resulting: One Mistake Never to Make When Leading a Meeting

Full article One Mistake Never to Make When Leading a Meeting

Resulting is when you judge the quality of a decision by its outcome.

After you’ve made a decision, if you base its quality or “rightness” solely on its outcome, then you might misjudge what was in fact a good decision that simply turned out poorly due to luck. You may hesitate to continue making the same kinds of decisions based on this short-term loss, this single toss of the coin, when in the long-term, over the course of many tosses, it would actually be to your advantage to do so.​
If in preparing to make a decision, you already feel 100% certain that you know the best possible outcome, then you’ll stop looking for alternative information and options, and, sensing that your mind is made up, other people will be unlikely to share contrarian opinions with you.

So, what does all this have to do with running a meeting?

When you offer what you think is the best possible solution to a problem, before soliciting your team’s feedback. By sharing your opinion first, you create a result in their heads. You give them the outcome.

So when you’re leading meetings in which you hope to solicit engagement and feedback, follow this simple rule: Do not share your opinion on possible solutions before asking for input from your team.

If you notice people are still hesitant to engage, you can say something like “I don’t have any set opinions on this, folks, so please don’t hesitate to throw out your craziest ideas.” Encourage people to think in terms of probabilities — “Even if you’re just 40% sure of something, share that idea anyway.”