Tweet

The Black Hole of the Workplace

Written by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: How many times have you heard, “that meeting was a waste of my time”? To understand the dynamics of meetings, read on. It’s more than Roberts Rules, way more!! It’s about the relationships in the room and how we all struggle and want to be a part of the group, the ‘in crowd’ as we used to say. Maybe we still say that!! And it’s about how we learned to manage relationships and where we learned this. Explore how you feel about meetings and your role in creating meetings of collaboration and trust.

The Black Hole of the Workplace

Meetings are often considered the "black hole" of the workplace. More often than not people leave them with a shrug of the shoulders stating, "THAT was a waste of time". And if the meeting was not a waste of time, often there are several folks who leave feeling discounted, sabotaged, or ignored. These are the people who grab a confidant and complain behind closed doors and come to the next meeting with arms crossed and little to offer. Their good creative input sits underground, like a diamond mine in the backyard that is never uncovered.

So, why are meetings, almost universally, bastions of discomfort? There is an underlying reason that is rarely considered: Staff meetings have all the emotional elements of a family gathering! "Impossible" you say, "None of us are related so what does family have to do with anything"?

Think about this for a moment. We all come into meetings bringing our previous personal patterns with us. No one is excluded. We can't see them, smell them, or touch them; they are hard-wired in our nervous system. All the ways we were taught to relate as kids, all the ways we were or were not accepted, all the roles we learned to play for survival and security, all come into the meeting room with us.

Meetings bring up all of our fears and discomforts about being accepted, pushed aside, and made to feel inadequate, or put in the spot light as the perfect one with no room to mess up. Often we pretend that meetings don't bother us. We put on our armor, take on a familiar role as the clown, peacemaker, or rebel and stay in the safety realm of the familiar. Some stay silent, other never stop talking. Interesting how if you observe, as if watching a play, you can see how the same people play the same roles meeting after meeting.

"So" you ask, "how can meetings be designed to get the best long term results"? Good and important question! First, acknowledge that discomfort and tension are not going to go away, nor should they. It is simply a fact that all of us need to learn to manage anxiety and stress. And, once there is an understanding that old patterns from childhood are at play in the meeting room there can be some personal accountability.

In any system, if one person takes the risk to change, the whole system has the opportunity to change. As Gandhi so eloquently said "Be the change you wish to see".

Begin modeling the behavior that can be breakthrough for meetings. If you are feeling anxious, admit that you are feeling uncomfortable. You can even admit that the tension is reminiscent to times of uncertainty when you were a kid. No need to go into details. Just the fact that you surface the discomfort will resonate with the rest in the room.

Interesting, once someone (as in you) admits there is tension in the room it has an amazing way of diminishing to a more functional level. It won't go away; it is just not the great big elephant in the middle of the room anymore. Experiment and observe. More will get done in less time and fewer folks will be leaving meetings whispering about the waste of time!

Related Articles
  Setting An Example For Success One Foot At A Time
  If something is getting you down, find out what you can learn from an old donkey!
  Home-based Business: Pillar Candles II
  Can you do that a little faster?
  Black Holes

Article Tags: black hole, collaboration, crowd, relationships, roberts rules, waste of my time



Related Forum Posts
Three days later - Well, it's been only 3 days since that horrible last month of summer vacation ended, and in these 3 days my hits are back up to what they were before Black August came along. So I'm thinking that, indeed, it wasn't my new navigation bar, but simply that people were out rushing around trying to jam in activities before school started again, and now that things are back to normal in their lives... they will return to normal on my site! My site numbers had been holding steady for about 3 months, before Black August...I had hoped that the classy-looking new nav bar would actually help increase my numbers, as I think it adds a professional gloss to the whole website that was lacking before...but so far I'm just still ....steady... with those previous 3 months, not really increasing.
Re: Anyone used/using Forum Auto Submit software? - Hi GT, I wouldn't dream of using anything like this either. Your concern is indeed valid, from what I understand this kind of software is 'Black Hat' and can only get anyone using it in trouble for spamming and as you say damage their reputation. I'd advise anyone even considering using anything like this not to do it..it's simply not worth it. Take care, Carol
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - I aggre if all that you tell is called SPAM or Black Hat SEO... i thinks this ways not give you experience to do SEO better for increase traffic you're website ... better you must do SEO (on page and off page) with manually, because it's was very helped to increase traffic and PR in search engine ... Thanks for shared
Success Strategies - How to get the results you want now? Success Strategies and Action Steps I have used are: The Power of Choice Where you are at this present moment, is exactly perfect from the choices you have made. If you want to be somewhere else, you have to decide clearly what that is (your goal/outcome) and create action steps to achieve this. The Power of Focus The book "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, is one of my treasures in my Entrepreneur Library. If you focus on what you want versus what you do not want, your conscious and sub-conscious mind will direct attention to this. The movie, What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, explains this in detail about quantum physics and what we create in our lives. The Power of Commitment This is not about commitment to others. The first step is the commitment, your word, you make to yourself. Accountability and responsibility are additional success strategies and ingredients to creating the success, defined by you, that you want. The commitment to others reflects your integrity, your word and the team you work with. Co-workers, clients, yoru family, friends and community. My Success Acronyn in Success Breakthroughs(c) is: S pecific & self-directed U nlimited opportunities & possibilities C reate powerful outcomes C onsistent measureable results E xperience pwoerful transformation S olution and action-oriented S uccessful habits and outcomes Break Through to Powerful LIfestyle & Performance Choices Moira
Re: What I'm reading this weekend - Oct 8, 2010 - these are great! In particular, I liked "you’re already perfect" and "Smashing through the Black Wall of Fear." That's exciting that there is a new 4-hour book out. I really enjoyed "The 4 hour Workweek."


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Effective Leadership

3 Health Insurance Misconceptions

SEO – Link Building Secrets

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.