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A few points: 1. The conflict in meetings is not a negative. It is actually a positive. At the intersection of conflict between perspectives is where you get u
by ismail 9y ago
A few points:
1. The conflict in meetings is not a negative. It is actually a positive. At the intersection of conflict between perspectives is where you get unique insights, innovative ways of doing things.
2. The problem is where conflict is seen as negative.
3. A manager who is running the meeting should be able to integrate different perspectives and find a better path forward. If you can only do this in a 1on1 this is a skill that needs to be honed. You are leaving quite a bit of insight and innovation on the table.
I ran an innovation skunk works project for a CEO. Saw him do this multiple times in meetings. In almost every single case where we had multiple opposing views he was able to integrate and actually propmpt us to come up with something better. I have been honing this skill ever since and it really is an eye opener.
4. Agree on the points on managers being lazy and inviting people that should not be in the room. You need to make sure you get the right people in the room. I would actually encourage conflict.
5. Depending on what needs to be communicated but face to face works best
6. This post seems to assume it is the managers responsibility to make decisions? I would argue unless the manager has more context then his staff decisions should be made by them with the manager providing context and making sense of what needs to be done.
The way I see management in today’s environment is more akin to facilitation rather than manage. If people are smart and self motivated management may actually do more harm then good.
7. When conflict is viewed as negative it can be counter productive as it seems to be for the author. The question is how do you manage it so you actually leverage it for better output? One way we do this is with our values
“We value diversity of ideas, thought”
8. What we have seen work is categories of meetings, brain storming, problem solving, deep dive learning session, quick updates (timeboxed) I suspect author is not managing my the conversation correctly hence he has this issue.
- D_R_Farrell 9y agoI think the point about conflict may not give enough weight to differences in people being naturally dominating or compliant. I'm all for tough conversation and playing tennis with ideas, but sometimes it's been tough to pull-in people who don't like that because they feel really uncomfortable about it. Best way to bring them is to try to respectfully suppress the dominating personalities and frequently ask for the vocal opinions of compliant people. This may take some time to establish in teams, but has worked well for moving things forward.
- ismail 9y ago9. If an employee were to “blame” someone else in a one on one meeting and I was the manager? I would look at myself. The manager has as much to blame. In an environment where there is a whole lot of finger pointing this started somewhere and my dibs are on it started from the top.
- ismail 9y ago“If a person is running late on a project, the best way to find out the reason is to have a one-on-one meeting with them. “ 10. Interesting that he mentioned ducker. Performance is as a function of the system the people are working in. The assumption in this post is that “somebody is to blame”. In most cases I would argue that it would actually be a fuction of the underlying system. You as a manager are also part of it. You are to blame as well, so is the processes team members, values etc.
- davvolun 9y agoWhen the response during meeting discussion is always "let's take that offline," then it's a waste of time. First off, no one is "online," stupid buzz-speak, but more importantly it's useful for some issues to have a small group of people work it out together so everyone is on the same page.