The complexity of working in a hybrid setting were very highlighted for me this past week as I attended my first hybrid choir rehearsal! I’m keenly missing not being able to perform with my musical theatre group due to Covid the last 2 seasons, so joining a choir virtually last year was a real source of joy for me. This season my musical director is planning for a hybrid season as case counts continue to vary and singing in groups is still fairly restricted (masked, small numbers, limited time, lots of social distancing).  Here’s a picture of my musical director in action – manning his keyboard, multiple mics and monitors and the 14 of us who were in person and the other dozen or so who were on zoom. Not an easy feat, and perhaps you’re doing a version of that yourself in running your own hybrid meetings!

I’m also really excited to share with you this week’s video tip called “Lead with Relationship”  This particular topic is a bit of a pet peeve of mine when leaders forget the need to nurture relationships because they stay so focused on the nuts and bolts and make meetings feel very transactional. As always, the video offers a few practical tips that you can apply right away.

TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO

Hi everyone, it’s Carolyn Ellis from Brilliancemastery.com, and thank you for joining me for this short video today. This video is part of an ongoing series I created called Lead Conversations That Count  where I’m sharing some tips and insights from my book Lead Conversations That Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings.

I can’t wait to share today’s tip with you. It’s called Lead with Relationship. This is, I think, such an important tip. It’s a big bug-a-boo and pet peeve of mine, so I’m really happy to share with you about it today.

Here’s the thing, with the context that we work in, 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. Homeschooling our kids, not homeschooling our kids. There’s just so much on our collective place especially in the last couple years. It’s hard. 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 challenge. People kind of cranky-pants these days, I find.

The 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. What you really need to focus on, I’m arguing, is on the quality of relationships. Make your focus when you’re leading that meeting more relational than transactional. Here’s the thing, when relationships are strong and  people trust each other, you really have that sense that everybody’s got everybody’s back. Every metric that you want to measure, productivity, efficiency, your resilience, your innovation, all of that will go up and the friction in the system will reduce. When relationships are not good, they’re not healthy, people are  really  combative, or withdrawn, or disengaged, everything. Even the basics of getting work done gets a lot harder. And that is just so tough.

I want to give you a couple of tips today to help you lead with relationship.

The first tip is called Orient. Orient is actually a framework that I use, it is the second step in my COUNT Roadmap model that I present in the book. It’s about taking the time to really put yourself in the shoes of people that are going to be in that meeting. You’re not just looking at the agenda. “What do we have to do? What are we going to talk about?”, but you take them over to really look at what’s the perspective from the eyes of those people that you’re working with. Dial up your empathy and just notice what are some needs that maybe not on the agenda are likely to show up and you’ re going to have to address.  So when you do that orient stuff you’re naturally teeing yourself up to be in a more effective position in terms of supporting, helping and nurturing relationships.

The second tip I want to share with you is to listen to the Wisdom in the Room. This really is a real trap for people. Meetings are not all about just talking at people through a camera. It’s really about how do you create space for people to be welcome to come in and share their views, share their questions, ask and confront people. To say, “Wait. Is this the right path that we should be going down now?” We really need to think that especially in the context of virtual and hybrid meetings. But how do we make sure that we’re listening and asking more and telling and just monologue-ing a lot less?

Third tip for you today is to Acknowledge People. Maybe this is going back to something that your parents told you when you were growing up, but I mean, it’s so important. We often forget this because it never shows up on a corporate to-do list, acknowledge people at the end of a meeting. I don’t talk about just acknowledging people at the end of a meeting, “Hey, good work everybody. Thanks so much for being here.” I’m talking about really making it personal. So be specific and how you name that acknowledgement. “Jerry, that was a great point. You really made me understand this issue differently. Thank you for raising that issue.” Sending an email afterwards to say, “I thought that was a really cool idea. Do you need some support with that? Thank you so much for your initiative”.

Do those little things to really acknowledge people from a generous and authentic place. I think it sets a beautiful tone in the team. And also, guess what? You’re the leader of the meeting, people will follow suit. So they’re going to follow the example that you set. Can you imagine what  kind of a team environment you can create if you set that tone of natural, authentic acknowledgement on a regular basis? Ooh, I would want to go to your next meeting.

So there you have it, three tips for today. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to send me an email. I would love to hear from you. If there’s any support that you might need in terms of what you’re doing to do great work in your organization, I’d be happy to connect with you  and have a chat. Thanks so much, and we’ll see you again soon.