The Belt Who Cannot Get the Team to Show Up

The team is stuck in an early stage of development (forming/storming) and has never been moved into a performing mode, because the Belt has not done the structural and interpersonal work that stage requires.

Diagnosis

• No shared purpose or decision rights. Physicians send delegates because they do not see the meetings as decision-making forums. If a delegate cannot decide, the team cannot commit.
• Unbalanced voice. The supervisor dominates with anecdote; the analyst (who holds the evidence) is silent. This is a participation-structure problem, not a personality problem.
• No ground rules or meeting design. Status-update meetings invite monologue and discourage working sessions.
• Sponsor is absent. Without visible sponsor engagement, the team reads the project as optional.
• No progress anchor. Six weeks with no baseline means the team has never experienced a 'win' or a shared artifact, which is what usually bonds a team.

Belt's specific errors

1. Ran meetings as status updates instead of working sessions with a decision agenda.
2. Did not establish decision rights or require decision-capable attendees.
3. Did not actively manage participation (did not invite the analyst to present; did not redirect the anecdote loop).
4. Did not engage the sponsor to reinforce priority.
5. Allowed the baseline to slip, which removed the team's first concrete goal.

Sequence matters: fix the structure first, then the behavior, then the work.

Week 1 - structure and sponsorship

• Rewrite the charter's team section: name each role, its decision authority, and a named alternate with authority. Send to each member and their manager.
• Meet the sponsor and ask for two things: attendance at the next two meetings (open and close), and a one-line message to the team that the project is a priority and delegates must be empowered.
• Send a decision-agenda for the next meeting 48 hours in advance, with the specific decisions required (e.g., 'approve baseline data source and date range').

Week 2 - working session design

• Restructure the meeting: 10 min data review (analyst presents - explicitly scheduled), 30 min working session on the baseline definition, 10 min decisions and actions with owners and dates. No status round-robin.
• Redirect anecdote with data: when the 'weather' claim comes up, ask the analyst to show no-show rate by month/season. Convert the claim into a testable hypothesis rather than a debate.
• Assign the supervisor a data-backed role (e.g., own the front-desk call-log review) so their experience is used constructively rather than suppressed.
• Set a visible milestone: baseline complete by end of Week 8, with the team's name on it.

Ongoing: brief one-on-one with each member after two weeks to surface blockers privately. The goal is to convert the team from an audience into a decision body.

Treat it as a structural problem to be solved jointly, not a compliance problem to be enforced unilaterally.

1. Clarify what decisions the project actually needs from physicians. Often it is a small set (e.g., approve a scheduling-policy change, endorse a reminder protocol). Name those decisions explicitly so the ask is bounded and reasonable.
2. Go to the physicians directly, not through the delegates. Explain the specific decisions and the timeline, and ask what level of authority their delegate will have. Frame it around their time: 'We need 20 minutes of your judgment on two decisions; everything else can be delegated with authority.'
3. Ask for a named empowered alternate in writing. If a physician cannot attend, the alternate must be able to commit on the named decisions - and the physician should confirm that in the charter.
4. Escalate through the sponsor if needed, but only after the direct conversation, and frame it as removing a blocker rather than reporting a person.
5. Protect the relationship: acknowledge that clinical schedules are genuinely constrained, and offer alternatives (a 15-minute decision call, asynchronous sign-off on a written proposal) so the requirement is met without demanding meeting attendance.

The principle: you need decisions, not attendance. Design the smallest possible decision ask and get explicit authority for it; do not let the meeting format become the point of conflict.