Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Meetings

Don’t Underestimate Others’ Willingness to Help

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The biggest barrier to generosity may not be getting people to give but people’s reluctance to ask for what they need.

Mostly, people enjoy helping (but not so much that they can get burned out by their own goodness.) They want to give and be recognized for their giving.

People can’t give when they don’t know what others need

According to the University of Michigan’s Wayne Baker, a solution to the awkwardness of asking for help is the notion of reciprocity rings (or reciprocity bulletin boards.) Boeing, Citigroup, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Google, IBM, Novartis, UPS, and others have implemented informal networking groups to facilitate asking—and giving.

In All You Have to Do Is Ask (2020,) Baker explains that these onetime or recurring networking meetings have individuals explain one by one the specific issues they’re facing. The rest of the group taps their knowledge, resources, wisdom, or networks to help the requestor. In a sense, a reciprocity ring is an expanded version of the “daily stand-up,” “daily huddle,” or “scrum meeting” that many teams use to talk over what they’re each working on and where they need help.

Wharton School’s Adam Grant popularized the concept of reciprocity rings in his book Give and Take (2014.) He argues that reciprocity rings normalize asking and giving. They build trust and relationships by creating new and fast connections where they may not exist otherwise.

A charitable mood sets in—reciprocity rings engender altruism.

Helping others without the expectation to have that help reciprocated is the foundation of altruism. A reciprocity ring cultivates an environment of giving. According to All You Have to Do Is Ask, a reciprocity ring helps people overcome their hesitations and fears about asking for help because everyone’s making a request. Baker cites research that the takers in the groups tend to give three times more than they get. Over time, people tend to make more significant requests.

Idea for Impact: Assemble an informal network and facilitate opportunities to ask for and help one another. It’s an easy and effective way to build connections and strengthen the spirit of the community.

Take a cue from Bay Area career coach Marty Nemko, who organizes his own informal reciprocity ring. Nemko’s “board of advisors” meets for an hour every month, and each person talks about a thorny personal—or professional—problem they’re facing and requests input from others.

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Silence is Consent

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Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit. (He who is silent, when he ought to have spoken and was able to, is taken to agree.)
—Latin Proverb

If you don’t speak up at a meeting or ask for a deferral of a decision, you can’t come back later and declare, “I really hated that decision. I don’t want it to happen.”

Make sure to speak your mind when you disagree with something because, for many people, silence indicates consent.

Go to the meeting. Challenge the proposal. Stand up and be counted. Let your feelings be heard. Chip in on the debate. Commit to how the decision will be made.

Idea for Impact: Silence, especially when a new, perhaps contentious proposal, is being discussed, indicates a lack of engagement within the team. People who care speak out in a healthy team environment.

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Ghosting is Rude

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In the dating world, the term “ghosting” describes a prospect going abruptly silent and not returning phone calls, emails, and text messages to avoid the awkwardness of saying “no” or ending a nascent liaison.

Regrettably, ghosting has metastasized into the work world. For example, hiring managers regularly ghost job seekers even after interviews.

Of course, people are ever busier, more stressed, and more apt to choose convenience over courtesy. But, as long as an email is not a cold-call, it deserves a response. Dashing off a quick email telling you’re no longer interested is better than not responding at all and hoping that the ghosted person will take the hint.

When someone sends you an email with a suggestion or a compliment, respond to the email, even if to say no more than a “thank you.” On a fundamental level, your action will acknowledge that you’ve received the email.

Yes, you’re contributing to email overload. However, taking but a few seconds to respond “thanks for taking the time” or “I reviewed and I’ll keep this in mind” will bring that interaction to a close. The email is probably still on the sender’s mind.

An email that contains emotional content—praise, criticism, venting—deserves something longer: a sincere, thought-out “thank you” or “I understand how you feel.” you’re thus acknowledging the sender’s effort, recognizing her intent, appreciating her thoughtfulness, allowing for her emotions. It acknowledges the person herself.

Idea for Impact: Ghosting sucks. Whether in dating, job hunting, business communication, friendship, or any other aspects of work- or personal-life, ghosting shows a lack of consideration. Yes, it’s rude … even in the digital age where “no answers” is the accepted norm.

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Chime in Last

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As a meeting’s thought-leader, or be seen as a decision-maker or arbiter, chime in last.

On an important topic, hear everyone out and withhold your judgments until the end. By speaking first, you’ll cast undue influence over the proceedings.

When you’re ready to speak, restate the meeting’s purpose. Call attention to the essential decision to be made. Acknowledge everyone’s points and counterpoints. Push for the next steps.

Spread your thanks liberally—acknowledge the contributions everyone has made. Be prepared to concede tangents, pitfalls, or different perspectives and points of view.

Concentrate on the outcome. It’s the result that matters, not your role in it.

Idea for Impact: Best of all, speaking last empowers you to incorporate the best of what’s been said and be diplomatic about appealing to everyone’s interests. Chiming in last also allows you to manage the alignment of everyone’s expectations and evade unanticipated criticisms of your viewpoints.

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Micro-Meetings Can Be Very Effective

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Discussions expand to fill the time allotted (per Parkinson’s Law,) especially when people haven’t prepared for them well.

If your meetings tend to run long and aren’t producing tangible results, consider micro-meetings.

Focus on discussing and deciding on a single problem within, say, 15 minutes. Ask people to do their homework and come thoroughly prepared.

Let the critical decision-makers pre-wire one another before the meeting—they can discuss one-on-one the main points and settle any differences of opinion.

  • Clarify the meeting’s purpose before starting the session. Even if you think everyone knows it, it helps restate the meeting’s objective and sharpen the group’s focus.
  • Allow people brief statements about their positions and clarifying questions. Take full-fledged discussions offline.
  • Not every exchange of ideas needs to happen in a meeting. Use shared documents that can be revised and tracked by several people in real-time.
  • Keep everyone standing. The discomfort of standing for long, especially before lunchtime or at the end of the day, can keep the meetings short and to-the-point.
  • End well. Conclude the meeting with an action plan and an exact timeframe. State the decisions the group has made and who owns what.

Yes, micro-meetings will seem brusque and hasty. But setting a focused agenda and staying on-topic will keep people paying attention and steer meetings to conclusive decisions.

Many teams use micro-meetings for daily huddles, check-ins, or “scrum meetings.” There’s no good reason why this type of meeting should be availed exclusively for such occurrences.

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Dining Out: Rule of Six

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Meal manners entail pacing yourself with others—starting and finishing each course of the meal. I’ve previously written,

At the table, wait until everyone is served. Begin to eat only after the host or the most important guest does. Follow this guideline for each course of the meal. Pace yourself such that you finish at about the same time as everybody else at your table.

A subtlety: if you’re dining out in a smaller group, wait for everyone to be served before you begin. If you’re joining a larger party (say, ten or more,) the “rule of six” prescribes that you can start eating as soon as six people have been served.

At buffet meals, collect your food and wait until three others join you at the table before beginning to eat.

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  4. Witty Comebacks and Smart Responses for Nosy People
  5. Here’s How to Improve Your Conversational Skills

How to Minute a Meeting

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If you’re the unlucky minute-taker tasked with recording a discussion for the benefit of posterity, remember that minutes are expected to contain essentially a reliable record of what transpired at the meeting, key decisions taken, and action items.

In principle, meetings exist for people to inform and decide, but, in reality, lots of what people say in meetings will be trivial, pointless, and unhelpful. Unless specifically required by the forum, you don’t have to scribble down each and every pearl of wisdom that ensues. Per Wikipedia, the term “minutes” derives from the Latin minuta scriptura (“small writing,”) meaning “rough notes.”

The BBC political satire Yes, Prime Minister (1986–88; prequel Yes Minister, 1980–84,) that masterly class on politics, manipulation, and being manipulated, has particularly handy advice on meeting minutes. From the ‘Man Overboard’ (clip) and ‘Official Secrets’ (clip) episodes,

  • A minute is a note for the records and a statement of action, if any, that was agreed upon.
  • It is characteristic of all discussions and decisions that every meeting member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member’s recollection of them differs violently from every other member’s recollection. Consequently, we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have officially recorded in the minutes by the officials … if a decision had been officially reached, it would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials.
  • The purpose of minutes is not to record events, it is to protect people.
  • People frequently change their minds during a meeting. Therefore, what is said at a meeting merely constitutes the choice of ingredients for the minutes. The minute-taker’s task is to choose, from a jumble of ill-digested ideas, a version that represents the [powerful person’s] views as he would, on reflection, have liked them to emerge.
  • Minutes do not record everything that was said at a meeting. Minutes are constructive—they are to improve what is said, to be tactful, to put in better order.
  • Minutes, by virtue of the selection process, can never be a true and complete record. Minutes don’t constitute a true record.

You’ll have to maintain a Zen-like focus on why everybody disagrees with somebody and how nobody agrees to do what anybody could have done. But you don’t have to work hard to keep yourself awake either.

As soon as you’ve circulated those minutes and got them approved, you can file them away. Nobody may ever actually read them in the future.

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Don’t Let the Latecomers Ruin Your Meeting

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Latecomers not only demoralize and disrespect those who turn up on time and have to wait around but also hurt the meeting’s productivity—especially if you have a tight and structured schedule.

  • Always start and end your meeting at the appointed time. Are your attendees tardy because they know that you don’t start the meeting promptly? Do you tend to wander off-topic?
  • Confirm that there’re enough chairs in the meeting room. A latecomer can disrupt a discussion by dragging chairs over from other meeting rooms.
  • Don’t reprimand or embarrass a latecomer during the meeting. Speak to her later. Does she understand that she has a clearly defined role in this meeting? (People are often late to events because they’re not entirely convinced about whether they really want—or need—to be there.)
  • Don’t go over an agenda item to help a latecomer catch up. Recapitulate the key points only if the latecomer’s inputs are necessary to what’s left on the agenda.
  • If you have a chronic latecomer, check if he has a schedule-conflict. Confirm that his participation is still relevant. If he doesn’t want to—or need not—attend the entire meeting, pull him to the top of the agenda. Let him contribute and leave.
  • Try to corral the chronic latecomers by stopping by their desks en route to the meeting.
  • Could you make the meeting more beneficial for all your attendees? Invite suggestions for mutual gain so that everyone feels more productive.

Also, be alert to power trippers who get a small thrill in keeping others waiting, and then requiring you to start over or recapitulate when they arrive.

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What Happens When You Talk About Too Many Goals

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To supplement this illustrious sketch by the British cartoonist Matt Pritchett, an excerpt from HuffPost’s article on “How Jeremy Corbyn Lost The Election,”

One big problem was the sheer size of the [Labour Party] manifesto and the number of policies on offer. Candidates complained that they didn’t have a single five-point pledge card like the one Tony Blair made famous. While the Tories had a simple message of ‘Get Brexit Done,’ Labour lacked a similarly easy ‘doorstep offer.’ “We had so much in the manifesto we almost had too much,” one senior source said. “It felt like none of it was cutting through. You needed to boil it down.”

“We tried to give a retail offer and also a grand vision and ended up falling between the two stools. To get across ‘you’ll be better off with Labour,’ we should have made our position clearer much earlier.”

Idea for Impact: Distill your goals into simple messages that others will find relevant and timely. When it comes to persuasion, clarity and conciseness are critical. Weak messages meander. Smart messages immediately express what’s important and help rally your resources towards your mission.

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Never Give a Boring Presentation Again

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When speaking to an audience, clarity and conciseness are critical.

Even the most exciting content can become meaningless if your audience can’t absorb your message.

When preparing a speech, begin at the end

Ask yourself, “If my audience can remember only three points from my presentation, what do I want them to remember?” Distill your message into three six-word bumper stickers. Frame your presentation around those three core messages.

If you’re addressing an audience that you aren’t familiar with, ask the organizers for the names of a half dozen people who will be in the audience. Contact them and find out about their backgrounds and their expectations for your presentation.

Don’t assume that ‘easy to understand’ could be interpreted as ‘too simple.’

Engage your audience effectively by quickly introducing your messages, perhaps with an interesting story or anecdote. Explain why you care your messages so deeply, and convince your audience members that they should, too.

Being short and snappy also helps you finish promptly and show respect for your audience’s schedules.

Idea for Impact: Don’t try to cover too much ground

A great speaker is made not by what they say but by what they choose not to say. Be clear on the purpose of your presentation and let that govern what content you include or exclude.

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