What Everyone is NOT Saying

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.