7 check in questions for team meetings you can use today

“Any updates to share?”

“How’s it going?”

As a manager, awkward — and even radio silent — responses to these well-intentioned check-in questions for team meetings may feel nerve wracking. After all, your goal is to encourage discussion, boost morale, and set the tone for positive collaboration. But almost every leader these days is encountering the situation of a question that doesn’t quite land.

That’s okay. Asking better questions takes practice. You may just need a slight shift in perspective. Let’s start now.

If you’re running a team, you’re in a powerful role at your organization. That’s because you have the most direct line of sight into the emotional experience of the group that you oversee. The bigger picture is that your team looks up to your leadership not only for performance at work but satisfaction in life. 

When it comes to emotionally intelligent leadership, research from Harvard University and the American Psychological Association has shown that asking questions, and follow-up questions in particular, has the potential to increase peoples’ positive impressions. In other words, your check-in questions can become your hidden superpower as a manager.

Here are some recommendations and examples to help you transform your check-in questions from blah to awesome.

The art of amazing questions: think like a scientist

The scientific community relies on questions to collect data, uncover trends, and solve problems. In these fields, many people focus on the topic of increasing responses, keeping study participants engaged, and sourcing better information. Questions are always the first step to a more in-depth research study.

There’s a known technique among qualitative researchers, in particular, around asking open-ended questions. The idea is to inspire answers that are more meaningful than a simple yes or no. 

Here are some traits of a well-formed open ended question, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services:

• They require respondents to pause and reflect before responding
• Answers will require your team to share their emotions, ideas, or opinions
• The power dynamic shifts from the person asking the question to the person answering it
• They start with the words “why, how, what, describe, tell me about” and focus on empowering the respondent to share their perspectives
• They spark additional follow-up questions to advance the conversation

With a good open-ended question, there isn’t any pressure on your team to provide a right or wrong answer. Rather, your goal is to facilitate a conversation and help people feel comfortable opening up. 

In fact, you might want to be explicit about your intentions.

“There isn’t a right or wrong answer here — my goal is to support you by listening.”

Contextualizing your questions can help get everyone on the same page and feel more comfortable participating in a discussion. As Dale Carnegie wrote in his renowned book How to Win Friends and Influence People the key is to ask questions that other people will enjoy answering. 

Here are a few that you can try today at the beginning of your next team meeting, break the ice, and set the tone of your conversation.

Seven awesome check-in questions

Questions are powerful tools to build trust, respect, and camaraderie between colleagues. In your position as a manager, you’re also a teacher and discussion leader. Keeping this perspective, the best check-in questions will foster a sense of wellbeing on your team, in addition to simply gathering information. 

Keep in mind, these questions can also help establish a positive impression for the long-term success of your team vision.

Here are a few to try next time you kick off a team meeting.

1. What’s something you’re grateful for today?

Gratitude is known to have positive mental health benefits. The simple act of saying “thank you” can help people become higher functioning, reduce stress levels, and feel less depressed. When people give thanks, there are also lasting effects on the brain, according to fMRI studies.

Given how much pressure exists at work, it’s hard for teams to step back and take the time to say, “thanks.” Regardless, the benefits to morale are clear — teams will benefit from more expression of gratitude.

2. What is an inspiring story that you’ve heard or personally experienced this week?

Inspiration and creativity go hand-in-hand — it’s good for humanity, and it’s good for business. As a powerful human emotion, inspiration is known to drive action, visionary thinking, and positive thinking. 

It’s better to be in an inspirational workplace culture, where people enjoy the collaboration, than the opposite. Inspiration is also known to be contagious. So why not crowdsource inspiring ideas to share?

3. If you could be X, what would you pick and why?

You can think of this question as a placeholder for any curveball questions. The key is to pick a curveball topic that reflects a recent discussion that you’ve had as a team. Maybe your team has been talking about trees lately. Or animals. Or something else entirely.

With this question, it’s important to choose concepts that represent cultural sensitivity. It’s a good idea to stay away from topics that have the potential to cause triggering reactions. Awareness around diversity and inclusion are key. You could also frame the question in a different way, such as, “What is your favorite tree, and why?”

This question has the potential to be a powerful creativity driver for your organization. From a workplace productivity perspective, productivity is great for your team. Creativity is known to drive benefits including better problem-solving, higher motivation, 

4. What was a subject that you enjoyed learning about as a child?

Childhood is when we first start connecting with our interests and passions. It’s when people pick up critical life skills such as the ability to read. Chances are, everyone on your team is utilizing skills that they gained in elementary school at work. 

This question is particularly helpful as an ice-breaker, in conversations where teammates are beginning to get to know each other on an interpersonal level. It’s a particularly strong question in remote environments where people aren’t spending time together in the office. Even for teammates who are in-person together in the office, it can be challenging to take time away from deep knowledge work.

It’s a safe assumption that everyone on your team can relate to the experience of learning something interesting or meaningful. Any answer has the potential to be authentic and interesting. The question can also help foster diversity and inclusion on the team by demonstrating the value of everyone’s perspective.

5. What is a challenge at work that you’ve recently enjoyed solving and why?

This question is great for settings where and when it’s important to stay focused on the work at-hand. It’s a valuable way to help create a sense of team-wide recognition as well, by focusing on individual efforts.

Neuroscience research has shown that people enjoy talking about themselves due to associations with reward receptors. The system becomes activated when people talk about themselves.

These days, everyone could benefit from extra social support and celebration. Talking about our accomplishments at work can feel intrinsically rewarding. 

This question is also valuable for helping teammates get up to speed on each others’ progress. It provides perspective at a greater level of depth to what’s visible on project management software.

6. What’s a skill that you’d like to see our team focus on building?

In healthy work environments, people have the opportunity to build their skill sets and discover opportunities to learn. One way to gain new knowledge is through experience — peer support is especially important for teammates who are seeking to build up new capabilities.

One way to boost team training efforts is to encourage knowledge sharing between each other. Perhaps, with this question, you’ll notice that several teammates are looking to build the same skill. You, yourself, may be an expert on a topic area that your direct reports would value learning about.

With perspective into your team’s growth goals, as a manager, you can provide more valuable coaching and feedback. You can also advocate for teammates supporting each other as peers, by encouraging them to team up.

7. What are you most looking forward to tackling this week? Why?

No matter what’s happening in the world, it’s important for organizations to stay forward-looking. As a manager, it’s up to you to help your team remain optimistic and focused on key milestones.

This question can also help encourage positive self-talk, which is the “internal dialogue that makes a person feel good about themselves.” The idea is to encourage self-affirming statements that relate to a person’s ability to solve a problem or accomplish a task. Positive thinking is known to have stress-relieving benefits. It’s a powerful way to increase performance and achieve more balance at work, without taking on additional pressure.

As a manager, you can share an example of a tough task that you’re working through, with detail for why you’re looking forward to the responsibility. Your perspective could be as straightforward as:

“I know I’m going to look forward to building up the skill set.”

Lead by example, and show optimism for the week ahead.