Our Family Meeting: A Practice for Continuous Improvement

About a year ago, my husband and I started an experiment. Studies suggest that part of the key for successful and long-lasting marriages is having a growth mindset, meaning, seeking to grow, evolve, learn, and improve together. In this context, we shared this practice a few months ago with friends, and due to the positive feedback we got, I decided to share it here with you all. If it can benefit many people, why keep it to myself.

If you don’t have a partner, this post can also help you. What I’m about to share is a practice that could work for you as an examination of your conscience. It’s also a tool for cultivating happiness and gaining perspective. In fact, this is an agile practice—being agility trending topic in business today—therefore, it applies for teams, too.

In simple words (bear in mind I’m no expert in the subject), agility is a way of living, a mindset, a philosophy. In its more practical sense, there are frameworks, which follow certain parameters, values, and practices. And here comes our experiment. In the business world, it would be called retrospective—an analysis of what happened after a sprint or working time. You would discuss things as, what was done and achieved, what worked and what didn’t, etc.

Back to our experiment, we could classify our practice as a sort of weekly couple therapy; a space to talk, analyze and reflect, also, an opportunity for preventing problems from building up and damaging a relationship. I repeat, you don’t need to be a couple for practicing these meetings and benefiting from them. We call our experiment “Family Meeting.”

How does a Family Meeting look like in practice?

Every Sunday we gather to think through our week in terms of some aspects. We use  Padlet to write down our answers. However, you can use any tool you like, even paper. Just consider you’ll be filling in information in several columns.

So, the important thing here is that you give yourself the time and space to discuss the following:

• Favorite of the Week: what did you enjoy the most during this week—an activity, meeting, improvements in something you’ve been working on, blessings, etc.?

This is a nice way of appreciating and being grateful for your life, don’t you think?

• To Improve: is there something that requires your effort and attention, something that could be improved—house chore, communication, problem solving, anxiety…?

What better way to dance at the beat of positive change!

• Lesson of the Week: what did you learn this week? You might think this category difficult to answer. Can we learn something in such a short period of time? Yes, you’ll be surprised of how many lessons we can gather from the events of one week.

There are no bad or good experiences, only experiences, translated as learnings.

• Grateful for: what are you grateful for this week? Gratitude is very important to cultivate abundance, focus in positive things and inflate your happiness balloon.

It’s so easy to dwell on the negative. Get out of that vicious cycle and be aware of everything you have and are blessed for.

• Next actions: what are you going to work on next week? It might be improving habits or behaviors, adding a house chore or simply having fun—we have actually added “have fun” a couple of times in our Padlet board. You can get ideas for next actions from your “to improve” column, or add any other task you consider.

It’s important to think and reflect. However, don’t stay there. Go to action.

Choose the frequency that best suits you. You’ll need a minimum amount of time to carry out your next actions. Also you need time to have enough material to think on during your next meeting. Likewise, avoid waiting too long between sessions. You don’t want to forget what happened or abandon your tasks to pick them up in the last minute. One or two weeks is ideal.

If you like, you can do a special meeting at the beginning of each year to reflect on the previous year. Keep your meeting answers and relive the lessons learned, your blessings, everything you achieved, worked, and experienced.

So here you have it, one of the habits of our agile family. Try it and tell me how it went.