Purpose of staff meetings

About 3 weeks ago, our team came together for our spring All-Staff Meeting.  It was great that so many were able to attend and understandable that conflicts lead to some absences (including a personal conflict for me that caused me to have to miss the last 3 presentations).  While I enjoy the opportunity to stand up and share, my favorite part of staff meetings (any staff meeting) is when I get to sit back and listen and learn.  Being able to engage as a participant, rather than the facilitator is helpful to me.  Many of you know that I don't believe in long meetings -- unless they truly are workshops with lots interaction among participants, give and take and executable 'to-dos' that result from the meeting.
I requested that everyone share some executable 'to-dos' with me following our staff meeting.  And, so far I have received some very good input.  It will be my failure if I don't put some of that input into practice and even worse if I don't share with you how I am putting the input into practice.  The purpose of staff meetings is to provide us with the information we need to do our jobs better (I know, you're surprised I didn't say "make you-know-what better").  Sharing what is happening within our work groups, the department and BJC as a whole should help us be more effective at our jobs.  The new Joint Commission requirements with respect to literacy that our guest speaker shared at the All Staff Meeting is an example of such helpful information.  Those requirements will definitely have an impact on the work we do for our clients and there were lots of good recommendations shared by our team members with the speaker at the meeting. 
The other important purpose of staff meetings is just setting aside time for teams to share, recharge and if necessary regroup.  I believe work works better if we understand not only the How of getting something done, but the Why of getting something done.  Often we are so focused on making sure the something gets done that we forget to share Why it needs to be done.  As we enter a time of unprecedented uncertainty for health care providers, it will be even more important to share the Why.  The CEO letter to all employees a couple of months ago was intended to help share some of the Why.  The letter was well received by employees and there will be more coming.  When we read BJC Today and visit bjcnet, we can get another glimpse of the Why.  But, in our regular and special staff meetings and our 1:1s we must be intentional in incorporating the Why so that we can all have a clear understanding of our direction and what needs to be done to get us there.  To me that is the real value of staff meetings.