“So, tell me how your meeting went,” I said.
Nathan was a bit cheery. “It was really different. We have never had a meeting like that.”
“What was different?”
“I only made that one simple change at the beginning. I started with that exercise at the beginning. Good News. I asked everyone in the group to share one piece of Good News from the previous week.” Nathan was finally smiling.
“And?” I asked.
“At first, some were having difficulty. You know, thinking of something positive. If I had asked for Negative News, that would have been easy. But Good News was a struggle.”
“So, what did you learn?”
Nathan was finally seeing some progress. “Thinking about something positive requires work, but it moves people in the right direction. Once they began to work, the rest of the meeting stayed with the same momentum. It’s funny, the only thing I did differently was the way I started the meeting.”
I really enjoyed this post. I have heard of life coaches and psychiatrists using this at the start of a session to foster a positive mindset. I had never thought of using it for a meeting. I think it also is a better ice breaker than something like ” tell me about your week”. I appreciate this simple change idea and will look to use it. Thank you for this idea.
I love this!