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What are we to make of the horrifying events of last week? Two black men killed by two police officers and five police officers killed by one black man. Are there any words or gestures that are adequate or meaningful in the face of this increasingly destructive spiral of fear, anger and violence? Columnist Charles Blow  wrote , “We must see all unwarranted violence for what it is: A corrosion of culture.” Perhaps the most important thing we can do is to use our words and ges

In an  interview on June 30 on NPR’s KHSU* about my forthcoming book, (stay tuned), a dear colleague phoned in with a delicious question: “If you could wave a magic wand, how would you change how we approach public hearings?” My answer included ideas and examples of how to make such gatherings engaging and participatory. Here I add an afterthought: the importance of opening up the solution space by creating win/win interactions. When you convene and/or participate in meeti

The doodle above is my colleague Michael Kraft’s “notes from a recent meeting.” It reads like a note from a prisoner on death row. You don’t have to be a prisoner of bad meetings! Honestly, you don’t. Or, not most of the time anyway. You have options. At least two people are responsible for you being a prisoner in a bad meeting: you and the person who convened it. You are probably already familiar with the responsibilities of a meeting convener: define a purpose, develop an a

To honor the 49 people who were killed and the 50 who were injured in Orlando on June 12, I offer reflections on doing no harm. The grievous harm that occurred in Orlando has me wondering about two things. First, how significantly will the unthinking or deliberate political vitriol unleashed in the media in reaction to this tragedy feed an already antagonistic environment in this country? Second, how much will we let this environment affect our relationships and interactions

“Invisible infrastructures” include our states of mind, emotions and physiology. They are parts of our infrastructure in that they are components of interrelated systems that are essential to our living and interacting. Like the infrastructure of the United States, it usually receives little attention, especially in meetings. When we lose track of our infrastructures—proliferating thoughts, fluctuating emotions, and varying physical sensations—we can unconsciously influence a

“Infrastructure” usually refers to the physical components—structures, systems, and facilities—needed to operate an enterprise or sustain a society, for example, buildings, bridges, roads, water supply, sewers and electrical grids. Interactions—or meetings—need their own infrastructure to operate successfully. Some of the components for interactions are as tangible as buildings and bridges, for example the people and the place you meet or the telecommunication system through

Generosity turns out to be its own reward. According to neuroscientist Richie Davidson , “There are now a plethora of data showing that when we individuals engage in generous and altruistic behaviors, they actually activate circuits in the brain that are key to fostering well-being.”         Generosity is one of the four building blocks of well-being identified by Davidson. The other three ingredients are resilience , outlook , and attention . They were the focus of the las

Years ago a colleague remarked, “Attention is a limited resource.” Although I agreed with her at the time, I could not have appreciated then the deeper truth of her words because 25 years ago we did not know much about how attention worked in the brain. We now know that focusing attention and inhibiting or avoiding distractions uses lots of energy in the very part of the brain that plays an important role in paying attention: the prefrontal cortex, or more specifically, the

According to neuroscientist Richie Davidson the four factors or ingredients of well-being are resilience, outlook, attention, and generosity. Last week we investigated resilience . This week let’s look at outlook and its role in meetings. Outlook refers to our customary point of view or frame of mind. Do you maintain a high level of interest and engagement even when things don’t go your way? Are you able to appreciate and even dwell on positive experiences? Do you tend to

Based on extensive research, neuroscientist Richie Davidson identified four constituents of well-being during a recent talk at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley : resilience, outlook, attention, and generosity. Davidson, in addition to being one of my favorite neuroscientists, is the founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at University of Wisconsin-Madison where he and his colleagues are identifying the biological and behavioral underpinnings of well-being. I

Vicktor E. Frankl’s  words bring to mind a traditional Buddhist story captured by Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield. “Buddha tells a parable about a man traveling across a field who encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine

When I feel tired, scared, angry, or even joyful, it is easy to forget that what I say and how I say it affects others. Everything any of us says and does has consequences. It is instant karma. Not in the Hindu or Buddhist sense that actions in current and past lives decide our fate in future existences but now, in this moment and the next. All we have control over is what we say and do. Obviously there are multiple causes and conditions in and around meetings at work and in

People’s beliefs about us influence how we behave. This is known as the Pygmalion Effect, after George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion (1916). In it, Professor Higgins transforms a Cockney flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, into someone who passes for a duchess. As Shaw has Higgins express it, “The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you wer

If you could change one thing about meetings at work or in your community, what would you change? If you could change one thing about the way you interact with others, what would you change? I’d like people to listen more attentively so they could understand one another better. And I’d like to be less impatient with and critical of people who tend to talk over others. Here’s the good news: we can change both these things at least in ourselves and possibly in others through

Ground Rules might seem infantile, like rules for a kindergarten class: “Be nice to others.” However, they are essential to effective meetings because they are agreements on how we want to treat one another. They remind us of how, in the best of all possible meetings, we want to behave and get things done. They are important because each of us comes to interactions with unconscious expectations about how other people should behave. Here are a few of mine: don’t interrupt, li

Although Logic was not my favorite class in college, one lesson stayed with me: the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem . Since it is being used repeatedly in the current Presidential primaries, I thought it would be useful to remind us all what this fallacy is. ( Ad hominem is short for argumentum ad hominem . It is Latin for “to the man” or to the person”). The candidates argue ad hominem when they attack opponents (for example, calling them losers, liars, idiots, or

Engaging citizens in making decisions about their communities, cities and towns is the heart of democracy. “Citizens…are members of the broad public within a jurisdiction or affected by a particular decision.” ( Kahane, et al ) Although voting for candidates or referendums is an important part of democracy, it is or should be only a small part of it. Here are three of the multiple challenges to effectively engaging citizens in making decisions. First, there is the tension be

Making decisions is at the heart of most meetings. Some decisions are small and innocuous. Others are important and impactful. Deciding how to make decisions is an important step because how decisions get made significantly influences the quality of the decision and the commitment to implement it. Be strategic in deciding whether and how to engage others in making decisions and to make how you want to engage them explicit at the start of a meeting. Doing so sets clear expe

Too frequently we behave as if our untested inferences or beliefs about what we observe and hear are “the truth.” What we infer from or believe about what we see and hear is often quite different from what we actually see and hear. In other words, we make up stories about our direct experience instead of paying attention to it. Recently I was teaching mindfulness meditation to a group of “transition age youth.” As I spoke, one woman sat with her arms crossed, her legs exte

People’s time and interest are precious, limited resources. Only convene meetings that require interaction and have a clear purpose and specific desired outcomes. I follow three guidelines. First, I won’t go to a meeting unless the convener communicates beforehand what they want to accomplish. Second, if I ignore the first guideline and go to a meeting without knowing the purpose, at the start I ask, “What do you hope to accomplish at this meeting?” Third, if I am the one co