Meetings

I had a meeting a few days back that nearly went off the rails a few times. I was chairing it, and even thought as it was unfolding, "Wow, this is the hardest thing I've done at COTM yet." I knew, going in, that this would likely be the place where I would finally run into a wall in my efforts to grow and renew the parish, and boy was that assessment right. And as things were melting down I reverted to my training. Here are some key points for those of you getting ready to chair a difficult meeting:

• Suppress your urge to identify emotionally with your own agenda. So when your ideas start to tank, let them.
• When stuck, just try to reformulate as clearly as possible the last thing said. "X, I hear you saying..."
• Look for short gains. If all you can manage to do is get people to a better expression of the problems at hand, you've done a lot.

I've seen and heard of priests completely melting down in meetings because they get frustrated that the change they want to implement meets with resistance. But I think that in those situations leaders have to remind themselves that people will walk away from the meeting and meet again at some later date, and people's minds do change in the interim. So the question becomes: what do I want to leave them with?

Anyway, there is a ton to learn from a conflict like this. You really get to see what is that people care about, and it tends to be different from person to person. You also get to see how the dynamics unfold interpersonally.

-t