Deciding on a pre-planned pause before engaging in a discussion, complex task, or activity can be a game-saver.
Consider a surgeon who pre-plans a pause between procedures to regroup and reorganize for the next difficult task. A break in the action can give everyone a breather and help to clarify goals and reassess the current approach.
Pre-planned pauses are particularly useful for leaders to create strong transitions between topics, issues, and decisions during meetings.
For instance, good leaders often pre-agree to take a pause between identifying the nature and root cause of a problem and the many solutions available to address it.
By pausing between those distinct activities, leaders can prevent allowing tactics or solutions to contaminate their thinking about the problem or opportunity. Pre-planned pauses simply give people time to reflect, reset, and collect themselves.
This is especially critical during discussions where conflict has the potential to escalate emotions.
It’s not hard to predict when, during an upcoming discussion, people may struggle with difficult issues and experience conflict. Based upon known differences, passion, and viewpoints, some conflict is inevitable at times.
When leaders suspect emotions might run high, one strategy to prevent a meltdown is to pre-agree to a set of pauses before the discussion begins.
Properly timed, pauses deescalate conflict by interrupting heightened emotions and by allowing the parties the time they need to reflect and reset.
Leaders often think they can pause whenever they need to or call for it in process, and that is sometimes the case. But it can be awkward to request a timeout or to announce a cooling-off period during a moment of intensity.
Better to decide beforehand to pause at specific points to allow feelings or overloaded brains to settle.
As they design meetings, practices, decision debates, conflict mediations, offsites, and team discussions, good leaders think ahead and decide what intentional breaks in the action might prove highly valuable. Then they bake them in, pre-agreeing with everyone where pauses will take place.
They commonly announce the agreement to pause so everyone expects it: “We’re going to agree to the strategy and then take a break before returning to discuss potential solutions,” or “Let’s agree to hear everyone’s complaints and issues and then take a 10-minute pause to let those sink in before re-engaging in the discussion.”
A perfectly timed pause can do wonders. Some can even be pre-planned to have the greatest effect. Good leaders think ahead and pre-agree to a pause when their experience tells them it might provide critical relief.
Great leaders don’t just foresee the future; they create it.
