Clean up your (meeting) room!

Last week I ran a skills workshop in an organisation's meeting room. 

I could tell it was a meeting room because there was a sign on the door that said "Meeting Room". 

But if I'd been guided in there with my eyes closed and then opened my eyes, this room could have easliy doubled for the "Storage Room".

This meeting room was a dumping ground for old broken chairs, additional surplus chairs, trolleys, boxes of supplies, more chairs, some broken tables, filing cabinets, storage cupboards and other 'junk'. 

The environment this created was .... cluttering. 

I spent time before the session, clearing some breathing space, sectioning off an area and making sure the 'working space' was separate from the 'storage space'. There wasn't alot I could do about the 'rubbish space'. 

The feedback was that it was the best meeting room they'd seen and worked in. 

When space is at a premium, it's understandable that any sort of space begins to get taken over. 

But the cost on your communication, collaboration, productivity and performance suffers, particularly when you can't get things done swiftly or cleanly because the environment is polluted. 

Clean up your (meeting) room. And if you need half of it for a storeroom, then section it off so that the roles and purposes of those spaces are clear. 

How often do you hear interior designers on lifestyle shows talk about 'zones' for living. Retailers do it too. They're looking for ways to create an environment that will give you a positive reaction... not a reminder from your mum that you need to clean up your room!

So here's a reminder from me.... clean up your meeting room. It's costing you so much more than a bit of cluttered floor space. 

The best selling exhibition in town

In a busy workplace it can be tough to get people to listen and tune in to your change message, your key message or any of your messages!

How do you get people to listen to and understand what your team is working on? How do you get them to sign up, buy in and want to be a part of it?

Watch my short sketch video this week and you'll see how a clever project team got people to come along to their best selling 'exhibition'.

What important thing are you working on?

What will you do to make the people you work with want to tune in to it?

Download the video here

It's time to clean up our language

Listening to people talking is something we do every day; listening in workshops, in planning sessions, in meetings, conversations and learning environments.

I don't know about you, but I hear lots of 'dirty' language! Ok, not swearing, but rather let's call it 'unclean language'. 

This is language where people interrupt, make assumptions, give directions, tell people what to do and dish out prescriptions. Yes... how much do you enjoy being told what to do? Often we may not intend to be so ... dirty... with our language, so it's something to be aware of. 

We really do need to clean up our language!

Clean language has the capacity to break down silos, build trusting environments, boost our capabilities to think, evolve our ideas and deepen engagement. It's an approach identified and developed by New Zealander David Grove. More leaders, coaches, managers and drivers of change might like the idea of achieving those things.

You can read more about the technicalities of clean language here and here but a session presented at a conference I was at recently reminded me of the power of this clean listening and communication tool.

In short, here's how you keep it clean:

• listen using the person's words
• use 'and...' to kick off your sentence or question
• ask 3 key clean questions (where x is a word they've mentioned/used)
  • And what kind of x is that x?
  • And is there anything else about x?
  • And that's x like what ?
• stick to these three questions
• slow down.

You can get the essence of the session from my visual notes.

So... how 'clean' are you? How clean are the others on your team? 

Boost engagement, build trust and break down silos in these challenging times by cleaning things up.

Careful of those unconscious 'commands'

"I know you're tired after a long day today..."

"We'll do this activity so it might feel like you're a kid back at school doing a test..."

"I'm sorry if it feels like all of the speakers are droning on about this..."

"You probably don't want to hear what I'm going to say next but ..."

These are four real-life statements, made by team leaders, speakers, executives over the past few weeks ... people who should "know better".

But often we don't know! We're blissfully (or dangerously) unaware of the words that leak out from our mouths from our minds and the power those words have on a team, an environment, a presentation, a project.

I noted these four statements when I heard them and they all have a dangerous power to have the audience agreeing with you, under their breath, in their mind, or muttering to someone else.

Let's run them again:

"I know you're tired after a long day today..."

<Yeah, so get off the stage and let me go and have a beer!>

"We'll do this activity so it might feel like you're a kid back at school doing a test..."

<So stop it! I don't need to do kids stuff. Let's do things that will actually create an outcome for this project!>

"I'm sorry if it feels like all of the speakers are droning on about this..."

<OK, so you're going to waffle too? Yes you've all been droning ALL day!>

"You probably don't want to hear what I'm going to say next but ..."

<You're right mate. I'm not gonna listen. Instead I'll think about ....>

Be super careful about your 'banter' before you deliver important messages. This 'leakage' of uncertainty, apology or low levels of confidence can be turned around. 

Instead, positively frame up what you're saying. 

There's no need to use any of these waffle statements. Just deliver your content, your point, your story, your case study. And move on. 

Set up the environment, the context and the team for a positive interaction, a creative environment with a strong 'why we're doing this', or 'why I'm here presenting this' or 'why this change is happening'. 

They're the 'commands' you want people to buy in to and adopt. 

That's a smoother path to change. 

Less stuff, more happiness

Graham Hill is a designer and his TED Talk on having less stuff and more happiness is a quick and inspiring watch at just five minutes.  

As he spoke, I sketched some visual notes… and distilled his key points to a less than 90 seconds sketch video. You can watch the video by clicking on the image below...

So that's a five minute talk, distilled to a one pager of visuals, and to a 90 second video. 

Distil, distil, distil.

Too many leaders waffle on, give the l-o-n-g story every time they speak, send a lengthy bullet-pointed blah-blah email or share a thick PowerPoint pack of 'stuff'. Oh yawn!

You might be in love with it but you're fighting for attention from the people you're trying to engage with. 

Keep your teams happier and help them get to meaning quicker by delivering short messages and clear compelling, 'made-by-a-human' visuals.

Be sure your communication has less stuff… and you and your teams will have more happiness!