Sometimes meetings are like a stage occupied by an agenda, first.
Then there is a boss, of course. The audience is listening and waiting.
Sometimes meetings are like a stage occupied by an agenda, first.
Then there is a boss, of course. The audience is listening and waiting.
Some are waiting to the very end and beyond. They are silent.
The are two types of silents. The ones who do not have anything to say: they think about all kind of things but not about the meeting’s topic. Maybe what they will do tonight? Or, how to solve a private problem at home?
The other ones do very much think about the topic of the meeting but they do not voice their thoughts. They engage in a dialogue with the boss or the entire team in a silent way. It goes like that: They ask a question - mentally - and then they answer it in the same silent way. For example: "I'd like to propose a different way to deal with it, can I?" And the answer is: "It doesn't make sense to do it like that. Why do you even come up with this.” And it continues: "But nobody have asked me before what I think about it! And I'd like to say it now, ok?" And the answer: "Nobody cares about what you thought before. We don't change anything..." And so it goes. ?" It all happens in their head. A smart observer would notice how much they struggle and how intense this internal dialogue is. The only one who doesn't, is this very person as s-/he is caught up in this monologue that s-/he is 100% convinced is a dialogue. And nobody will ever find out what it was about. It hasn’t been voiced. Period.
The other group are the talkers. Again two types. The ones who are engaged and committed. They make their points, share their logic and listen to other participants' arguments. You are lucky if you have some of this kind in the meeting.
And the other talkers are just repeating other people statements in all kind of versions but with the same content. And I don't mean nodding, confirming, etc. I mean that they state their opinion in a way as it were something new and valuable. For example: Somebody says: "We shall try to involve controlling to ensure the correctness of the numbers." And a repeating talker says: "We shall not just go ahead without measuring it. Measuring it precisely." And another one says: "Creativity is nice but numbers are key. I mean real numbers that are proven." And so it goes...
The stage gets crowded by many repeating talkers. There are so many that one cannot see the main characters, let alone understand what the play is about. In the worst case, the person with the most eloquent talking gets the job and the attention follows the words, words, words... Or I shall say the quotes, quotes, quotes. As the repeating talkers just forget to add the quotation marks and - it is a good practice - the original author. The copyrights are ignored and so are the authors.
...the hammer is useless as we have just allow to 'quote' the handle so many times, that we do not know which one is actually the original, well, the real one. It is useless. And all the nails are laughing...
My key takeaways:
1. MONOLOUGE IS THE BEST WAY TO AVOID DIALOUGE.
2. QUOTATION SIGNS ARE THE MOST MISSING PART OF SPEACHES.
3. LACK OF OWN THOUGHTS LEADS TO FOLLOWING.
How to lead now…
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