Everyone was silent in the meeting. That doesn’t mean they had nothing to say.Hey, How are you? This week I’ve seen Halloween decorations being put up and also advent calendars in Supermarkets, before you know it we will be eating Easter Eggs (from the fridge, as that is where chocolate should be stored isn’t it). Anyway, there’s a moment at the end of almost every meeting that I’ve become slightly obsessed with. It’s one that I’ve also been guilty of too. “Has anyone got anything else?” Silence. “Great. Thanks everyone.” Laptops close. Chairs scrape backwards. People head for the door. And then, sometimes only minutes later, the real meeting starts. In the corridor. By the coffee machine. On Teams. In the car on the way home. “I nearly said something in there.” “Why didn’t you?” “I don’t know. It just didn’t feel like the right moment.” That gap fascinates me. Because the person had something to say. They just didn’t say it to you. People are already saying it. Just not to you. That’s the ‘current’ strapline for the book I’m currently writing, Curious Conversations. And the more I’ve written, the more convinced I become that organisations are carrying around an enormous amount of invisible waste. We obsess over process waste. Waiting. Duplication. Rework. Delay. We map processes, redesign systems and hunt down inefficiency. But there’s another form of waste that rarely appears on a process map. The conversation that didn’t happen. The challenge somebody swallowed. The question they decided not to ask. The problem the front line has known about for months. The meeting where six people nodded, but three walked out disagreeing. The idea somebody nearly shared. The feedback somebody decided wasn’t worth the risk. And perhaps most dangerously… the silence that somebody mistook for agreement. Sometimes we don’t need better questions. We need better invitations. Go back to: “Has anyone got anything else?” Technically, it’s a question. But listen to the invitation underneath it. We’re nearly finished. We’ve probably covered everything. Everyone wants to leave. So unless what you’ve got to say is important enough to hold the room up… probably keep it to yourself. Nobody says those words. They don’t need to. People are remarkably good at reading the room. Now compare it with: “What else do we need to consider?” Tiny difference. Completely different assumption. “Has anyone got anything else?” assumes there probably isn’t anything. “What else do we need to consider?” assumes there probably is. One searches for an exception. The other invites contribution. But even that isn’t enough. Because you can ask a brilliant question while closing your laptop, checking the clock and half-standing up. And people won’t just listen to your words. They’ll read the whole invitation. Then comes the more difficult part. Wait. Don’t rescue the silence. Don’t answer your own question. Don’t decide after one uncomfortable second that nobody has anything to say. Research into classroom questioning found something fascinating. Teachers typically waited only around a second after asking a question. When that wait increased to around three seconds, answers became longer and participation increased, including from children who were normally quieter. Nobody suddenly became more intelligent in those extra seconds. The adult simply stopped filling the space. I think there’s something in that for every leader. Sometimes silence doesn’t mean: “I’ve got nothing to say.” It means: “I’m deciding whether it’s safe, useful or worth saying.” And what you do next matters. Try this once this week. At the end of a meeting that actually matters, don’t ask: “Has anyone got anything else?” Try: “Before we close, what are you thinking about this that you haven’t said yet?” Tell them that nothing is a perfectly acceptable answer. Then wait. Properly wait. And if somebody finally says: “Actually…” Pay very close attention to what you do next. Because your response to that moment doesn’t just determine what they tell you today. It teaches everyone in the room what it’s safe to tell you tomorrow. A little update on the book Right now, 18 beta readers, or, more accurately, 18 people who are better at reading than I am, are working their way through Curious Conversations. I’ve asked them to be candid. Not to tell me it’s good. To tell me where it isn’t. Where I’ve assumed too much. Where something doesn’t land. Where they disagree. Where I need to think again. It would be a little ridiculous to write a book about curiosity and then defend everything I’ve written in it. Their feedback is already changing the manuscript. And I love that. Because maybe that’s what curiosity really asks of us. Not just the willingness to ask a question. The willingness to be changed by the answer. When those conversations are finished, I’ll make the improvements and get the book ready to go out into the world. If you’d like to be one of the first to know when Curious Conversations is ready, you can register here: Until next week, stay curious, and… Have fun! Lee Co-Founder Get Knowledge National Coach of the Year |
The conversation you needed happened after you left.
