What a beautiful day. Look at the bird outside. I’m hungry. I would love a Subway sandwich right now. I wonder what time this meeting will finish? Oh, I really want a sandwich right now. The beach is going to be so much fun this weekend.
“Paul?” Eh, what…
“Ah… sorry, could your repeat that?”
You can’t blame me for letting my mind wander. This meeting has been going for 45 minutes now and those two have been going at it for 30 minutes now, each one arguing their part. No one else was contributing so it was just natural for me to drift away into my own little world of “head trash”.
Now the sound of my name has snapped me back to the present. Back to now. I have no clue what has just been discussed. I can’t come clean and admit to daydreaming so I’ll pretend I just didn’t hear and throw out that oh so frequently used question, “Could you repeat that?”
I must admit that this was not the first time this has occurred to me in a meeting. I’ve also had that question asked back to me in a meeting. I am sure it will happen again, many times.
It makes me think that although there may be ten people present in a meeting, how many people are really PRESENT in the meeting? I would challenge anyone to stand up and say they have never slipped into their “head trash world” in a meeting. As for virtual meetings, well that’s a whole other world. It’s not uncommon to hear someone whacking away on his or her keyboard as another monologues.
The human brain is a wonderful thing and it enables us to multitask. Or does it? Research actually shows we cannot multitask, but we just switch between tasks VERY quickly. So when we are head trashing we are not contributing.
Staying on task takes focus. I feel I owe it to those who have demonstrated that they value my input by inviting me to the meeting, to stay focused. I now recognize when I am slipping into my head trash world and by doing so I find it’s easier to stay on task, stay focused, and provide the value colleagues want me to provide.
Next time your in a meeting take a note on when you are slipping away from the present and look around the table and ask yourself “Who is present around this table?”
This must be real. Look here.
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-03-20/
Filed under: Meetings Tagged: | Meetings, relationships, teamwork
Reminds me of my days in the Air Force. Interminable meetings and briefings were a way of life. In fact, the tendency of people’s attention to wander was actually recognized. Instructions on how to prepare good briefings included the need to include an “attention-getting” step at the beginning and injecting some humor along the way. I learned that lesson early in my career and still do it to this day. (Just ask anybody who attended my TOCICO presentation on “Changing the Status Quo” in Las Vegas last November.)
Perhaps my favorite example of seizing and holding attention occurred in July 1970. At that time I was flying B-52s out of Thailand on combat missions over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The missions were about 4 hours long, and we flew seven consecutive days, followed by a day off, then seven more, etc., for about six weeks straight.
Each missions started with a pre-mission briefing: 3-6 crews (six men per crew) in a briefing room listening to a weather briefing, intelligence briefing, target-of-the-day briefing. About 30 minutes in all, but mind-numbingly dull after the first week or two. Same old, same old (except for the target) each day.
Each mission briefing would start off with a time hack, at which time the briefing officer counted down on a calibrated watch to an exact minute and second. Everyone was supposed to set their watches to start on the hack, so that each crew would be working off the same time, down to the second. The briefing officer would say something like, “09:45 hours in 10 seconds….five, four, three, two, one, HACK!” Then proceed with the briefing.
Some crewmembers were not only “wool-gathering,” they were actually drifting off to sleep in boredom during these briefings. One actually snored during the time hack one day (he’d had a really late night at the bar the night before).
So one day, the briefing officer took matters into his own hands. He counted down as usual to start the briefing, but when he got to zero, he pulled out a .22-cal starter’s pistol and fired it off, right there in the briefing room! Eighteen crew members and a half a dozen staff members physically levitated out of their seats, and NOBODY let their mind wander during that briefing.
Every day thereafter, people watched the briefing officer’s hand like hawks, to see if he was going to do it again. When it was clear he wasn’t, they’d let their minds wander again. By a week later, behavior had reverted again. The briefing officer brought the starter’s pistol again, but this time he gave it to another staff officer sitting in the back of the room to fire off when he finished his countdown.
The other staff officer pulled the trigger at the appropriate time, but the gun misfired—click! (Nothing) Click, again…nothing. But the clicks could be heard throughout the room and 20 heads turned to the back to see the staff officer sheepishly holding the starter’s pistol. Nobody EVER failed to pay attention again.
However, in this day and age, that particular tactic might not be socially acceptable—or by security, either.