Deafening Silence & The Need for Skills: A COO’s Notes on Facilitating Meetings
I was vulnerable and honest in a meeting – and I was met with deafening silence…
As much fun as spreadsheets and metrics are, one of my great joys is bringing on a new cohort of interns and investing in their soft skills development.
Recently, I got a ping from one of our continuing interns, she had a brilliant idea of how I could be leading intern meetings “better”.
Cue my defensiveness.
It’s a normal first response. But I’ve worked hard to program a second response:
Why do I feel this way?
I reread her message several times. It was lovely, polite, and enthusiastic. And it was a brilliant idea that actually solved some problems for me.
A suggestion is not an attack.
It was actually a brilliant idea.
As I presented her idea in our intern meeting, I shared this moment of processing, modeling how we’re allowed to have feelings and should use that as an opportunity to introspect, making strategic decisions accordingly.
I was met with silence.
Sure, everyone was muted but still…
Deafening silence
oh, no… Was that too much?
And then, the brilliant and proactive intern apologized to me.
“Oh, no,” I moved to shove my foot in my mouth. “As I mentioned, you did nothing wrong. No notes on your message. This was entirely my stuff that I needed to process. The reason for my sharing is because we don’t often have the opportunity to see healthy examples of inner emotional regulation, processing, and decision making. Because when it’s healthy – you usually don’t see it happen at all. I hope you see the value of my sharing this with you?”
The interns nodded enthusiastically.
Great, the COO is eliciting validation from interns, how cringey…
After the meeting, I popped into a colleagues’ office and gushed about my super embarrassing moment.
“That doesn’t sound embarrassing. That sounds amazing.”
And then I had my lightbulb moment.
“If you were there, you would have said, ‘Thank you so much for sharing that. I’m so glad you said that because…’ and added on, validating me. But when no one said anything… It felt like I did something wrong.”
That led to rich conversations on creating psychological safety in meetings, backchanneling in remote contexts, and cross-cultural usages of backchanneling. But this article is on facilitating meetings.
Notes on how to facilitate a meeting
Our brilliant continuing intern (who has now earned the title Apprentice) had suggested we allow the interns rotate leading the intern meeting, to practice their facilitation skills.
After each meeting, I had notes. And they were eager for them.
- Arrive early and own the meeting from the moment you do.
No one should have to wonder who is leading the meeting. You’re facilitating the conversation from the get-go. - Culture and Relationship building happen in unstructured time.
You have to structure in unstructured time and facilitate the unstructured time too. Ask a question to break the ice, prompt different people to answer, make sure others have space to respond, your goal is for conversation to take place. - When people speak, they should be acknowledged,
Whether they’re giving an update on their projects or sharing something vulnerable. It doesn’t have to be the facilitator, but if no one else is saying anything, jump in. “Thank you for sharing that” + name the value of it. (i.e. “I appreciate your vulnerability”, “You’ve been instrumental on this project”, “I can’t wait to see this get finished!”) Acknowledgements build a healthy culture of psychological safety. - Facilitate the pacing of the meeting according to the time culture.
Does this workplace culture end on time exactly? Do they like to end early? Do you have 5-10 minutes or 1hr+ where you can run over? Know the culture and pacing accordingly. - Speed up the meeting by mentioning the time.
“Looking at the time, I want to go ahead and get started, but Jessica didn’t get a chance to share about her weekend, so first, real quick, Jessica, did you have a good weekend?” “Ok, we’re running a little short on time, so let’s combine these last couple of points…” “With 10 minutes left of the meeting, let’s run through this part quickly.” We’re helping people to be time conscious.
Intellectualizing Soft Skills
I remember the first time I learned that people should be responded to after they speak. I was in a branch wide meeting in Papua New Guinea, with each team providing a report and update. There was a set order, but after each team, the director thanked them for their report and made some thoughtful remarks. At first I didn’t notice; I thought it was an organic response, not an intentional one. But I was paying rapt attention that day and identified the pattern. Leaders respond when people speak and make them feel valued for their contribution.
I learned it through his modeling, but I could have just as easily missed it. I wonder how many other lessons in excellent leadership I’ve missed because it was only modeled…
Modeling skills or leading by example is one great way to teach, but it shouldn’t be the only way we teach.
Soft Skills should be taught with direct instruction.
Traditional strategies of soft skills training is just: practice. But you have to have a wealth of awareness to:
- Identify someone modeling
- Realize after each practice attempt where specifically you need to improve.
(and what if the soft skill needed is “awareness”? where does that leave us…)
This is why soft skills coaching is so invaluable.
Yes, practice is how you build soft skills, but there are some pointers. And having a coach to help you understand and intellectualize the gap between where you are currently and the prowess you aspire to is a growth accelerator.
(How many leaders and professionals do you know who are utterly lacking in soft skills? Clearly practice alone isn’t the answer.)
