Let’s say you’ve got a group with a little free-floating rage. Nothing too terrible, just a little, you know, frustration, marked by an inability to move on, perhaps for years. You can try the old chestnut where you list all the issues, declare them in the past and agree never to speak of them again. Except you’ve just spent 30-60 (or more!) minutes reinforcing the complaints and negativity, amping up the limbic system and reinforcing the very neuronal paths you want to extinguish. Probably not the best approach. And, saying “you can’t talk about that” just drives them underground. Besides, you want these complaints as a springboard for problem-solving. What you need is a way to hold them differently, a way to create some transformation space around them. Here are two ideas:

1. Have pairs, trios or some other subgroup create skits depicting the frustrating situation then follow that up with one depicting the situation as they’ like it to be. Ideally, you’d ask them to do something creative with this: act it out as if everyone were animals, do a group sculpture showing the relative position of everyone in the drama, perform a song, limerick or haiku - something that engages a different part of the brain than the part that’s stuck. Watch all the performances, then, in the debrief, use the positive version as a spring board for action planning.

2. Rework the board game CLUE! This is riskier, faster, high-energy fun. Have the group generate new CLUE! solutions based on the frustrating situation. You can prime the pump by making the following three lists:
Places (can include virtual places)
Categories of people (probably job titles)
Murder weapons (these can be objects or behaviors)

After you’ve had the group list all three, have them generate new solutions in this format:
It was (category of person) in the (place) with a (murder weapon).

Examples:
It was the executive in the boardroom with a powerpoint
It was HR in the computer with an email

After they’ve had their fun with others, have them generate some more, this time using this format:

It was the team member in the (place) with the (murder weapon).

This gives the group a fun and easy way to make the shift from blaming others to seeing their own culpability and returning them to a sense of personal power. Productive action planning follows naturally.

First came the desire. After the desire came the giddy excitement. After the excitement came the clear goals. After the goals, the false starts. After the false starts, the shame. After the shame came the mean voices. After the mean voices, terror descends like a visit from the dysfunctional family you moved across the country to avoid. Their voices reverberate through the house, explaining in detail why every idea you’ve ever had cannot work. Your excitement evaporates, the desire begins to seem like a weakness or a character flaw. The garage that’s been a mess for 17 years becomes the most important task on earth: You must clean it, now. The exciting project can wait. The oscillation has set in: excitement, fear, distraction, shame, self-criticism; Repeat. It’s exhausting to stay in one place. We are built for movement, no matter what Uncle Harry whispers to Aunt Agnus as they roll their eyes and smirk.

This is the cycle I see in my clients. The project they start, humbly, in the small corner of the organization that is theirs somehow becomes the center of the universe, and a threat to its orderly existence. So, they stop cold, disappointing those who had been relying on their leadership.

This is the cycle I experience myself, never more than this year when I declared that I would publish.

It does seem that the bolder and more clear the goal, the more fierce is the resistance to it. Thing is, resistance is merely a sign of anxiety, and anxiety is like sweat: A by-product. It’s not feedback. It’s not a warning of dire consequences to come. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong or you should stop. It means you’re doing. That’s it. Anxiety is the by-product of change like sweat is the by-product of exercise. And, just like sweat, you brush anxiety out of your eyes and keep going.

If you pause for too long, you’ll start to believe the voices you hear. If you linger longer, what the voices whisper will become the truth of you experience. Uncle Harry and Aunt Agnes will nod in that irritating way they have.

Instead, find a way to keep moving toward your desire. Here’s what I do:

1. Pick a smaller goal, a tiny, insignificant first step. I want to write, right? I know that when I set that intention, the ideas start popping up at the most inconvenient times. So my first tiny step was to make sure I had post-it notes and a pen everywhere I might need them: in the car, in the bathroom, next to the bed, in my gym bag. A tiny step, so easy to do, it engenders no resistance. It’s even kinda fun.

2. Resolve to do it badly. Really badly. Epically, catastrophically badly. Like the grammar of those last 2 sentences. Annie Lamott encourages her students to write a “shitty first draft.” Years ago I read about a group of friends who got together weekly for “bad art night.” Their goal was to have fun creating. Their one rule was that anyone who got into turning their art piece into a thing of quality had to immediately “wreck” it.

3. Get help. When your mind like a rat wheel. going over and over the same info, but getting nowhere, it’s time to get help. Talk to someone. Think out loud. Find a forum online and post an inquiry. Hire someone to help you. I was struggling with a vexing pellet stove problem that’s gone on for 2 years. No one I’ve talked to could help me. I read, posted to forums, brooded and froze all last winter without heat. The other day, I was talking to a neighbor and he suggested the approach I’ll be trying next week. It was a much better idea than the one I’d settled on and was avoiding. Now I’m excited and energized.

4. Pick much larger goal, one that shocks all mean voices to silence. No, bigger than that. Really, it should crack you up with it’s audacity. If it’s crazy enough, it will make you smile inside. It’s important that you have no idea how to accomplish it.

5. Take a walk. If I don’t sweat profusely at least 4 times a week, I’m overrun with stress. In order to move forward toward my goals, I’ve got to be spending myself physically. It gives me energy and it shows me how inexhaustible my source is. It orders my thoughts too.

6. Do something you’ve always wanted to do, but were afraid to. Maybe it seems frivolous, or you could never be a person who does that, or you can’t possibly learn it. Then do it. Sometimes, the nasty voices become so involved with saving you from that crazy endeavor, it’s easier to evade them on other topics.

I still remember buying my first tambourine. I’d fallen in love with the middle eastern style of playing and gone to a workshop to try it out. I became so besotted, I bought a professional quality, beginner’s tambourine for $75.00. All through the long drive home, I heard my mother’s voice saying “75 dollars for a TAMBOURINE?” For some reason, this cracked me up and a talked and joked with that voice all the way home, Years later when I bought a tambourine costing 10 times that much, mom had nothing more to add.

My uncle owns a garage that specializes in tires. When I’m in town for a visit, I go to the garage and talk to him while he works. I watch him balance each tire before he mounts it. It’s mesmerizing to watch the tire wobble on the balancing machine, and to watch his hands notice the exact place the tire needs a small weight pounded into the rim. He’s been doing this so long (he’s 86), he’s a tire psychic. After he’s done, it’s satisfying to watch the way tire spins when it’s perfectly balanced. It doesn’t wobble. With one tiny push, it spins and floats. It’s light as a feather, a perpetual motion tire.

Putting a balanced tire on a car makes the whole car run better: The tires want to spin! With balanced tires, the car gets better mileage, and it’s more fun to drive.

Aligning the front end of the car distributes the load evenly. It feels like less weight. It handles more easily, and is more responsive to the driver. The tire appears light as a feather when it’s balanced, and the car seems to weight less when it’s aligned.

It’s these two things that add up to relevance: You balance each task before you add it to the mix. You make sure the task is aligned with the goals of the department and the company, and then you align them with the goals of the person doing the task. Same workload, but it’s easier to carry. Same tasks, but they seem to spin on their own. We’ve all worked like this: It’s fun.

Balancing the task
A task will spin on it’s own when nothing is bogging it down. When a task wobbles and threatens to lose momentum, we’re quick to point to the motivation, skills and even the character of the person doing the task. And, that is one element of balancing the task: Making sure the task fits the skills of the person doing it. But, the other elements can be far more important: Is the task properly budgeted for, adequately staffed, and has it’s impact been thought out? Is there someone in the organization who hates what this task or project and has the power to stop it? Is there another department or person who’s life will be made miserable if this task is completed? Anticipating these obstacles and planning for them eliminates the wobble. Being blind-sided by them wipes out momentum.

And, finally, if this task is done successfully, will the person be rewarded or punished for it? This one is worth lingering on: If I give you a difficult, gnarly project and you knock it out of the park, is giving you another tricky, difficult project a reward or a punishment? This is personal and can vary moment-to-moment. If you can’t answer that question for everyone who works for you, you’ll never be able to get a task to spin.

Aligning the task with the organization and the person: WIIFM.
Nothing gives a task wings like alignment. You’ve seen how people can work when they believe in something. You’ve experienced it yourself: When the task matches your talents and goals, it’s worth all the energy it takes. That’s how you know it’s aligned with the person doing it. Organizational alignment shows up in organizational commitment: People walk their talk, the project is funded, when people get wind of what you’re doing, they get involved and spend time with you. It’s easy to get appointments with stakeholders, and they help you. You can see the momentum build.

WIIFM - What’s in it for me? - is always operating, for the organization and each person in it. Fighting it doesn’t work for long. Joining it builds momentum. Which will you choose? Write and let me know - I’d love to hear about how you navigate this.

Measurement is about paying attention to the right things at the right time. It’s not about enslaving yourself to meaningless numbers, and driving yourself mercilessly to achieve them. Unless, for your business, that is the right thing to be paying attention to. What you measure is what you and others will pay the most attention to and focus their efforts on. It’s what will grow and change about your business. Choosing what you will attend to shows others what you are committed to. Measurement is potent that way. Which is why some of us shy away from it: What if we choose the wrong thing to watch and people start acting in unexpected ways? Choosing what to measure and how to measure it is the tricky part.

WHAT TO MEASURE: Some Guidelines

Relax. If it’s worth doing - and it is - it’s worth doing badly. Just pick something, track it for a bit and see if it gets you the behavior and results you want. If it doesn’t, notice that and choose something else. If this is explicitly collaborative process - that is, you do it out loud - that’s even better. Then everyone sees that paying attention and making adjustments is normal, natural and everybody’s business.

Expect it to be awkward at first. Measuring makes performance public. This makes some of us squirm. We’ll adjust as long as the attention is fair, kind and has some connection with what matters, both to us and for the business. In fact, when you get this right, it’s like having the wind under your wings.

Some of what you pay attention to can shift over time. For a new business, a focus on cash flow is the right thing. Most new businesses find that their attention naturally goes here, because if cash flow isn’t primary, the business won’t make it to the next stage. For a more mature business, a focus on cash flow stunts growth rather than supports it. On a team, an exclusive focus on goals can lead to a lack of team behaviors. When you see team members undercutting each other, look at what you’re measuring and adjust it.

Some of what you measure will not shift over time. Your company values are on this list, as are the goals and performance measures that define your business. These two components make up your company’s identity. Measuring these is like checking your route you’re driving against the directions you got form mapquest: Are you still on track for your original destination? Are you still behaving according to the values you established for yourself? These two things can beat each other up - if you stop attending to one of them, that one will fall by the wayside.

HOW TO MEASURE

You can count anything if you can see it and name it, the more specifically, the better. Most of us count money, and count how many activities we complete. That’s a good start. Even better is finding a way to count results, rather than just activities. Is your 90% on-time delivery rate (an easy to count activity) pleasing your customers (the trickier to count result). They key here is to look for the observable behavior and count that. What do customers do when they aren’t pleased? Two things: They complain and they use someone else. So, count customer compliments vs. complaints and count customers retained and customers lost. Make sure to ask them why they stay or go.

What about so-called “soft skills:” How do you count those? Remember: If you can see it and specify it, you can count it. Let’s take the example of “teamwork.” Everybody wants good teamwork. Trouble is, we often don’t specify what we mean by that. This is like saying “I want to business growth” without specifying what you mean (more business in the stores you have, or more stores; more students in the classes you offer, or more classes, and so on). If we do specify what we mean, we don’t get down to the level of observable behavior - what do people who are team players do? How often, and with what sort of result? If you’re stymied at this point, ask yourself how you know you lack teamwork? Chances are, it’s because of something you see or hear. Behaviors are what you see or hear, like a lack of asking for help or receiving it. Turn these around - state them in the positive - set a target, and start counting.

You may also see a lack of teamwork show up in your business results, often in poor customer service, as when one team member throws a customer concern over the wall and hopes that someone else will attend to it, but without making sure this happens. “Throwing it over the wall” and “dropping balls” are two ways lack of teamwork makes itself visible. Turn these around, set a target, and count start counting.

Make it easy and if at all possible, fun. If it’s too complicated, you won’t do it. Keep it simple, easy to do and small. If it’s handled lightly and with humor, you’ll increase willingness a hundred-fold.

Change it up. If you don’t, everyone will start phoning it in or gaming the measurements you’ve chosen.

What’s your experience with this? Your wisdom is welcome in the comments below.

“That was a great report!” vs.”I loved the way you used white space in that report and the pull quotes on the side were pure genius. Best of all though, was the content: Clear, concise and at exactly the right level of detail. The tone you used was also spot on: Casual and accessible without being condescending. Thank you for doing such a great job.”

“All weekly status reports must be completed in a timely manner.” vs.
“Weekly status reports are due by noon every Friday. Please email them to me using the attached format.”

“I want you to lead this project. You’ve shown such exemplary leadership, I know you’re up to it. Any questions?” vs.
“Biff, the plunger improvement project needs your skills. I’ve watched you pull together teams that were fighting and get them working together to come up with innovative approaches. The fly swatter improvement project you led was breath-taking. No one else would have thought to use the fly’s sense of smell against it like that. We need that kind of breakthrough thinking here. What questions do you have so far?”

Specific. It’s a matter of giving someone enough information to be successful rather than giving them a vague notion and shoving them off a cliff. When you follow-up, you find out how unclear you are. These too aspects of the SMART goals create an ideal communication loop.

And there’s a bonus: When you are specific, you find out exactly how much control you are willing to give up. Here’s the surprising part:

The more specifc you are, they less likely you are to micro-manage. I think we often believe that when we are vague, we are showing respect, and giving them plenty of room. There are 2 problems with this: 1) Being vague means you are asking someone to read your mind. This is not a management skill. 2) Being vague is what we do when we aren’t ready to give up control. In either case, the see-sawing begins: Vague directions and expressions of confidence alternate with intense micro-managing or doing it yourself. There are many, many flavors between giving someone absolute freedom and micro-managing them within an inch of their lives.

When you’re specific, it gives someone a more precise target to shoot for. It lets you know when to step in and when to butt out. When you are specific about what you want to see, what you liked, what you want done, you will be more comfortable leaving how it gets done to someone else. Conversely, when you are vague about what you want, your only recourse is to micro-manage. That’s because the specifcs you thought obvious aren’t. Not until you speak them. My advice: Do this in the beginning so your employees can spend their energy producing amazing work rather than trying to guess what’s in your head. The world is still waiting for a breakthrough plunger technology.

SMART goals: No concept is more important to being an excellent manager of groups or individuals. SMART goals can set you free. They can set your employees free. They are the key to successful delegation. However, their misuse can lead to senseless micro-management, planning overkill and employee ennui. I thought I’d write a reliable guide to walking the fine line between using SMART goals to free you and your peeps, and rendering them listless with managerial overkill.

Over the years, a couple of the letters in the SMART acronym have taken on a life of their own. I’ll do what I can to trim them back a bit. Here are the versions I’ve come across:
S = specific
M=measurable, memorable
A=Achievable, actionable
R=relevant, realistic
T=timely, time-bound

I’m going to start with T. For one thing, it’s the easiest to do. Even more important though is this: It’s the key to managing energy, and managing energy is the key to performance. Without a deadline, even the most specific, measurable, important goal flops around like loose string on Itzak Perlman’s Stradivarius.

Nothing tightens up a team like a deadline. And, nothing ensures a deadline will be met like setting a follow-up date. That’s all it takes, really: Give a specific deadline, like “Saturday, 10:00am,” then set a follow-up date to check on progress: “Let’s talk on the phone in 3 days - how about 3:00 on Wednesday?”

You’ll be astonished at how quickly things start to move.

I can almost hear your objections: “But, Liz, isn’t that treating adults like children?” Or, “Why should I have to babysit my employees? They’re professionals. They know what to do - they should just do it.”

Except:  You don’t set follow-up dates for them. You set them for you. Setting and keeping follow-up dates are what allows you to manage a project without having to step in and do it yourself. Follow-up dates give you all the opportunities you need to manage well. Here’s what I mean:

• Setting a follow-up date shows your commitment to the goal or task. Time spent is how you show people what’s important. When something is a high priority, you make time for it.

• Setting a follow-up date shows your commitment to them. Time spent is how you show people that they are important to you.

• Setting a follow up date gives you easy access to teachable moments. Regular contact makes this easier. The result is better alignment, early course correction and - best of all - the ability to express appreciation often.

• Setting a follow-up date keeps you both current. Has there been change in the priority of this project? In relevant information?  Regular follow-up dates make it easy to pass this information along.

You see? All the critical tasks of a manager, there in easy, bite-sized pieces, built right into the fabric of your day. No inertia to break through, no big hill to climb to reach your goal. Follow-up dates enable you to tag on to the energy and momentum of the actual work while working your management agenda. They are a twofer.

But the primary reason you set a follow-up date may surprise you: It will give you instant feedback about how clear you were in the first place. And, take it from one who knows: You weren’t nearly as clear as you thought you were. You weren’t as comprehensive either. You may have forgotten some critical detail, or failed to think things through to a logical conclusion. Follow-up meetings show you this with painful clarity. It can be embarrassing to respond to questions that arise during a follow-up meeting, but it will be some of the best time you’ve ever spent.

Next week: S is for specific.

As always, I welcome your ideas, input and stories.

“What work do you do?”  On a 3-hour van ride from Portland to Seattle, I’m getting acquainted with my traveling companion, a young man with cerebral palsy and an expressive face.

I look at him and quickly calculate:  late teens, smart, no corporate experience, disabled.  I think:  no jargon, no obfuscation, no complicated theory.  I’ve got to come clean.

“I teach people how to get along with each other and get things done.  At the same time.”

His eyebrows shoot up and his face brightens.  He nods.  He GETS it!   It may be the first time I’ve gotten it out in a sentence, and I’m grateful for the exchange:  Finally, the Cliff Notes version.

What I love about those two sentences is that they leave nothing out.  They describe what it takes to lead in a team-based world.  What it takes to succeed.  Get along with others.  Get things done.   Relationship and task, not one at the expense of the other. 

If work were a rowboat, you’d want to row with both oars in the water, pulling equally.  Pull more with one than the other and you go off course.  Row with only one and you go in a circle.

It’s so easy to forget this.

Right now, I’m working with an organization that’s in love with email and chasing a huge backlog of tasks.  They get a lot of tasks done via email, which is a good thing.  Email is good for tasks.   Face-to-face is better for relationships.  Too many transactions by email and you’re putting quite a load on relationships.

How do you know which oar to pull on?

In a rowboat, you face backwards – away from your goal.  You can’t see where you’re going.  What you do is pick a point on the horizon that’s opposite where you want to go and row so that you are moving away from that point.  When you pull too hard with one or the other oar, you veer off course.  In a rowboat, it takes commitment to maintain that unwavering focus.

It’s like that at work too.  The minute you see that you’re headed off course – someone misunderstands you, HR or legal enters your project wants to add months to it, your team stalls and you don’t know why – the temptation is to pull harder on the task oar.  You send the email explaining the merits of the project, the necessity of the timeline, how you’re executive sponsor is bigger than theirs.  It’s a natural reaction to start pulling with the task oar.  Now your boat is going in a circle and you’re very tired.

This is the time to put down the task oar and put some energy into the relationship oar.  Call the person in HR and listen.  Get to know their point of view.  Make a connection with the person you’re talking to.  Listen for common ground.  Look for ways to move forward together.  If you can’t find any, admit it.   Impasses happen. 

If you’ve got to part company, do it face-to-face when you can, on the phone if you can’t.  Don’t do it via a snippy, self-justifying email.   I know you’ve got an impossible deadline and you think this will waste time.  Except it doesn’t.  Time spent honoring a relationship is never wasted.  It takes so much less time to talk to someone on the phone then it does to compose, send, then worry about the snippy email. 

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

You know how sometimes you feel kind of itchy, but you don’t know why? You’re not unhappy, or dissatisfied with anything in particular, you’re just not all in. That’s how I was when I got off the plane in Maui. So, when Rex got me singing in baggage claim, I started smiling deep inside, and that got my attention.

I woke up the next morning with one thought: I want a ukulele.

So I went to the local music store and bought one. I’m in love with it.

Until I notice that it won’t play in tune. Back to the store it must go, but not before I head to the shop of the guy who made it to make inquiries.

The maker’s shop is a room full of ukuleles. There’s an old/ageless man in the corner playing amazing uke and another sitting across from him strumming along. I plop down next to the strummer and make my confession about buying one of their ukes with bad intonation. I ask for help. They assure me that their ukes play in tune and that my new uke is hiding in that shop. Soon, one ukulele after another is being put in my hands and the old/ageless man is teaching me song after song. My partner, Carolyn, (who initially hoped this would be a quick transaction, gives in and) supplies the vocals in her lovely lilting soprano. 2 hours pass in ukulele bliss, but without a resolution to my problem: I love a ukulele that won’t play in tune. What to do?

In the morning, clarity dawns: Though completely besotted, I am unable to play anything out of tune, so I return it to the music store and confess to having perfect pitch. One of the owners is similarly afflicted. One after another, he puts all the expensive ukes in my hands to prove that they can play in tune. They can, and beautifully.

But, $1600.00 seems catastrophically expensive for a vacation whim. And, even in that price range, I’m still not besotted.

Finally, the owner hands me his own uke, an 8-string Kamaka tenor, made by a Hawaiian family for 3 generations. I like it, but I’m not in love with it. It’s cheaper than $1600, but still quite a bit more than I want to pay. He says “we’re getting a shipment of Kamaka ukes in two days. I might have one that isn’t already sold.”

I spend the next couple of days playing every tenor uke on Maui. Though I find many that play in tune, I do not fall in love. I fall slightly in like with one, but it’s go one of those 4-digit price tags. I’m starting to think I’ll be going home ukulele-less.

When the Kamakas comes in, I figure I’ve got nothing to lose, so back to the store I go. The ukes are stacked in their cases on a table in the back of the store, at least 30 or them and in all sizes. I start with a tenor and fall in love on the first strum. I hear myself say “I’ll take it.”

I’ve got a ukulele, and I’ve been invited into several stories now - the real estate agent wanting everyone to love Maui as much as he does, the music store owner wanting me to love my ukulele as much as he loved his, the guys in the maker’s shop, wanting me to love playing the as much as they do - and to join the worldwide community of ukesters. I resonate with each of those stories. I’m drawn to them. And I’m still not sure what my storyline is here. It’s no longer “I bought a uke on a vacation whim.” After several days of focusing exclusively on it, I’m way past the whim stage. I think it’s now officially a project. Because what is a project, but a story? And what is a story but a description of a journey? Project, story, journey, initiative - all synonyms.

And, at this point, the story is so far from being over.

I’ll bring you up to date in a day or two, then get back to my regular Monday posts.

Vision statements, mission statements, and the 5-step problem-solving model. I. Just. Can’t. I also wince every time I hear someone say “360-degree review,” but that’s another post.

For one thing, I never could make sense of the difference between a vision statement and a mission statement. I remember precious life minutes spent trying to grok the difference as a meeting participant. I remember hours spent coming up with limp pieces of horrifying corpo-prose that - best case - we promptly forgot, or - worst case - got printed on our business cards.

Just say no to vision/mission statements. I’m not saying don’t have a way to describe, bound and focus what you’re doing that lights you up - not saying that at all. I’m saying keep it short, sweet and punchy. More like a mantra. “Make money and have fun” is Ben and Jerry’s. “The lowest-cost airline” is Southwest Airlines’s. See? Provides on-the-ground, practical guidance, and puts wind under my wings. Short, pithy, easy to remember and use in daily decision-making.

I advocate the mantra on the organizational, departmental team and individual levels. Not that I need to advocate them. Mantras are. I bet you’re using one right now. I once worked at an ad agency where our spoken mantra was : “It’s not brain surgery.” This helped us remember both to lighten up and to take risks.

A client’s current mantra is: “Get home on time.” It guides his every move, and it’s changing his life.

My mantra is: Let’s make it easier. I want to make things easier for my clients. I want to do what works and toss what doesn’t. I live for the hot-knife-through-butter moment, when what looked impossible becomes actual. It’s a visible, visceral thing: people light up and the world gets brighter when we get to easy. That mantra is what keeps my work endlessly fascinating. challenging and fun. That mantra is why I had to come clean about vision/mission statements.

Next week: My allergic reaction to the problem-solving model and what I do instead.

Overly-complicated, convoluted ideas and plans get shelved and forgotten; simple mantras focus and re-energize. Mantras are self-renewing. I’ll bet you have a mantra where you work. What is it?

The best staff meeting I ever attended was the one where the 7 of us decided to ask to be laid off. It was a sterling example of collaboration and authenticity. We were trying to figure out how to re-invigorate ourselves after our boss’s 100-person department had been re-orged out from under her. We were the remnant without clients, without a budget and without hope.

We’d soldiered on for the last several months, but we were shouting into to a void: no matter how many big binders full of impressive plans and analyses we’d produced, we got no response from prospective clients. We were talking about our lack of success and what else to try, when Rich said: “I’m going to ask to be laid off.”

We all went silent - so silent, you could hear cells dividing.

Rich explains his thinking
Finally someone sputtered: “L-l-l-laid off?” Not the most elegant paraphrase, but it got the job done.

“Yes. Think about it: there’s an excellent severance package right now. We have no budget and can’t get anyone to fund us. We’re going to get laid off, it’s just a matter of when; I’d prefer to be laid off under this package, not the downgraded one that’s sure to follow.”

Several more cells divided as we stared at Rich.

Someone said: “Rich, that’s brilliant.”

And, one by one, the rats began to jump off the sinking ship. It was the most spontaneous, open and personal conversation I’d experienced in a meeting. We talked about what we’d each do when laid off. Rich wanted to go back to school, 2 of us had always wanted to start our own businesses, the other 3 wanted to apply for a different job within the organization, something being laid off would give them time to do.

We all turned to our boss, who hadn’t said a word. She said: “I want to be laid off too - it’s clear to me that this job, and this department are going nowhere. I’ll go talk to my boss after this meeting.” By the end of the day, we had each chosen a lay-off date and signed the necessary papers.

I’ve never forgetten the way our energy built as we told each other more and more of our own truths, brainstorming about possible futures. I’ve experienced that kind of excitement and the thrill of co-creation many times since then, and I do all I can to facilitate it in the teams I work with. That staff meeting is where it all began for me, my first experience of what was possible with a group willing to be both honest and collaborative.

In fact, that’s the only staff meeting I remember in 15 years of attending them.

I bet you’ve got stories too. Tell me - what’s your favorite staff meeting story?