Meetings are just a cult gathering. Generally, only the cult leaders are naturals in group settings. Everyone else just copies and tries to fit in (lurkers and contributors). The cult leaders will always be the same people, it's an archetype. The meeting goes as comfortably as the cult leaders allow (not necessarily through allowance, but through tone and expectations).<p>The more you examine what a cult your company and industry is, the more you realize you have to be vigilant about human nature (in yourself and others).<p>"leadership.garden"<p>They give themselves away.<p><i>"Picture this: You’re in a high-stakes product roadmap meeting. The room is a pressure cooker of competing priorities and barely concealed tension."</i><p>These people are in fantasy world. NONE OF YOU have worked on anything high stakes, tech has always been non critical (mostly). But this how they think, and the take away they provide is how to be manipulative (like I said, they are naturals). That's the problem with the cult.
This piece reminded me of a few things I think about a bit too much:<p>- I imagine there would be almost zero storytelling (as we know it) if people where better at communicating like this (as most plots would just seem weird).<p>- something about this made me think about bullying and how we haven't managed to "solve" that problem (for kids or adults)<p>- there are a few corporate-speak words in the text that makes me question myself if I've failed to realise that this is a sarcastic piece, but I'm 95% sure it's an honest text with clear intentions.<p>- I'm probably misremembering a lot, but I quite like how this expands a tiny bit on Non-Violent Communication to include the "we" that is so important in groups.<p>[Edit] added the word "much" in the first paragraph.
Much of this is a symptom of Corpo Talk. Corpo Talk avoids offending anyone, but may lead to the elephant in the room only getting discussed over beers later (WFH equivalent: 1:1 Zoom calls).<p>Corpo Talk colors people after a while. Even some of this author's suggestions are beating around the bush. They advocate "naming what's happening" and then just as quickly walk that back to "Ask, Don’t Tell" and the perennially Corpo "we."<p>Alternate title: "Folks, I've noticed we are calling out room dynamics? Do we think that's an art?"
Few notes on this:<p>- To me it feels less like calling out the room dynamics, more like calling for a timeout or hitting the reset button<p>- Just like hitting the reset button it's intentionally disruptive to do this, so don't abuse your meeting-halting privileges or people will start to ignore you<p>- I'm pretty sure this is a part of normal human behaviour when de-escalating, and neither being in a meeting nor naming the dynamic is required to do it
This kind of intervention can be useful in the right groups but (as with NVC) also provides great cloaking for natural manipulators. For example saying "there is a lot of raised emotion in the room" after an individual has blown their top is a very pointed and passive aggressive thing to do. They will feel even more targeted by the faux neutrality
If I found myself in a meeting where people were using phrases like "I’m sensing..." then I would probably find some different people to work with. A meeting is not a therapy session. Most of these meeting pathologies are due to a lack of competent leadership.
The underlying principles and methods in here reminds me of Crucial Conversations and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.<p>I’m also glad to see a mention for how this can apply to personal relationships
> Over time, you’ll develop an almost sixth sense for when an intervention is needed. You’ll become that person who can deftly guide conversations back on track when they’re derailing.<p>> Overuse: If you’re constantly meta-commenting on the conversation, it can become distracting and annoying. Use this technique judiciously.<p>Good point, glad it has the caution in there, or you'll quickly become that one person everyone knows read "that one HN post" and keeps doing that "one trick" every meeting.<p>You see this with new leaders often, they read some book or the "top 10 leadership power poses and gestures" blog and start doing them. Except, it doesn't look natural and just seems cringy. They think it's a cool trick to mesmerize their audience, while everyone else is rolling their eyes literally or figuratively.