I got a new meeting on my calendar this morning. It was scheduled with my calendar appointment link, so the title basically just says meeting and the time, the standard for the app. In the description of what the meeting was to be about it said something like, “Want to chat about the team’s thoughts regarding your proposals and determine best next steps”. Looking at that, my Monday morning mind could run a thousand different directions, and being a human, and always on the lookout for threat (especially on a Monday morning), we tend to make up the worst-case scenario and begin to plan from there. My mind could have starting thinking about all the ways that my proposals weren’t good and that there were major changes and that the next steps were around cancelling the agreement we had or seriously re-drafting everything that we had previously talked about. It would not have been totally out of the realm of possibility for me to think the worst and I may have spent the next full day in suspense wondering what the team thought about my proposals and what we needed to do as a result. But none of that happened. One very simple phrase followed the above meeting description that stopped all that crazy town thinking in its tracks. Even before it could begin, it was shut down and I was left excited to have the meeting and able to move on to the next thing on my to do list. I smiled and relaxed. It was just a simple phrase, but it made all the difference. Do you want to know what this magic phrase was? I’ll tell you … it was “(Spoiler alert: they loved both)”. With those 5 words, the looming meeting went from a “what have I done?” to a “yippee – what’s next?” in my brain.
What are you doing with your meeting invites and descriptions? Do you take time to provide a bit of context when you ask someone to meet with you? With tensions running high from being in a remote or hybrid world for so many of us, context is everything. Think about the way your message could be misinterpreted and see if you can be clearer in your message, or provide a preview into what you want your reader to know. You may in fact have some bad news to share in a meeting so in that case, indicate how you want to proceed. Maybe something like, “we need to discuss this report, its not where we need it to be yet, so in this meeting, we are going to work together to get it where it needs to be and figure out the next best steps.” Here your words are indicating that something does need to be addressed, but that you plan to work with the other person to solve the problem, not blame and point fingers. What you ultimately want is a good report right? Think about the outcome you need and how best you can get it and how to prime your reader to be thinking about collaboration and getting things done.
In an email, we don’t get tone, inflection, body language so we get to interpret the words and requests based on the mood we are in at that time. The message I got was a simple, elegant, and brilliant way to let me know that all is good, we still have work to do, and we are on the right track, so the meeting is nothing to be feared or worried about. It primed me to be excited about our next meeting.
What are you doing as a remote leader to help people understand context? Connect with me on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/ridgelinenikkievans) and let me know.
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