One of the most valuable contributions a leader can make to a meeting is to
clarify what's been said so far. So we look at how to do this and we'll
actually get some practice.
I'm Alex Lyon and I'm here to provide communication tips so that you can
increase your impact and lead your teams with more excellence.
We're going to talk about how leaders crystallize and bring together a
conversation that might be losing focus that might be getting complex. It's
actually one of I think the key skills that a leader needs to develop if he or
she really wants to focus the team and to move people in the right direction.
But instead of just talking about it, we're going to go to the computer and
look at a couple of concrete examples so that you can look at how this appears
visually. Discussions in meetings can sound very random. I've been in many
discussions and team problem-solving sessions and it's really hard sometimes
to make sense of exactly what's being said because everybody's talking and
they're going in different directions. So I believe it's up to the leader to boil
down these discussions at least once per meeting. And what I'd like to do in
this exercise is to use a personal example that you might encounter at home,
which is very simple, and then transition to a little bit more complicated example
in a workplace setting. So let's say you and your family members are trying to
figure out where you want to go on vacation and you're listening to your
spouse and kids and you're all trying to figure out what everybody's interests
are. And out of that discussion you hear beach, hiking, camping, sunny location,
hotel which is nice but not fancy, lake biking, relaxing but not hectic context,
pool, open spaces. It sounds like wow man we're going in a million different
directions. So as the leader, let's say you're listening and you think Okay I'm going to take
the initiative and step in here and boil it down. And let's say you hear in that
discussion three main themes you hear water, some physical activity, and relaxing
context.
Well you would step in at some point, once most of the ideas are out there
and voiced, you step in and summarize
and clarify those themes for the group. It's going to be a really helpful
moment for them to get focused and then move forward from that point. So they may
be confused or not know where the conversation is going and you cinch it
together and you give everybody there something concrete to respond to. And
then everybody can move forward on that common ground. So in one or two sentences,
it sounds a little bit like this. So it sounds so far like I'm hearing three
major themes. First that people seem to like water being around water. They want
to do lots of physical activity. And they want their overall context to be
relaxing and not stuffy. Does that sound about right?
Then you give people a chance to respond, to clarify, to add their own thoughts.
I've seen many skilled leaders step in after the flow of the conversation gets
a little too scattered and add this focus. And it really is leading the group
in a new productive direction where they can be much more effective.
Let's move now to a little bit more complicated professional example. These
are going to sound like very random problems but then we'll attempt to add
some order to it.
Let's say you're talking about how people are coming along in their jobs
and developing. And some of the issues are that orientation for
new hires a little scattered, employees are not making good use of existing support,
there's no clear path for promotion for veteran employees, training sessions for
new hires are too theoretical and don't connect, it takes too long to get people up
to speed, and the professional development opportunities are not clear
for more advanced people, and people don't know who to ask for what
especially the new people, and we don't have any good data on how new employees
progress. We only have anecdotal data. So now if you're listening and your 20 minutes
or 30 minutes into a discussion like this, it can sound like man we have a lot
of problems. And chances are other people are thinking the same thing, like these
are random problems that are all over the place. So as the leader you want to
let people express themselves and once you've heard most of what you feel like
or most of the ideas come out, then you want to step in and crystallize it. So here
are the buckets that I summarized and clarified on these issues. I would say
bucket one. Sounds like we have most of our issues with new hires. I'm also
hearing some issues for people who have been here for a little while are facing
that we can work on, and then there are a couple of things that we need to fix for
people who have been here for more than a couple of years. And then you might
give a couple of examples but that would be a way to step in and summarize in
just a few sentences what you've heard so far. And time and time again, I've
watched leaders step in and facilitate by summarizing and clarifying and really
synthesizing the entire discussion.
It makes the group incredibly productive from that point forward and a conversation
that seemed like it was drifting becomes much more focused and much more productive.
So here's some key takeaways. Listen for the themes and crystallize the
discussion at least once per meeting for the team. If you're the team leader it is
your job. And, by the way, if you're not the team leader, what I like to do is
during meetings are not leading I like to just listen for these themes and I
might just sketch them out and my notes. And I don't necessarily voice them but I
practice the habit. Your buckets don't have to be perfect. there's no one right
way to slice and dice everything you're hearing. Pretty much anything that
simplifies what's been said will be helpful. And this skill improves with
practice and it will move your team forward in a much more effective way. At first
this is a skilled it feels very difficult for some people. They're not
used to listening this way. They're used to listening as if they were an
individual contributor and they're used to advocating for their own position. But
as a leader you need to step one level above that and and listen for the
overall flow and overall themes in the discussion. So I recommend you start
working on this immediately.
So if this is your first time tuning into Communication Coach, I am so glad you are
here. We go over every week communication skills and leadership skills to help
people that I call rising leaders, those team leaders, front-line supervisors
front-line managers who are trying to take their teams and their skills to the
next level.
So, if you're interested in content like this please subscribe. I encourage you to make
a comment
or post a question below. I'm very good at responding to almost every
single comment. And let's start a back-and-forth conversation about any
questions you have or any opinions that you'd like to share. So thanks. God bless.
And I hope you get to use the ideas in this video you're very next opportunity.