Want to run great meetings? Learn to pass the mic
Hey, you’ve been quiet. What are your thoughts here?
Hey, you’ve been quiet. What are your thoughts here?
This is the most valuable sentence in any meeting.
It forces engagement. When you pass the mic effectively, you get to be the conversation DJ — You create the space and trust your team to fill it with their good ideas. You draw out the best of each person and place their reason for being in the meeting front and center for everyone to see.
It clears the floor for someone who is more quiet, less confident or more contemplative. It welcomes the dissenting opinion and draws out the key differences to be considered. Doing this consistently also sets clear expectations about participation and preparation. Engagement doesn’t start and stop in the meeting. Knowing you will be expected to present a point of view motivates more thoughtful preparation and more focused follow-up.
Companies have lots of meetings. People waste a lot of time in meetings. But, at the core, you meet because you believe your thinking will be better as a group than as individuals. You meet to discuss, to debate, to decide but really to move forward. You invite the people who need to be there — who will add to the conversation — and when you let one of them attend passively rather than participate actively, the time is wasted.
You have to do it right, and avoid the unwelcome cold call, but passing the mic is usually the shortest path to the best meetings.