You donāt influence change by starting with furious activity.
You start by observing what is.
Hereās something to get you started.
This experiment is best done in a small meeting that you are not chairing. (It can be virtual or face to face). Ideally it would be a meeting that you attend regularly.
Your role in this meeting is to watch and observe AND as we coaches like to say a lot⦠āto be curious without judgementā. The purpose is simply to tune your antennae and to practise reading the room ā so that you start to notice things that would normally pass you by.
The 80/20 rule applies here.
You need to listen for 80% of the time and speak only for 20%. Here are ten things to pay attention to:
Last week I shared an experiment with you. We looked at ways to read the room and tune your antennae ā with a view to effective positive change in your meetings or interactions with others. I shared an experiment to help you do just that.
The article is here if you missed it.
Here are the kind of things you might notice now that you hadnāt really noticed before (or if you had ā youād not done anything about it).
People committing to things and then not doing them. As one person said āWhen I did the Reading the Room experiment it became obvious to me that commitment was lacklustre at best. I realised we need to understand why weād got into this pattern and what we need to do with it. Itās almost become accepted that people wonāt deliver on timeā.
āIt made me realise how much people talk for the sake of it and donāt add anything new to the conversation. This is seriously adding to overwhelm and time wasting for everyone. It also made me realise how much I do that tooā. Ooops! Work to...
Think about the meetings you attend.
How many people do you know who waffle on, fill the silence, finish peopleās sentences, feel the need to tell everyone how smart they are (in a round-about way, of course āall that humblebragging on LinkedIn and elsewhere!)ā¦. What about the people who stay silent, play āvictimā and blame others for everything?
If thereās a hint of self- recognition there, thereās an experiment Iād love you to try. Itās all about OBSERVATION (This is your FIRST STEP).
ā
This experiment is best done in a small meeting that you are not chairing. Ideally it would be a meeting that you attend fairly regularly.
Your role in this meeting is to watch and observe AND as we coaches like to say a lot⦠āto be curious without judgementā. The purpose is simply to tune your antennae and to practise reading the room ā so that you start to notice things that would normally pass you by.
The 80/20 rule applies here.
You need to listen for 80% of the time and speak only for 20%. Here are ten ...
Do you spend ages in pointless meetings?
Back-to- back talking shops that serve no purpose and waste our time are a BIG contributor to overwhelm.
You need tactics ā for āmeeting mastery.ā
AND - an elegant way to say ānoā to those time-wasting talking shops that ruin your day.Ā
This video will show you how.
No more mind-numbing collective procrastination where nothing gets done.Ā
One of the biggest time wasters in organisations is meetings.Ā So much of them are simply collective procrastination with people pretending that stuff is actually getting done.
When it isnāt.
Who are we kidding here?
I often lay down a challenge for my coaching clients to slash their meeting times by half over the next three months (and to STOP the back to back meeting hell that means youāre always late, never āpresentā and often on the back foot).
Hereās how you can do this too:
Firstly, ask: āHow important is this meeting to achieving my personal and organisational goals?āĀ If it isnāt then find a way to say ānoā to the meeting without offending.Ā The āwithout offendingā bit is key.Ā Hereās how to nail this:
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