Something is bothering me or no one listens to what I have to say, so I choose not to speak up or tell anyone about what is bothering me. STOP! If you feel like you are already defeated then the prophecy will be fulfilled. If something is bothering you and you choose not to say something about it, it will only manifest itself deeper into your core and cause even more damage. Denial and avoidance are powerful tools that are used by those that are not successful. Even when you see it deployed by those in powerful positions, it is usually when they are in some sort of crisis situation which no one should envy to be in. The crisis most likely came to be because they ignored the problem for so long that the result was an eruption that few are able to get out of unscathed and or without serious consequences.
This is not about you being assertive or loud about your positions. What this is about is how to better manage your everyday situations that arise due to the choices that you make. In management, your decisions impact more than yourself and you have to be aware of that. Let me say that we all make mistakes, as I am sure that you have heard numerous times throughout your life. While the mistake can be fatal, literally, most of the time they are not and you can recover from them. Only you know how you see the world around you and it is your responsibility to allow others to see that picture so that they can understand where you are coming from. Having a defeatist attitude only perpetuates failure and will only cause you to relive your circumstance repeatedly.
Here are some steps you can take to help you to help others to understand you or your point of view.
- Identify your concerns. Those concerns cannot be addressed if you do not even know what they are. The more precise you are, the better the outcome will be.
- Articulate clearly what your concerns are in a memo to yourself before approaching anyone else. You must be confident when discussing what is concerning you. By doing this you can avoid the urge to ramble once the conversation begins.
- Study your memo and make sure that you are covering all of your concerns. If you are going to hash this out, it is best to get it all out so that it can all be resolved.
- Prepare an outline of topics that will be discussed at the meeting that will be handed out to the attendees. This allows everyone to follow along throughout the meeting, write down any notes or questions during the process. Try to limit the quantity of topics to 2 or 3. Too much information will only get lost and accomplish nothing.
Schedule the meeting with the party or parties involved with your grievance. You want to schedule this when it is convenient for everyone, make in mandatory and short (no longer than an hour). Allowing anyone to skip the meeting will lead to further misunderstandings and subject the entire process to rumor.
Once the attendees have arrived, make sure that you articulate the reasons that you have called the meeting. Being clear and precise will help ease the tension that the calling of the meeting would have created. This is a good time to hand out the outline of the meeting.- Thank everyone for attending even though it was mandatory. Being that this is a mandatory meeting that everyone is being paid to attend, some may have been scheduled off and had other plans. Be thoughtful and recognize that. Ask if there are any questions to start off with that are not related to the outline that was provided. Address these concerns at this time.
- Stick to your outline! By doing this you allow time to address the highlighted concerns and allow for the discussion to flourish. Also you will stay within the time limits. Remember, discussion is the point of this meeting and to arrive at a resolution for the concerns brought out.
Engage the attendees with each other. Another point of this meeting is to allow this to be a productive environment to resolver and conflicts that some may have felt uncomfortable discussing. There are no negative repercussions for discussing the topics.- Encourage solutions from the attendees. This is vital to help everyone feel as though their voices are important and matter to this discussion. You can nudge some to engage but keep in mind some are just reluctant to get involved. Be sure to expand the conversation as much as possible. Finding points of common ground are fantastic but exposing the differences will be more important to resolve and conflicts.
Make sure that you are creating “stop points” after each topic for Q & A. This is important because it gives everyone a chance to discuss the topic a little further than the overview and brief conversations.- Once all of the topics have been discussed, questions have been asked and answered; here’s where you ask the attendees for feedback and suggestions for the next meeting. You see, one meeting is not going to resolve much but creating an atmosphere where employees and colleagues can openly discuss topics without fear will make your company and relationships that much better!
Many companies are successful when they bring everyone in on resolving company issues. Don’t wait for an explosion to take place before you talk to the very people that most likely are seeing it coming!
Want to discuss? Visit me at Goldwiser located at 24910 Kuykendahl Rd., Tomball, TX 77375. I’m here Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 7 pm. Before heading over, bring your old, broken and unwanted gold, silver, platinum and gift cards and leave with some great ideas and some extra money in your pocket!
Gina Olson 