Manage discussions more effectively and achieve real outcomes…
Welcome to my summer series where each blog post contains my favourite tip or idea for one aspect of your professional life.
Today, we’ll tackle the challenge of getting people with different perspectives on the same page.
I bet you’ve been in meetings where everyone talks at each other for 55min, only to realise during the last 5min that they haven’t reached an agreement and haven’t made any progress. So there will be more meetings and probably still no outcome.
My tip: Draw a picture.
Whether you’re discussing team structures, processes, responsibilities, data pipelines or product roadmaps, a picture helps. It can be a simple diagram of boxes and lines and it will give you a basis for the discussion.
With this picture on your whiteboard (or screen), get people’s perspectives to ensure it accurately represents the current state and captures proposed changes.
Benefits of this approach:
- A picture makes abstract concepts more tangible
- Everyone can point at it, ask questions, add information
- People can refer to it later and can share it easily afterwards
Try it in your meetings this week. I bet you’ll reach an outcome quicker and people will find it easier to go away, ready to take action.
Have a great week!
Eva
P.S. Let me help you create more awesome moments in your work day. I have one coaching spot available in June. Interested? Simply email me with the heading “career coaching” and let’s chat!