We’ve all done it: We’re running a meeting and someone says something that just floors us, something like “That will never work – we’ve done it before and it failed. It will fail this time too.” You want to say something…pointed. But you know better. It’s your job to stay calm, cool, collected and above it all. To lead. To keep things moving. After all, there are 8 other people in the room and they are all looking at you.

So you say everything but what’s on your mind. You say, “I understand your point of view, but” Or “Thanks for that, John. Let’s get back to our…” Or: “I think it will work and here’s why.” Or “Things are different now and I need your help.” Or, you say “That’s great, John, we’ll explore that in a minute,” but your palms are facing John and pushing toward him. Pushing him and his ideas away. Running right over him.

Everyone of those tells John to shut up. He hears it, and so do the other 8 people in the room.

There is another choice, and it works better. By better, I mean faster and you get to take John with you into the rest of the meeting.

Tell rather than show. Instead of showing your irritation, anxiety and time pressure, just say it. But not just part of it: Tell John all of what’s on your mind. It might sound something like this: “John, I hate hearing that. I find it discouraging and that makes tense up and want to push right past you.” (Pause here and exhale. Notice that John has not exploded or expired from the force of your rage.) Then say the rest: “And, I know you’re trying to tell me something that’s important to you, so I’m going to do my best to listen. What is it you want us to know?”

Several things are possible now: John has a much better chance of articulating the information concealed in his unskillful first attempt (it is in there, and may have little to do with what he said at first), and you have a better chance of feeling more sane, human and connected as does the rest of your team. Chances are good that someone is smiling, maybe even John. Maybe you.

Even if John stands by his original complaint, it will have less bite. And, no one will be squirming.

Two things make this effective:

1. Say both sides of what you’re thinking – share both sides of your dilemma. You hate hearing it AND you know you must. Leave the first out and you risk sounding insincere; leave out the second and your risk sounding hostile.

2. Keep it in the present. This is not the time to let all your frustration at John’s past — and probable future — negativity spill out. It’s a moment – a moment for John, a moment for you. That’s all the weight it deserves. Staying in the here and now keeps it at the right level of intensity and lightness.

The careful reader will notice that I only listed 5 ways to say shut up. I was hoping to get your help with the other 45. I’ll start:

Refusing eye contact, saying nothing, looking at our watch, multi-tasking, reading anything, turning away, shuffling papers, talking over someone, interrupting, saying “I hear what you’re saying…”

Every year about this time, I have the same problem: I need a great book on building teams through meetings for the Small Group Process Consultation class I teach at Alliant International University.

Every year, I can’t find that book. I own most all the books on meetings, facilitation and teams, and many of them have great, great information. Problem is, not one is what I need: a soup-to-nuts approach to interacting with groups without freaking out. Or freaking them out.

Last year I was in Portland, and I was certain that Powell Books – Mecca for readers – would have what I was seeking. The meetings section was easy to find; I eagerly started looking for the book. Except, every book in the meetings section was on either presentation skills or Robert’s Rules. Huh?

Nothing about equalizing participation, the proper use of groups, or having fun. Nothing about how a good meeting builds a team, and a bad one tears it apart. No practical guidance about the dynamics of groups, the psychological needs of leaders or what it takes to meld all this into a structure that invites magic.

And, isn’t that the whole point of having a meeting? Of working in teams?

I moved to the teams section, thinking maybe the book was there. Nope. There, it was all about how the latest and greatest team model would unlock the potential of your team. Like it was about a secret handshake or the decoder ring you got when you drank the koolaid. Click your heels three times and say “There’s no place like team.”

Not helpful.

I was looking for help explaining the crucial link between meetings and teamwork, which is this: You can’t have one without the other. Saying “team”won’t do it. Saying you’ve got a team without making your meetings team-friendly is like…lying. Becuase every meeting affects the team: The group meeting, the 1:1 meeting, the casual drive-by in the hallway. Which means you’ve got many opportunities to build your team each day, opportunities that add up to much more than what you’ll get from the big annual off-site. It’s such good news, I thought someone might have written about it. Not so far.

This year, I realized who that someone is: me. I’m going to write the book I’ve been wanting to read.  Wish me luck.

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?

This one is really easy to use – and effective. Here’s the typical scenario: You suggest a course of action Someone else raises an objection to your suggestion. Someone else makes alternate suggestion; again someone makes an objection.

This can go on for hours. Days, even. It’s like Wimbledon, but without the volleying.

Your group begins to lose energy and grows quiet. Over time, they get discouraged. Subtly, at first, camps form: There is the postiive or “proactive” camp, and the naysaying or “reactive” camp. Although these are false divisions, they take on a life of their own. Members of each camp come into your office after the meeting to lobby you. You have a headache and no time for all these meetings about the meeting. You want the ideas expressed in the meeting where everybody can respond to them, not in the meetings about the meeting, which only you can hear.

This is easy and fun to change. The next time someone – anyone – raises an objection in a meeting:

1. interrupt them

2. paraphrase their objection, and

3. ask them to make a suggestion or a proposal. “Got it, Jim, you object because that approach is too slow; what ideas do you have about what will work?” Or, “I’m hearing a lot about what won’t work – I want some proposals about what will work. Let’s hear some suggestions.”

Critical for success:

The interrupting is crucial. Don’t just cut them off though – make sure you understand their point and can paraphrase it back to them. On the other hand, waiting for them to finish may take too long. We’ve all been in the position of having the floor and being unable to utter a cogent sentence. Sometimes being interrupted and correctly paraphrased is a gift. Let the giving begin! Interrupt as politely as you can, but interrupt.

Be clear about why you’re doing this. You are not an ogre. Mostly. They are not stupid and bad. Mostly. You all have some bad habits. You’re all getting stuck on side of the brain that likes to pick at things, rather than the side that likes to create things. No wonder you’re tired!

Steer clear of Robert’s Rules. Just because you use the word “proposal” doesn’t mean you are now moving and amending and voting and have to buy a gavel. Eeuw. You are creating and building on each other’s ideas. If this goes according to plan, you won’t have time for the General Bob’s stuffy language and convoluted procedures.

In no time at all, your team members will be prompting each other in this way. The naysayer camp will evaporate. No one will be allowed to maunder on about why something won’t work. Instead, they’ll already have an idea or suggestion. Your meetings will be lighter, more productive and much more energizing. This single thing will change the energy of your meetings.

Once upon a time I went to a monthly meeting with my boss and her peers where we mostly sat around and ate cookies. The cookies were homemade and rather good, but they could not compensate for the meeting, which was the most painful I’ve ever endured. Long silences, meandering conversations, no one in charge, one person or another trying – and failing – to get us back on topic. In this way, 90 minutes would

s l o w l y pass. It was like practicing for hell. Each month after the meeting, I’d beg my boss to fire me so I wouldn’t have to go back. Each month she’d say: “If I have to go, you have to go.”

So I started suggesting the usual things: outcomes, an agenda, meeting processes, facilitation. “None of those work,” was her reply. In this way, six excruciating months c r e p t by. In a final attempt to save my sanity, I asked if I couldn’t please just conduct a meeting evaluation. “Five minutes, a quick plus-delta at the very end. That’s it – I promise.” Exasperated, she agreed.

The delta (or, what we should change for next time) column ran down hal the sheet of chartpad paper, then looped back around until it filled most of the sheet of chartpad paper. On it were things like: Have an agenda, have timeframes, have a facilitator, have a purpose, more structure, shorter meeting, what are we doing here, anyway? In the plus column was a single word: Cookies.

I said “Let’s decide what to do about this list of deltas.” My boss shot me a look which I chose to interpret as supportive. In the end, I agreed to put together an agenda and facilitate the next meeting. We kept the cookies.

Two much shorter meetings later, the team agreed to disband, as they had no actual work to do.

What if it’s this simple? What if the meeting you dread could be improved with this simple technique? I think it can. I’ve never seen this fail to make a meeting better.

Here are the keys to making it a success:

List the pluses first. Linger here. Divide a chartpad into two columns and list the pluses on one side of the chartpad so everyone can see the list. The group will want to rush to fixing what’s broken, missing the chance to encourage themselves with what they’re doing well. Over time, they come to feel beat up on, and their enthusiasm wanes.

Agree to continue doing every plus you can. Brava – it’s working! Acknowledge it and keep doing what works. This is tremendously encouraging for your team.

Solve for each and every delta on the list Every. Single. One. After you finish listing them down the other side of the chartpadk decide what to do about each one, right on the spot. Then, make the change and let everybody know what you did. This means that you bring the list to the next meeting (no, don’t rewrite it or type it up) and say “Here’s what we’re doing differently as result of your feedback.”

Remember: This is not a consensus activity. It’s fine to hear “too much activity” right after you’ve written down “not enough activity.” Let the group members sit with their own differences. They’ll come up with a great solution when you start solving for the deltas.

I’d love to hear about how this works for you, or what you do that works better.

“We make all our decisions by consensus.” “We’re a consensus-based organization.” I must hear this from a client a week. When I ask about how consensus is reached, I hear some version of: “We give each idea that’s presented and discussed a thumbs-up, thumbs-down or a thumbs-sideways.” A what? ” A thumbs-sideways – it means ‘maybe.’ Then we count the thumbs. Whichever idea has the most thumbs-up wins. The people who didn’t give that idea a thumbs-up agree to live with the decision.”

Sounds like voting to me. Same process, same outcome: An idea is presented, there is discussion, the majority “wins,” and there is a disaffected minority who agrees to “live with” the decision – until the next chance they get to change it. Which means you’ll get to make this decision again…and again…and again. And that’s pretty much the opposite of a decision made by consensus.

So, if voting isn’t consensus, what is? I think of consensus as a series of small agreements that build to a solid decision. Consensus is bounded by realistic parameters which is what gives it its creative spark. It’s not an open discussion; rather it relies on structure for its tremendous freedom and power. Learning and listening is built into each step. Contention is too. By this I do not mean encounter group-style confessional displays, open weeping or chair-throwing. I mean being willing to be influenced by another’s point of view. I mean speaking honestly and openly and knowing the pleasure of having your point of view heard, understood and responded to. The response may be “yes,” ” I see it diferently,” or “oh yeah, and what about…” When flawlessly executed, consensus trumps group dynamics: it’s more compelling than rank, than being detached, winning or staying a victim. It’s tremendously energizing and the decisions do not have to be made again. Over time, the groups that learn this process become increasingly deft in their decision-making and follow-through.

I think this is the chief difference between consensus and voting. In consensus, there is resolution. The decision sticks because the process is transparently fair and inclusive of all points of view. Because of their constructive contention, the group coheres without slipping into groupthink. Their decision is effectively bulletproofed. Enacting that kind of decision is easy. Commitment from the organization comes more easily too.

It’s easy to see why organizations want to lay claim to consensus: Who wouldn’t want that level of cohesion and commitment?

Still, not every decision merits the time, attention and thoroughness of consensus. Some decisions are best made by voting, disaffected minority and all. Many decisions are better made by a leader who has been informed by her group’s input or feedback. Knowing which approach best suits your situation is the art of decision-making. And accurately labeling your current process – painful though that may be – is a good place to start.