If you’re like most people in business today, your calendar is probably packed with meetings.
In these newsletters and on the Humanizing Work Show, we talk a lot about facilitation—how to run meetings well to achieve the intended purpose of the meeting. Facilitation is super important. Bad meetings waste tremendous amounts of time, money, and motivation.
But what do you do when you’re not the facilitator, when you want to make a good meeting more likely but you’re not the one shaping the meeting?
A lot of advice on the internet says you should do things to demand good facilitation. Only accept meetings that have a clear purpose. Request an agenda in advance. Nudge meetings towards async alternatives whenever you can. Maybe that’ll help. But you can’t really make anyone do anything. You certainly can’t make someone else get good at facilitating effective meetings just by demanding it.
There is, however, something you can do that’ll improve all your meetings. It takes less than a minute, and you can put it into practice today.
The one thing you have control over in every meeting you attend is how you show up. In some meetings, you may have control over more things. But the one constant in all your meetings is you.
Most of us, however, just roll from one meeting to another without much thought to the wake we’re leaving behind us. Sometimes, we get lucky and show up to a meeting in the right frame of mind. More often, our colleagues get us in whatever state we happen to be in.
It doesn’t have to be that way. You can choose how you show up. Here’s a one minute process to prepare for your next meeting:
- Breathe. This process only works if you’re calm and present, so take a few slow, deep breaths. Think about your toes and wiggle them as you breathe (this gets you into your body wherever you are).
- Reflect. Answer the following questions for yourself.
- What is the purpose of the meeting? Why does it matter?
- How can I contribute in service of that purpose?
- How do I need to show up so others have a good, effective meeting?
- Decide. Summarize how you’ll show up and contribute in a short sentence and frame it to yourself as a decision. For example, “I’m going to share what I know and be curious about others’ experience.” Or, “I’m going to listen before I speak.” Or, “I’m going to be composed, even though this is a stressful conversation.” Say it to yourself a few times. You might even write it down on a sticky note a keep it visible to yourself during the meeting.
But what about those meetings where you care a lot about the outcome? Maybe you don’t agree with the purpose. Or you’re worried about the consequences of a bad decision.
In those cases, you may need more than a minute to get into a useful state to contribute. Here are a few additional things you can do for those high-stakes, high-emotion meetings on your calendar:
Visualize the Best Case
Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Now, vividly visualize the meeting going as well as it could go. Like watching a movie, watch how each person shows up and contributes. See how you work together to make something great happen. If you feel more hopeful now, jump back into the Reflect and Decide steps above. If not, keep going…
Visualize the Worst Case…where it’s somehow ok
Again, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Now, jump to the end of the meeting in your mind and visualize the group making the decision you are most opposed to. But as you do, notice that, in this movie, you’re not bothered by that outcome. In fact, you actually feel ok about it.
Consider: What had to happen leading up to that moment to end up there, where it’s what seems like the worst case but somehow it’s ok? Maybe some new information needed to emerge that changed your perspective. Maybe the group needed to have a hard conversation that’s been the elephant in the room for a long time. Maybe there had to be a new level of give and take.
If you’re feeling more hopeful now, jump back into the Reflect and Decide steps above to consider how you can show up in such a way that even the worst case isn’t catastrophic. If not, one more thing to try…
Get Curious About Your Feelings
You have strong feelings about this meeting. That’s clear at this point. It’s time to get curious about them.
To start, ask yourself, “Where do I feel it?” Is it a tightness in your chest? A hollow feeling in your gut? Tension in your neck and face? Imagine taking those feelings from that place in both your hands and holding them out in front of you so you can look at them. The feeling has left your body (which is now free to relax), and you can look at the feelings objectively.
How would you name what you see? Is it fear? Frustration? Anger? Sadness? Regret? Something else? A combination of things?
Now ask it, “Where did you come from? What happened in the past? How did you grow into what you are now? What job have you done for me in the past? How are you serving me (or not) now?”
What’s clearer now? Take that new insight back into the Reflect and Decide steps in the process above. (By the way, once you’re holding those feelings out in front of you to look at them, you can decide whether to put them back now or set them aside for a while. That’s the power of making them objective to you.)
Before your next meeting, take one minute to breathe, reflect, and decide. And when you know you have stronger than normal feelings about a particular meeting, give yourself a few extra minutes to prepare. The one thing you have control over for every meeting is how you show up. Make this a habit, and watch all your meetings get more effective.
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