[avraham]

ive been promoted to a new position and tomorrow is my first staff meeting. the person who i'm replacing will be there for the whole meeting and the first part of the meeting will be dedicated to her and her leaving. she will not be at subsequent meetings. what should the other part of the meeting deal with? keep it light? planning to do something about expectations, individual/staff goals but also some very general guidelines. of course there will be time to congratulate them on the work done til now - the program has been very successful. i will appreciate any thoughts, feelings,input....

[NicoleMiller]

Congrats on your promotion, avraham! Do you know the staff members or are you new to this group? If you are new to the group, I'd give them a quick overview of your qualifications so they know you are going to be an asset to the team. I agree with your idea of outlining the staff goals and your expectations, but try to do it in a light-hearted manner so you seem approachable.

I'd recommend reading the Managing People series - it should provide a good overview of what to expect and how-to's.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[avraham]

thanks for your interest. used merlin cards (animated pics with accompanying sentences describing a wish) to open the discussion of the changing of the guard. in general it went well. the staff spent some time reviewing procedures,discussing frequency of supervision, on-site visits. my predecessor and i differed on how active a role to take in the meeting. that may also depend on the agenda(written or personal), personality, setting, etc. is there a rule of thumb on how active a role to take?
starting to prepare the next meeting. my staff is comprised of 4 counsellors in charge of a group of people rehabiltating from mental illness. the primary goal of my program is to help prepare these rehbilitants for work situations in the open market. each counsellor seems to be running the group well. wondering whether to focus on leadership skills or knowledge of mental illness. since they expressed intererst in the latter, thats probably the way to go. it also helps to understand difficulties the workers have in daily functiuon at work. deal with leadership later