Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Take care when you have opposite types of people in the room for a meeting. Be sure to have someone in the room with the primary interest of ensuring communication among the groups.

A few months ago, I sat in a meeting. On one side of the table were customers; on the other side were engineers. I sat at the end of the table. The customers described what they wanted. They looked at the engineers and frowned. The engineers gave the customers the impression that the engineers didn’t want to do the work.

I moved my chair a little to the customer’s side of the table to gain a little better view of the engineers. The customers talked a little more. I watched the engineer’s reaction. It didn’t look good. I knew the engineers, and I knew what they were doing:

The engineers were working on the solution to the customer’s desires.

The engineers’ expressions, however, looked painful. They looked like they didn’t want to hear anything more from the customers.

They looked like they didn’t want to do the work.

Notice the two highlighted statements. The engineers loved the challenge so much that they were already working on it in their minds. Their faces, however, led the customers to believe that the engineers didn’t want to do the work.

I learned a little here. Don’t let engineers meet with customers at this type of meeting. These engineers and these customers  had almost opposite personality types.

The engineers gave their look saying, “I am working hard on this problem already.”

The customers used that look when saying, “I don’t care for your situation.”

You see, these opposite types of people used the same look to say opposite things. These opposites sitting across the table from one another led to what could have been catastrophic miscommunication. It is fortunate that there were other people in the room who recognized what was happening. These other people acted as interpreters.

A little more learned here:

Have several people in the room who aren’t invested in either describing the situation or finding a solution.

Have people in the room who are invested in having a productive meeting with clear communication.