Zen Your Way Out of Bad Meetings

Conflict Zen has become one of my "must reads" lately. Author Tammy Lenski shares Seven Simple Hacks Guaranteed to Improve Your Meetings that collects several of her posts on conflict resolution in groups. I'd recommend her tips to any lawyer who meets with clients regularly, especially this one:

Have you ever been in a meeting where the chair asked something like, "Does that plan sound ok to everyone?" Perhaps there was a brief pause, an assenting remark or two, a couple of nods and silence from the rest. "All right, then it’s a go," the chair may have said then.

Silence does not mean "Yes, I agree." Silence can mean: I’m still thinking about it. I may agree but am not sure yet. Yes, I agree. No, I don’t agree but I’m not going to say it out loud here. No, I don’t agree but I’ll never admit to it.

If you’re trying to make a wise and effective decision in a group, avoid the "assumed yes" trap. When there’s silence, ask those folks what their silence means. Don’t challenge, invite.

Silence usually means I’m thinking.

Comments

[nathan]

silence usually means SHE's been drinking

[Tammy Lenski]

Matt, thanks for the shout out about the post -- I'm glad you liked it! You're a regular read in my RSS aggregator too, so it's especially nice to learn that you appreciate Conflict Zen.

It might be fun to do something together on our blogs sometime!