Not too long ago, I was in a meeting which I felt went really well. At the end, I asked the fifteen team members to write down, on a sticky note, their answer to a simple question: “What’s on your mind?”
As a result, I discovered several helpful nuggets that would significantly increase the value of our next meeting:
- Several people were concerned about, and named, specific road blocks to our team’s success, of which we were not aware.
- One person felt disengaged.
- One person noted something we accomplished, that we hadn’t even realized!
There is magic when you ask someone to write down what’s on their mind. There’s a tendency to be honest, and share what they’re NOT saying.
How would knowing what everyone is NOT saying help you? You CAN know. All it takes is a couple sticky notes and a single question.
