Have you ever tried to give candid and helpful feedback only to have things backfire on you? You were trying to help and instead of getting a receptive ear you got pushback. Perhaps someone failed to deliver, made a mistake or failed on accountability. Has someone used your efforts to coach as a means of seeking advantage, excusing their failures, put you in a bad spot, thrown you under the bus? We all have experienced this at some point. How do you react? Did you feel frustrated or angry? How do we turn ugly into progress?
Maybe We Should Call a Meeting
How many meetings are you in each week? A lot? What percentage of your time does sitting in, preparing for, or following up on meetings consume? How productive is your meeting time? Is that time expended for something more valuable in return?
In many organizations meetings may seem like an acceptable alternative to getting work done. How did it ever get to that? Somewhere back in history there must have been an era when meetings had value or we would have not allocated the perishable resource of time to them.