Life is busy. The pace of change is fast. Attention is short. The demand on your poor brain’s ability to focus and concentrate on one thing is higher than ever. Add into that mix fatigue from an enduring pandemic, and it is any wonder that our cognitive load feels maxed out most days?
Building a meaningful and joy-filled life is about finding the courage within yourself to go for what you truly want.For years I have been a huge theater fan, especially musical theater. The truth is I have always had a secret hankering to be on the live stage. But I never took it on – and have lived with that regret of “What if…?” for decades.
Calibrate is about taking a moment before you even begin that meeting to really tune in and see how are you doing before you get into the room. When you are calibrated, it really gives you a much better chance to make sure that your intention and the impact that your words and your demeanor has with people are in perfect alignment.
In the stress of the moment, sometimes people’s focus gets too narrow. This is just the way our brain works. When our amygdala gets fired up and we get under that stress, we literally develop tunnel vision.
What that can look like in a meeting or in a conversation with people is what we’re focusing on the wrong things. We’re trying to figure out and address these symptoms, and not really stepping back and taking that time to figure out, “Well, why are these problems occurring in the first place?” We can get that kind of fixated perspective, and that’s not helpful when you really want to find a sustainable and effective solution.
With the mix of working environments now, still a lot of work is happening virtually with people. There’s a lot where we’re going to be having hybrid situations. Some people meeting in person, and other people participating in that through some sort of video conference or other systems. There’s a lot more to think about if you want to design a conversation that counts, that is inclusive of everybody, but is smooth for you to run. You can really be present to the people and not be overwhelmed and overloaded with the process and the technology of bringing all of this together.
Let’s face it, there’s always more work than you have time to get done. Plus we’re trying to do that from this base level of ongoing chronic stress that we had from shifting to working virtually to maybe working hybrid part of the time or different people working in different ways. People are kind of ragged and our emotional resilience is down. We don’t bounce back,we don’t have that same kind of ability to pick ourselves up when we face a challengeThe challenge is that when there’s tough work to do, sometimes we default to , “We just got to get this work done. Let’s focus on the to-do list and let’s check those things off”. To-do lists are important planning, tools and making sure you’re getting everything organized the way it needs to get organized. The thing is, it’s not just about the checklist. It’s not just about the transaction.
I was talking to a colleague recently and she made the observation that so few managers had learned how to run effective and engaging meetings. To which I said, “You know, that’s true AND it’s not their fault..” Let’s just think about it here for a moment. A lot of managers used to be colleagues of the people that they’re now managing. Maybe some of them got that promotion because they’re really great at the tech skills, but perhaps not so great at the people skills.
Let’s face it, this isn’t something where you can read a book or even go to a workshop once or twice, and all of the sudden… (snap!) you’re able to run a meeting with a complexity of group dynamics that are always going to be at play.
The problem when you’re busy talking all the time and giving all the answers to people, is it’s not a discussion anymore. It’s not really even a dialogue. It becomes more of a presentation, it’s a one-way communication. Honestly, there’s a problem with that. You’re not hearing all the voices in the room, which is really important. As a result, you might be missing some key insights, and ideas, and perspectives that you need to take into account.
Let me tell you about what a conversation that counts is NOT. You might have experienced one of these recently. It is the kind of meeting where it lacks a purpose. Did we need to have the meeting? When you get in there, there’s always crazy dynamics of how people participate. The loud people are dominating the conversation. There’s a whole bunch of people who are just so quiet, you don’t know where they’re at on an issue. This is true just as much in-person meetings as it is in virtual meetings. It can be really tricky. So how do you navigate those power dynamics?
Gallup’s survey also shows us that actually 35% of managers are themselves not engaged in the work. If you have a manager who is not engaged in the work is it any wonder that a lot of organizations are still struggling to keep great people? Going through that hamster wheel of hiring people, on-boarding new people, then how do you keep that good talent.
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