Do People Have Their Own Agendas?

​Colleagues,
 
Today we’ll look at a stair step from last week’s sunburst example. The issue was “our meetings are unproductive.” Today’s sunray is “people have their own agendas.”
 
Why do people have their own agendas?

• They don’t have another place to share
• They don’t understand our goals
• They aren’t sure what we are trying to achieve

 
I wonder…

• How often does this happen?
• Are we talking about one person?

 
But…

• Sometimes the meeting goal is not clear

 
Aha!

• If the purpose isn’t clear, people insert their own priorities

 
What do see in these responses? Remember, we identified nine sunrays for the unproductive meetings issue, so today is only one example and we can’t draw any conclusions. However, we have learned a couple of things by going deeper:

• When we say “people” do we mean “person”? It is relatively common to have sunrays that talk about people when they actually mean a specific person. Ouch!
• Are people (or a person) filling a void because there isn’t a clear meeting purpose?
• Or, are they hijacking a meeting that does have a clear purpose?
• Or, is the purpose clear to some people but not to others?

This is not the time to reach to a conclusion, but as we deal with other sunrays, patterns will start to emerge.
 
Think about stakeholders for this issue. If we don’t have them all helping, there are perspectives that will be lost. If there is that “one” person (we’ve all been on teams that had one), how do you facilitate this process with them present? And if they aren’t present, how valid or effective can your outcome be?
 
Tomorrow’s example is too much information.
 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick