Field notes
Field Notes
Our daily Field Notes email is just the kind of jumpstart you need. A fast read. Maybe less than a minute. Because sometimes it just takes one insight to change the trajectory of the day.
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How team meetings begin sets the tone for the engagement, positivity, and energy shared by the group.
How team meetings end shapes what the team will remember and solidifies team member commitment to next steps and actions. Yet, most leaders don’t think very strategically about these important time-bound bookends. As such, they miss a crucial element in designing a great meeting.
People resist incorporating the feedback they receive by responding in ways that suggest they will make change when they really have no intention to do so.
In yesterday’s Field Note, we discussed the response of Happy Talk to mollify leaders but avoid taking action.
However, there are several other resistance strategies that leaders should be privy to and wary of. Here are a few other responses that sometimes suggest resistance.
Good leaders are always on the lookout for happy talk and push through this resistance by being specific with their recommendations and by following up afterward to make sure the feedback has been considered and applied. Good leaders don’t fall for happy talk. They expect colleagues to take their feedback seriously and to make the necessary changes to improve performance. They are delighted to debate or discuss their criticisms but don’t let others use happy talk to deflect them.
Management consultants remind us that higher job satisfaction is commonly a function of well-known ingredients: high task diversity, a positive workplace climate, consistent recognition for good work, the flexibility to create a reasonable work-life balance, opportunities for advancement, highly connected relationships with colleagues, and competitive compensation. One other factor that research has proven to be critically important to job satisfaction is the match between skills and job roles and responsibilities.
To reduce discomfort, lower anxiety, or push aside difficulty, leaders avoid things they really shouldn’t.
At any given moment, most leaders are avoiding something they need to address. Avoidance gives them temporary control over a situation they would rather not face, and leaders like the feeling of control much more than the stress and negative feelings associated with the issue they would prefer to ignore. But this short-lived relief from anxiety, shame, or other uncomfortable feelings comes with unintended consequences, most of which are negative.
