Kindly note that our meet-ups are a space for personal learning and sharing of opinions. Consequently, this summary is a high-level aggregation of participants' diverse views and opinions.
In this quarterly free community call session on "how to guide meetings back into a productive partnering zone?", we began by sharing personal challenges and identifying signs that a meeting is off track. In the second part of our conversation, we shared strategies for getting meetings back on track. We discussed dealing with aggressive behavior, overcoming obstructive forces, and avoiding personal conflicts that often derail meetings.
Signs that a meeting is off-track
We identified several indicators a meeting is derailing, including body language cues like crossed arms, frowning, eye-rolling, and ironic laughter. Communicative behaviors such as side conversations, checking emails, or direct offensive actions like blaming and shaming also signal trouble. These behaviors, even if exhibited by just one person, can create a toxic atmosphere, making others feel intimidated or tense. Recognizing these signs early is crucial to intervene before conflicts escalate and become insurmountable.
Steering meetings back to productivity
We traced the signs of derailed meetings back to our evolutionary survival mechanisms: fight, flight or freeze. To get participants out of this "survival mode" and back into a zone where they are open to listening and relating, we brainstormed several techniques:
Take a break: Pausing for a bio or coffee break can help reset the energy of the meeting.
Ask questions: Responding with a question to make sure you understand the other perspective, rather than engaging in a yes-but debate, can help shift the energy, e.g., "Interesting, I never thought of it that way. Tell me more...
Address negative energy: Openly addressing the negative energy or behavior as dysfunctional may be necessary, but must be done carefully so as not to stay in the energy instead of moving out of it. This is best done when you have established working principles that you can point to as not being followed.
How questions: Asking how questions in a meeting can immediately shift the conversation from the problem to the solution, e.g., "How can we make a decision now?" can redirect energy. You can also ask the parties in a discussion that is blocking a decision to make an offer to the other side, e.g., "What can you offer to commit to?"
Preventing Derailments in Meetings
We recognized that derailments often stem from a universal need for appreciation, being heard, and feeling valued. Structuring meetings to allow this in every meeting may also be a great prevention for destructive derailments to happen. They include check-in rounds where everyone has an equal chance to speak or celebrating compromises when participants move beyond their self-interests to reach agreements. (Remark: Check the free templates we offer on our webpage on how to design partnering meetings here if you’d like more ideas on that).
Our discussion also touched on the role of conflict in meetings in general, and we debated whether responding aggressively to an aggressor is ever helpful in bringing meetings back to a productive zone.
Finally, given our meeting overload and time constraints, we ended up with the "big" questions of whether we need to question our traditional assumptions about human productivity in the face of changing work dynamics and AI in general and what it means to deal with paradoxes. We'll address these broader questions in the PLA Think Tank format for a suitably longer, fruitful, and informed discussion.
Have had other experiences? How do you redirect derailed meetings back to the productive partnering zone? Share your experiences with us, I am sure they probably will inspire others here too!
Overview quarterly open PLA Community meet-up 2024 - Register for free here
20 March 2024 | How to create buy-in from executives to invest in a cultural shift (towards a more partnering culture)?
21 June 2024 | How can we guide meetings back into the zone of productive partnering?
27 September 2024 | How to boost engagement -The most powerful questions to ask
6 December 2024 | tbd - You can leave us your wishes for topics here