I was sitting at the back, observing the meeting. Edward was struggling to get participation and when he got it, the response was ill formed, almost off topic.

I pulled Edward aside during the first break. “I can see you are a little frustrated. You ask a question and no one raises their hand. After a few seconds, you can’t stand the silence, so you answer your own question. And when someone does answer, they are talking off the top of their head.”

“Yep, that’s the way it usually goes. Kind of a dull group, don’t you think?” Edward replied.

“Not at all,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “This will take some courage and some patience, but your group will brighten immediately. Never let them talk off the top of their head. Every time you ask a question to the group, ask them to write down their response. Just one sentence or a phrase, but they have to write their response first. Now that means you will have to endure a little silence, but not more than you are enduring now, only this time it is planned silence. Ask each team member to write their response, then put down their pen, so you will know they have an idea. Then, wait.”

Edward went back into the meeting and he posed the next question to the group. He asked them to write down their response. Then he waited. Twenty seconds later, seven people were ready to participate, and their ideas were good because they were no longer talking off the top of their heads. -TF

The meeting took a sudden turn for the worse when Emil stood up, walked over in front of Sharon and slammed down the report. Up to then, things had been ambling along with the usual finger pointing, back biting and general nastiness. Now, there was real confrontation.

The GPS Project had been off track for several weeks and had been the whipping post of every department meeting in the past 14 days. As I listened, it occurred to me that, what had been said, was true. The problem was in the structure of the conversation, or the lack of it, that prevented the team from making progress.

I suggested a Gap Analysis. This is quick and easy. Take a flipchart piece of paper and make three columns. Column 3 is used to define what we expected. This could come from any list of goals, benchmarks or milestones. Column 1 is to document what we got, instead. This is what actually happened in relation to the expectation. The middle column is the gap, which can now be used to document what actions can be taken to close the gap.

This simple structure can be used to turn the whining, moaning and complaining into a useful conversation. -TF

The meeting had come to a standstill. Oh, Marion was still talking, but no one was listening. No one was thinking, no one was contributing.

“Marion, stop!” There was an immediate startled moment in the room. “In one sentence, Marion, what is the issue we are talking about?”

“Well, it’s not really an issue, it’s just an update on the Phoenix project, just the stuff that happened last week.”

“That’s not true, Marion. This is not just a report on what happened last week. The Phoenix project is four weeks behind schedule, the clients pissed off and we don’t have a clue what is driving it into the ground.”

Simple exercise. Pair off the team members and give them the following assignment: Create twelve questions designed to expose what needs to be corrected on the Phoenix project. Only questions are allowed. Time frame: Six minutes to create the questions.

Six minutes later, this meeting had a dramatic change in mood, tempo and attitude. Marion was no longer comfortable responding to the questions. It is possible we were finally talking about something real. -TF