CEO, Clear Impact Consulting Group. Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Organizational/Team Effectiveness.
getty
As I coach my clients, sometimes I think of simple but highly practical pieces of advice to share that my clients have found very valuable. This is one of them.
You've had a productive meeting with your team or with one of your direct reports. You've had a good discussion. Now, if you're like most leaders, you're about to make an easily avoidable mistake. You quickly summarize everyone's action items and then close the meeting.
Why is this a mistake?
I love this saying: "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
1. First, even if everyone nods their head in agreement, you have no idea if they actually have the same understanding as you. There are at least two reasons for this:
1a. The first is that communication is fraught with challenges. Even if they think they understood what you said, you don't know this is true.
Want to scare yourself? Make a general statement to your team about almost anything, and then ask everyone to write down what they understood about what you said. Let them know this isn't a test for them but rather a way for you to check on communication challenges. You'll probably be surprised at the discrepancies in their "understandings."
1b. The second reason is that even if they're confused, given the nature of organizational hierarchy, they may well be resistant to say that they're confused, either because they think it will reflect poorly on them or because they're not sure you'd welcome hearing this.
There was an executive meeting with one of our client organizations on an important and controversial topic. When we spoke with different people who attended, there were many different opinions on whether a decision had even been made and, if so, what decision this was. And these were very senior leaders. No one felt comfortable checking their understanding.
2. The other important factor is that there's much more buy-in when people hear themselves say, in their own words, what they've committed to and the timeline for that.
So, as you can guess, the solution here is a simple one. At the end of a meeting ask everyone to say, in their own words, what they've agreed to do and by when. You do the same for any commitments you've made. It's a crisp ending to a meeting, whether with your team or in a one-on-one.
I'll end with a quick story about the challenges in communication. In the 1970s, a friend and I decided to learn to skydive. This was when your first jump was solo, rather than tethered to someone else. We went through lots of training on the ground, but nothing prepared me for going up in a little one-seater plane, sort of like a flying telephone booth, and saying to myself, as the trees got smaller and smaller, "I'm going up with this plane but not going down with this plane." Gulp.
The jumpmaster gave the first command, "Sit in the door." Then the second one, "Stand on the wing." This required holding the strut and inching out so that only your toes were on the wing. Double gulp.
Then he yelled something at me, and I heard, and repeated, "No?" I thought I was saved! Perhaps the conditions were bad and we had to go back down. Again he yelled a command, and again I repeated back what I'd heard, "No?" Finally, for the third time, he said "Go!" And I jumped. My mind had heard what it wanted to hear, not what he was saying.
The experience, by the way, was awesome.
So try this simple piece of advice. End your meeting with everyone saying, in their own words, what they've agreed to do and by when. This gives you a chance to correct any misunderstandings, and there's much more buy-in to their actions.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
