During meetings and conventions—and despite format experimentation over the years—the “sage on the stage” model remains the primary mode of information dissemination; that is, a speaker or panel addresses an audience via one-way communication.
However, when that audience breaks into smaller think tank groups, or even teams of familiar peers, that cohesive feeling can shrink along with the group size, leaving some attendees feeling that little was accomplished or feeling just plain left out.
According to a recent Harvard Business Review analysis, such “meeting dysfunction” can occur for a variety of reasons, many recognizable from interactions with colleagues or even friend groups. Here’s an unpopular one: conversation hijacking, which happens when someone’s concerns are met with another person raising their own concerns. Then there’s failure to listen, annoying among friends but a major time waster when someone in a meeting asks a question that was answered 10 minutes before.
So what is the key to effective meetings? According to the Harvard analysis, it all boils down to curiosity. Following are six ways team leaders can use curiosity to engage their groups in productive conversation that leads to achieving shared objectives.
Define the Problem Before Trying to Solve it
Almost everyone is too ready to provide solutions. But a solutions-first, ask-questions-later approach rarely works because it leaves people feeling unheard and unseen. Instead, it’s often necessary to dig first to discover the degree, severity, or extent of a problem and clarify the challenge.
If you hear others ready to jump headfirst into solving, try to rein the group in by saying something like, “Before we solve, can we step back and fully define the problem? I’m curious how each of us would frame the problem in a sentence.”
Let Your Colleague Own the Story
Thinking we’re being empathetic, we often jump in with our own story and point of view. Instead of the speaker and their issue being the focus, our attention pivots to our own challenges and issues. Even if your situation is identical (a rare occurrence), refrain from saying, “Me too.” Instead, try, “I have encountered a similar situation. Happy to share that later. For now, I’d love to learn more about your specific thoughts.”
Defer Judgment
Criticism and praise, when offered constructively, have their place but they are also forms of judgment, especially when we rush into them. Feedback is important but judgment is the opposite of curiosity.
Instead, pause. Withhold your initial feedback (positive or negative), and remain open to learning, hearing other possibilities, and allowing the other person to feel seen and understood. Doing this creates “judgment free” zones allowing people to more safely express their true sentiments.
Two simple words can help with this: “Say more.” Others are then more likely to share what’s truly on their mind rather than give what many refer to in the business world as a watermelon: green (all good) on the outside and red (festering) on the inside.
Note Your Emotions
Carelessly expressing our unfiltered emotions can stop a conversation cold, while suppressing them can frustrate us. Instead of bubbling up with emotions that can impede good communication—anger, frustration, sarcasm, even humor—take an internal temperature of how you feel.
If you want to be curious, you need to avoid hiding behind the masks of humor or sarcasm. Ask yourself what positive end will be served with sarcastic phrases like “You think?” “You don’t say!” and “I’ve never heard that before.” When the problem is managing our emotions instead of managing the room, keeping unfiltered emotions out leaves us free to tackle the real problems.
Make Space for Others’ Feelings
This may seem counterintuitive to the previous point, but even as we seek to make our communications non-emotional, not everyone will. Try to avoid minimizing the concerns of others. When someone expresses a valid grievance, like “We keep repeating questions that have already been asked,” don’t respond with a non-statement like “At least we’re asking questions.”
Instead, say “Sounds like that’s frustrating.” Your team member or colleague will feel heard and free to provide specifics on the behavior in question instead of clamming up because, apparently, you don’t think there’s a problem.
Listen to Learn
It takes time and effort to make good decisions and solve real problems. Wanting immediate feel-good results frustrates more often than it reassures. Reassurances often boomerang in the opposite direction of their intended goal by raising the speaker’s anxiety as they feel misunderstood. Instead of reassurances like “don’t worry,” make sure you hear and understand the message with an aim to learn more.
When difficult topics are skirted and left festering, team members might find an outlet in unhealthy side conversations outside the room, not directly with the pertinent people. But by tuning into each other with curiosity and curbing the desire to immediately solve, you learn to work better together and become a team invested in a shared outcome rather than individual agendas.
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