Come out of the Monologue – Make the meetings interesting again

I have seen most people not coming up with counter-views in meetings.

Now, why does that happen?

• Speaker is the boss 
• The people don’t feel engaged 
• The speaker doesn’t ask questions
• The meeting goes on for too long 
• Introvert 
• Inferiority Complex 

Let’s delve into the details:

1. Speaker is the boss

If the boss is intimidating then you will hardly find a person raising their hands to ask a question. And when people are not comfortable asking a question then forget about any counterargument. This is not a good omen for a company because a single person can’t be right all the time. You must create an environment where people get the confidence to speak up. If your culture doesn’t allow a junior employee to counter the views of the CEO then something is wrong.

Are you too demanding? Is your perception of being a tough taskmaster gone down in the negative sense? Are you reactive to criticisms? 

These could be some of the reasons why your team is not putting up counterarguments. Being surrounded by YES men is the worst thing that can happen to a leader. Because when hubris sets in, there will be no one around to point out where things are going wrong. When things go wrong it falls in a spiral and before you get to the root cause, much damage is done.

So, as a first step, create an environment where all views are given a patient hearing. Allow people to criticise you without crossing the line of decency. Take open questions in town hall set up. When people realise that you are open to criticism, they will get the confidence to counter your views. You need people in your team who would openly talk when they find things are wrong. The boss can’t be right always and this needs to be instilled in your team for them to understand that when you criticise or give feedback, it’s for the betterment of the company. 

2. The people don’t feel engaged

When you are speaking to a group of team members, are you only talking or are you engaging? Recently I was speaking with a group of my team members and I found one of my colleagues, a bit off. A generally jovial person was hardly involved in the meeting. I suddenly stopped talking and asked him what’s wrong or what’s bothering him. As I found out he was having a bad time with a few of his clients and he was not getting desired results. I told him, you can’t do anything about what happened yesterday, so why are you ruining the present? We are here together now making some plans for the future and without your involvement in the meeting, it will be a wastage of time. This small pep talk of 30 seconds, got him back to his feet and the jovial colleague was back amongst us in the true sense.

So when you are talking, do not follow the monologue template. Ask questions, try to engage with your audience, throw in the humour sometimes and you will see most of your team members having a good laugh. You would need an energetic team to get success and one of the best ways to get people out of slumber is a dose of humour. Today all are working from home. Every family I know of has had some tragedy to tell. In such a scenario mental health is something you should be really concerned about. Work, work, and work-related discussions can get boring after a while, so release the pressure by talking something nice or some jokes which makes people laugh a little. When you are happy, dopamine gets released and that brings about positivity in you. 

When you are happy and jovial, you will engage more with the speaker because you get confidence when you see your boss as a peer. Too much seriousness and your team members will settle inside a cocoon and your meeting will become a monologue that nobody loves or feels connected to.

3. The speaker doesn’t ask questions

The art of interactive speaking is about stopping after 5-6 minutes and ask questions. Rather than telling your audience to take notes and asking questions at the end, the better option is to allow people to ask questions at any point in time or when there is no question after 5-6 minutes, take a breather and ask questions.

As a team when they know that the speaker will ask questions in between, they will be extra attentive because the question might be thrown to anyone at any time. This keeps the audience on their toes. Of course, you as the speaker need to plan this well because if you ask too many questions then your speech itself might get diluted.

4. Meeting goes on for too long 

Any meeting if it goes on for more than 50 minutes will ensure that some or most members losing focus. Ideally, 45 minutes is what general human beings can focus on continuously. Anything more than that and some people will wane off. I have seen that whenever my meetings stretch beyond an hour, I see a few yawning faces. A few yawns openly and a few try to hide but the fact is that you can’t have the same energy and focus for more than 45 minutes. 

Ideally, you should plan the meeting in such a way that the meeting can get over within 35 minutes with 15 minutes buffer. If you plan out the 3-4 important points in advance, you will be able to cover them in 35 minutes. If you have too many topics to discuss then divide the meetings into 2 days. Do not discuss everything in one shot and lose the entire intention of the meeting. If your team doesn’t digest what has been discussed then it was a complete wastage of time.

Time is more valuable than money. Money can be recovered but time can’t. So value everyone’s time. Do not have this attitude that just because you are the boss you can hold a 90 minutes meeting. I have been guilty myself of the same sometimes but consciously I try to avoid any meetings beyond 50 minutes. If it stretches to one hour, I ensure that we have enough humour breaks in between to keep everyone energised.

5. Introvert 

People who are introverts find it difficult to speak. And some who are not introverts also have difficulty speaking in front of 1-15 people. Do not despise them because most of the time these people are good listeners. If you check properly you will find that the ideas that you shared in your meetings will be followed properly by these introverts. Though it’s OK to let them be in their comfort zone once in a while, it’s good to nudge them. Good listeners are good collaborators so you can ask some insightful questions to them and ask them for their suggestions. Introverts need to be nudged and as a leader, you need to do that so that they can share some important insights with everyone. When you listen deeply, you can grasp a few things better than others and sometimes they give inputs that the speaker himself might have missed or not thought of.

But, never ignore them and neither should you pester them in all meetings asking them to speak up. They are different and it’s good to give them that space. Finally, if you can accomplish your goals there is no need to push hard on something in which the other person is not very comfortable.

6. Inferiority Complex

People who are having an inferiority complex are people who are not confident about themselves. As a leader, you should ask yourself why so? Is it the background of the individual which has made him such? Or is it some recent happenings that have left a scar in his mind? Or was it a completely bad hire? 

You can’t grow as a team if you have people with low self-confidence. I am in the sales team and if I find any person who lacks self-confidence which in turn has turned into an inferiority complex then it’s high time for me to look deep into the issue. People lacking self-confidence is detrimental for the organisation especially in client service roles because they are the face of the company. When they lack confidence, no way your client will gain confidence in your company. When you spot that, it’s time for you to get into a one-to-one conversation with that member. If you have built a team where conversations (at least the one to ones) are candid then you will be able to reach the root of the problem.

If a person is afraid to take part in group meetings because others might feel awkward about the questions or he feels that his questions will be deemed stupid then you as a leader have failed because it means he has faced humiliation in the past and you have not taken action. It’s high time you change yourself – first of all, if anyone is laughing at the question asked should be told to stop doing that and secondly answer his question in a simple manner to make him understand. Later on, get into a one-to-one conversation and try and listen to all his problems. When you listen to his problems and provide some solution to some of the problems, you will see a different person in your meetings in the future.

Your team will reflect what you are as a person. So try and be positive at all points of time. Do not work, make it a fun place to work. People gain confidence and interact more when they are in a transparent environment. And of course, an environment where everyone is treated equally.

Have you faced such issues in your meetings? How do you tackle the non-responsive team members?

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