General Knowledge I
Manager-2-Advisor
General Knowledge II
Myths & Ora Logistics
Best Practices
100
Can the main facilitator of a meeting have someone else facilitate the TCM for them in their absence or even if they are present?
Yes, if the facilitator is not going to be able to make the regularly scheduled TCM, then they definitely should have someone from their team facilitate it in their absence. And to address the additional question regarding if they can have someone facilitate it even if they are there/present, the answer is, technically yes, they can have someone facilitate it which typically happens in situations where a manager or director is working to build leadership skills among a certain team member, however, it is not an ideal choice to run a TCM. When the manager/director in charge of the TCM is not facilitating it themselves on a regular basis you will loose a level of accountability because it is much more awkward to have a peer holding accountability to another peer.
100
DAILY DOUBLE!! Should I expect my advisors to come to the meeting prepared with observations and thoughts regarding the progress indicator selected for that week's Team ORA? And, do they need to come in with a question too?
What is Yes, it would be a best practice to tell your advisors ahead of time the progress indicator you will be opening a Team ORA on, so they can think through their observations of why the trend is showing a particular way. However, they are not required to also come up with a question and bring it with them to the meeting. That will be handled by you, the facilitator of the meeting, after you share your observations and hear the observations from your team. A best practice might be to have a possible question already thought through in case your team’s observations are already in line with your own observations. But, don’t feel that you can’t change up your question to use for the Team ORA once you hear the observations from the team since the team could very well bring something to light you hadn’t considered.
100
What is the purpose of the Team Consult Meeting (TCM)?
What is The purpose of the weekly Team Consult Meeting is to provide a structure to get a big picture understanding of the campuses success, to stay focused on the vital few activities and behaviors that best support our students, seek improvement in our position’s progress indicators by consulting and collaborating with our peers on ways to enhance the student experience, and to share stories that help drive our culture.
100
How many open Ora's should you have open in a Manager-2-Advisor TCM?
What is 1 Team ORA (No Individual ORAs for Advisors)
100
In a Manager-2-Advisor TCM; what should managers gather first, before sharing theirs in the meeting?
What is Observations
200
In the weekly WOW, do you only share the best story that you heard from your employees, or can you share your own personal weekly WOW?
What is You are absolutely allowed to share your own personal weekly WOW if you had one. Sharing the best one you heard from the TCM you facilitate with your team is just one way to approach it so staff/student stories or achievements are able to be filtered up, however you are definitely not required to do this if you choose not to.
200
Is it okay for the manager to actually pull up the team’s (manager’s) trend lines and put them up on the overhead in the manager to advisor TCM?
What is Yes, the Team (or Manager’s) progress indicators/trends can be shared with everyone in the meeting.
200
When do ORAs close?
What is The overall ORA should close when all action items have been completed or when you determine the ORA action items are not effective and it would be most ideal to close it out and address something else. Bringing new observations to light, through a new ORA, will help refocus your attention and improve the student experience.
200
How many open Ora's should you have open in a Director-2-Manager TCM?
What is 1 individual ORAs
200
Why should Action Items be tied to the Question.
What is To ensure alignment
300
For the ORA in the Manager-2-advisor TCM, are the advisors supposed to take away individual action items from that team ORA, or does everyone on the team take away the same action item?
What is You can have the team do either. You can have them take individual action items or take one action item collectively. It is up to the manager how they want this to be conducted. And most likely, it will be handled differently each time an ORA is conducted as each ORA is unique. The point is to manage the selection of the actions in the way that provides the most value. Just keep in mind that the trend reviewed should be the team trend line, not individual.
300
In a Manager-2-Advisor TCM; what should managers share with their team prior to the meeting, to allow the team time to prepare thoughtful and specific observations?
What is Progress Indicator
300
Is it okay to mention how an employee is doing in relation to a goal in the TCM? For example, could I say to an advisor that their retained percent is lower than the 70% goal we want to be at, thus trending below?
No, it is not okay to talk about goals in this meeting. During this meeting we are purely looking at trends of each progress indicator. And nowhere on the trend is there a goal. In order to create context, you should look at the trend and compare where the performance is in relation to the campus, the region, etc. And you should be looking for how the performance has been going over time; does it appear to be trending down, or up, etc. You can seek improvement in an area and ask for help without ever comparing the performance of that trend to a goal. In truth, a goal limits our potential. We need to stay focused on continual improvement.
300
It is ok to share 1 or 2 vital factors and leave off the rest to save time?
What is No, make sure to mention all of the vital factors and display the appropriate trends associated with each one.
300
If the manager decides to have their advisors select a different/individual action item for the Team ORA, how should they set the action complete date. Would each person potentially have a different action complete date?
What is When everyone ends up taking a different/individual action item on the Team ORA, it is a best practice to identify one action complete date for the whole group to work towards. It would become too difficult to manage to different dates for the same Team ORA and would possibly create a situation where an individual is working on action items from more than two Team ORAs. In the situations where you have an individual take on an action item that is going to take way more time than the action items of the majority of the team, you should consider breaking out their action item into more steps and working with them on their plan outside the TCM.
400
Which Progress Indicators or Trends should we be talking about in our TCM?
What is You should cover the vital few identified for your position. There are some options for customizing which trends you want to review in the TCM, but you should at the very least always review the vital few. It is advised to have any trends you want to add outside the vital few approved by the director of the department. Something to remember is to not go overboard and selecting too many additional trends. Remember, the TCM meeting is designed to focus on a small amount of trends that provide the best insight into behaviors that impact the student experience.
400
In the Manager-2-Advisor TCM, should we expect the advisors to share their own personal, introspective observations of why our team trend may be trending unfavorably based on how their own trends are showing?
What is Definitely have advisors share their observations for the Team ORA. You don’t need to force the advisor to only share personal/introspective observations when doing the Team ORA. You should just open it up for them to share any observations they have seen or experienced. These observations by the advisor could be something related to the team as a whole or as an individual. There is no prescribed way which type of observations should be shared.
400
TRIPLE TROUBLE!! When setting our action item due dates, do we need to consider when we think our trend will be back up at a certain level or point or specific number?
What is No, when setting an action item due date, you should only be considering how long the action will take you to implement completely or at least put it into practice. You shouldn’t be setting a date for when you expect to be at a specific number shown in the trend. Ask yourself “what is the best use of my time.” The way the TCM was designed, we are able to seek improvement without ever setting a specific number goal. We are able to do this by focusing on the action items we are putting into practice or implementing and not just focusing on when we expect to be back at goal. Action items from the ORA process are typically tasks, behaviors, actions, process changes or tweaks, etc. that we believe will positively impact our student experience. We can easily gauge improvement from week to week or month to month through our trend line without even setting a specific goal.
400
TRIPLE TROUBLE!!! How many open Ora's should you have open in a Campus Director-2-Dept. Director TCM?
What is 2 individual ORAs
400
Preparation equals what? (preparation = _______ )
What is Better Engagement
500
In the Director-2-Manager TCM, are the managers allowed to select any progress indicator they want to do their ORA on? Or does the director have a say which progress indicator they are to do an ORA on?
What is Managers are now only required to do one progress indicators/trends to do ORAs on themselves. But that shouldn’t mean there won’t be any consideration of the director’s input.
500
Is it okay to sometimes have an advisor do an ORA with the team during the meeting to seek out recommendations from their peers?
Yes, the ORA can be used in situations where an advisor is just seeking some help from their peers. However, it needs to be restricted in some ways. If they used the ORA process to identify some actions they plan to take, you wouldn’t want to ever do further follow-up on those action items in the team meeting. That should just be handled outside the TCM between that one advisor and manager. The other thing you need to avoid doing is mentioning the trend result of that individual. In no way should you be discussing individual performance in this Manager to Advisor TCM. However, this fact shouldn’t keep you from conducting a valuable ORA.
500
In the Manager-2-Advisor TCM, can the manager recognize or discuss an advisor’s achievement in a progress indicator? Or even more subtly share just the percent in growth for a specific individual? For example: Can a manager say that he wants to recognize Joe Employee for what he is doing (make it specific to a behavior/attitude) that resulted in 3% growth in retention in a 1 month period?
No, you should not be sharing any advisor’s individual results, even a subtle percent improvement. It leads to a slippery slope of setting goals where others in attendance could see that as a target or “goal” to achieve or stack ranking. Our only “goal” is to continually seek improvement. Instead, you can still recognize the employee for improvement in a given area (without stating the number or percent result) and ask that employee to share what behaviors or attitudes contributed to their success
500
Is the most challenging part of conducting a TCM speaking appropriately to the numbers while tying in behaviors?
What is No, the most challenging part for most leaders is holding people accountable to action items for both existing and newly opened ORAs
500
DAILY DOUBLE!!! In the Manager-2-Advisor TCM, does the manager select one progress/indicator (trend) for the team to work on as a group?
What is Yes, and the manager can choose to do either one or two Team ORAs. No less than one and no more than two. The manager should use their best discretion on deciding how many ORAs to conduct in their team meeting considering the times when it would be more effective to focus on one Team ORA versus two.
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