Such a small thing, such a huge difference.

BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST@JASONATEN

If you lead people, one of the more challenging parts of your job is having enough self-awareness to realize that your experience is very different from that of the people you lead. You almost always have more information, and you certainly have more control, than they do at any given time. That imbalance might not seem obvious to you, but it always is to them.

For example, you might think that getting everyone in a room or on a Zoom call is a great way to build a collaborative spirit. Or, you might think one-on-one meetings are a good way to check in on your team and see how everyone is doing. Both of those things are a little bit true when the meetings are scheduled.

But, unexpected meetings are a terrible habit for leaders. You might think there’s a good reason, but sending a calendar invite for a meeting with the boss doesn’t do anything good for anyone on your team. There are two reasons why that’s true:

First, your team doesn’t want to be in meetings. They just want to do their job. You might think that meetings are the job, and–for a manager–that might be true. For everyone else, however, meetings are the thing that make you stop what you’re doing to talk about what you’re doing, when all you really want to do is, well, do your job.

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Second, and more importantly, any time you say to someone the meeting invite version of “we need to talk,” you set off panic alarms in the minds of your team members. “Why did my boss just invite me to a meeting?” “What terrible thing is about to happen to me?”

You probably know this–and if you don’t–you should, but one thing your team hates is unexpected meetings. It stresses them out. The worst possible email you can get is one from your boss with a calendar invite attached, without explanation. No one has ever not been stressed out by that.

That’s why I love this post on LinkedIn from author Jordan Tarver, who suggests that two simple words can eliminate meeting anxiety and put your team at ease. Here’s how Tarver explains it:

“It only takes two extra words on a cal invite to wash a team member’s worries away. “Good things” goes a lot further than you think!

When I’m leading my team, I always ask myself, “How would I want to be led in this situation?”

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The answer is always, with empathy and compassion”

It’s such a simple suggestion, but if you have to send an invite for a meeting that isn’t a part of the regular routine–meaning, something your team would expect–add those two words to put your team members at ease. Just letting them know that, even though the meeting is unexpected, nothing bad is about to happen. 

Most of the time, people hate having meetings. I don’t know many people who love being in meetings. Well, I guess managers love meetings because meetings mean that people are all in the same room and you can keep an eye on them. 

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If you want to pop in and have a quick meeting with someone on your team, you should take Tarver’s advice. You should set their mind at ease by making it clear that they aren’t about to get put on a performance plan, or worse, lose their job.

You should also probably remember that meeting with you is probably the last thing your team members want to do. Even if you’re the best boss that has ever been a boss, you’re still the boss. Your team might like you, but they almost never want to have another meeting.

At a minimum, do the simple thing Tarver suggests. You never go wrong leading with empathy and compassion.

Article originally posted on Inc.com
AUG 27, 2023
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com or ZMSN.app