in the template to steer the conversation, ensuring all relevant points are covered.
- Encourage feedback and maintain a note of action items that arise during the conversation.
- Keep the document as a record of the conversation and perhaps revisit some of the talking/action points the next time you run a Skip-level meeting with this team member.
