A couple of clients recently have talked about a preference not to say anything in meetings when there is an invitation from the chair or space on the agenda to provide an update. They say something like “nothing to report”. One driver of their behaviour is that they value taking work off their leaders’ plates. They want to protect the rest of the leadership team from worrying about things that they are taking care of.
Not only is this a missed opportunity to bring visibility to your work, but there can also be other costs to not being a vocal contributor to meetings. What I want to highlight today, though, comes from David Rock’s SCARF model.
The C is for Certainty. Human beings like certainty, and we move away, feel threatened or anxious, or act defensively when we don’t have any. So even if there’s no outcome or decision to report, if people don’t know where things are up to, that lack of clarity or ambiguity can cause anxiety and erroneous filling in of blanks – the very thing my clients are trying to prevent.
So, although it might feel uncomfortable if it’s a new behaviour, like you’re oversharing, give your update and help your team or leader out by placing markers in the landscape. Whether it be the next action, time frame, the person who the issue is sitting with, or the stage the project is up to, it helps make the landscape more predictable and certain.
Of course, in giving your update you still want to be concise and impactful. And if you’re not sure if your updates are valuable or you’re worried about wasting people’s time, then signal that you are trying something new and will check in for feedback in a couple of months.
BREAKGLASS COACHING 