How to Keep Your Book Club From Becoming a Wine-Drinking Gossip Fest (Unless That’s the Goal, in Which Case, Carry On!)
Release Date: 03/19/2025
Facilitating Strategic Planning: 7 Things Most Leaders Get Wrong
Extraordinary Team Tips
Strategic planning facilitation is one of the most high-stakes activities any leader will take on. Get it right, and you’ll rally your team around a clear, inspiring direction. Get it wrong, and you’ll end up with a glossy binder of plans that collect dust while the organization drifts (I call that "credenzaware!"). Here are seven of the most common mistakes and how to avoid them.
info_outline
Why Offsite Meetings Fail and How to Make Yours Work
Extraordinary Team Tips
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares why offsite meetings fail and how to improve them with strategic meeting facilitation.
info_outline
3 Ways to Prioritize Strategic Initiatives
Extraordinary Team Tips
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares how to prioritize strategic initiatives AND create an interrelationship digraph.
info_outline
How AI is Transforming Meetings & How to Capture Its Potential
Extraordinary Team Tips
With all of the invisible help joining our meetings, are meetings becoming more effective? Or less human? Here's how I see AI transforming meetings and a quick tip to explore it's potential with your team.
info_outline
Meeting Makeover: Turn a Monday Moan Fest Into a Power Session
Extraordinary Team Tips
With a few intentional shifts, a ho-hum meeting can become a high-impact ritual your team actually looks forward to. Here’s a “before and after” look at one team’s transformation from dreaded meeting to dynamic power session.
info_outline
10 Micro-Habits of Teams That Consistently Deliver Results
Extraordinary Team Tips
I was talking with a client about "the small stuff" that makes magic happen. Those seemingly inconspicuous rituals, behaviors, and mindsets that, when practiced consistently, drive extraordinary results. Here are 10 micro-habits I’ve observed in high-performing teams I’ve worked with.
info_outline
How to Run an Effective Brainstorming Session
Extraordinary Team Tips
Great brainstorming isn’t magic—it’s well-structured messiness. When you design your session like a sandwich (start with clarity, move into freeform ideation, and close with purposeful evaluation), you give your team the space and structure they need to generate and act on truly original ideas.
info_outline
7 Questions to Ask Before You Call a Meeting
Extraordinary Team Tips
Before you send that next meeting invitation, ask yourself these seven crucial questions to determine whether you really need a meeting. And if that answer is “yes,” how to make it a good meeting.
info_outline
Overconfidence Clouds Judgment — Plan with a Pre-Mortem
Extraordinary Team Tips
Overconfidence feels good. It’s seductive. But unchecked, it can lead us into risky territory, blindsiding us with problems we could have seen coming. Before charging forward with a decision, especially one that feels too easy or unchallenged, try conducting a “pre-mortem.” Instead of examining what did go wrong after the fact, you imagine what could go wrong before it happens. Here’s how to do a Pre-Mortem:
info_outline
When Team Training is NOT the Answer
Extraordinary Team Tips
Too often, organizations reach for training when what they really need is alignment and ownership. If your team already knows what great service looks like, repeating the basics won’t move the needle. What they need is a facilitated workshop.
info_outlineThe best book clubs strike a balance between structured discussion and free-flowing conversation - which is why having a facilitator (or at least some semblance of a plan) is crucial.
So, whether your book club is thriving or teetering on the edge of chaos, here are a few ways to keep the discussion engaging, inclusive, and—most importantly—fun.