Removing the Awkward in the Meeting

I was super excited about the meeting. A colleague and a new ‘friend’, getting together to connect after meeting at an online conference. This is my happy place: people, connection, possible collaboration! YAY!

We began our meeting bantering about world events, as you do. Then we started going down a bit of a rabbit hole and I could see time slipping away. We hadn’t really been clear about the intention of our meeting and what each of us wanted to get out of it. So I stepped in to check how much time people had and what they wanted from our time together. The responses were all fairly open, to see what emerged, to get to know each other.

Then our new friend started asking some very direct and, what felt like, deeply personal questions. I started feeling the emotion bubbling in my stomach. I was uncomfortable. It felt too fast and not entirely appropriate. Were we at that stage of our relationship yet? For me, the answer was a clear no. And it was clear from my colleague’s response that she felt the same way.

This was not going well.

The escalating tension in my body told me we needed something to change the tone and direction of our conversation. So, I suggested we use the Shift Your Thinking Cards on our Virtual Facilitation Environment (the CCS VFE) to open up the conversation in a different way.

Now, I recognise I’m talking about our tool —  but to be honest, I don’t pull them out in all situations —  they are not always the answer. In this instance, I took a punt. And I was desperate to change things up for a better outcome!

Thankfully all agreed that this might be a good idea —  and it worked a treat. We all relaxed and shared about ourselves in an open, relaxed way. The tension disappeared and we became equal parties in the conversation.

Now, I’m not saying we all walked away ‘besties’, but it definitely changed the flow of the conversation and elevated the feeling of connection. Especially, as often happens, we ended up choosing a couple of cards that were the same.

Meetings can be messy! It was another reminder to me of how important it is to connect before moving into probing questions, particularly if the relationship is new. And it was another time I was grateful to have the virtual CCS Cards on hand.