You know that moment when you’re briefing a team member and they’re nodding away, but you get that nagging feeling they are not with you?
Oh, boy, I’ve been there more times than I can count!
I remember once I spelled everything out with aTeam Leader – clear as crystal about what needed to happen next with the project. Their nodd felt half hearted, but it was still a nod. And yep, you guessed it – come next meeting, they gave me a lot of explanations about why things couldn’t work the way I had explained. All the roadblocks could have been managed better if they had put them up front with me during that meeting. By then a week’s work of time was lost, and the project no further ahead.
It’s baffling, right?
I was super clear, I laid it all out, and the Team Leader is a strong contributer. I was left wondering why they did not tell me their reservations about the steps I outlined.
This isn’t some rare fluke; it’s fairly common.
We tend to think our job as leaders is to command and control. But that kind of top-down stuff doesn’t motivate anyone. The best tool for a leader is to ask more and listen better – sounds simple, but it’s easy to forget when action needs to be taken quickly.
After a lot of soul searching and lessons learned, I came up with a three-phase strategy: Mindset + Skillset + Matchset.
First, you must be aware of the thoughts in your head, making sure you are not hijacked by any negative emotion, then when you exchange ideas with the other person, conversations hit the mark! Now you are having ‘sage conversations’!
Suddenly, every interaction is a trust-builder and an understanding-deepener. And from there, action planning and accountability become a breeze.
Curious about how ‘sage conversations’ could end your frustrations with Team Members?
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