How To Have Productive Meetings

In my communication culture work with business owners, leaders and teams one issue that arises again and again is “meeting madness”. You know what I am talking about...the seemingly endless meetings that litter your diary on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. There are meetings to talk about meetings, meetings to find out what’s going on, meetings to discuss this and that and meetings that seem to have no purpose or outcome, leaving everyone wondering what that was all about ...

This “meeting madness” of getting together without a clear purpose or outcome is a waste of everyone’s time and energy. The impact is “meeting reluctance” where people turn up but don’t show up, where people share some stuff but not themselves and where the experience is less than satisfying or complete. And often the end result is having to schedule another meeting to deal with what wasn’t addressed!

As always in the paradigm of cause, it is quite simple to create productive and effective meetings ... all the time, every time.

How To Have A Productive Meeting

1. Before you begin, make sure everyone present is actually in the room. Not just the skin-bag flopped in a chair, but really present, in their body, and ready to engage. Ask everyone to close their eyes and breathe for a few minutes.
2. Identify and communicate the purpose of the meeting.
3. Determine the outcome(s)/results required and/or desired.
4. If required, distribute an agenda prior to the meeting.
5. Decide on a timetable and stick to it.
6. Appoint someone to be responsible for keeping the meeting focused and on purpose.
7. Ensure everyone involved knows the purpose and outcomes before you begin.
8. Any items raised that are not on purpose/on the agenda get noted to be dealt with at a later date.
9. Before you begin, request everyone agree to keep the meeting on purpose, on time and to achieve the stated outcomes.
10. Review: agenda items completed/held over; action items and timelines allocated; meeting outcomes achieved.

When you are clear about your purpose and outcomes before you begin, meetings fulfill their purpose and everyone benefits.

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"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Creating Conflict

Avoiding conflict used to be my main go-to strategy when faced with the possibility of causing a reaction. I did not want to confront anyone with anything too emotionally loaded because I did not want to feel guilty, upset, or wrong.

A while ago, I realised that constantly withholding my deeper feelings and automatic reactions was not resolving anything. All that happened was more of the same, over and over again. And I still felt scared of what I was feeling and what you may feel if I ever revealed how I really felt. What a racket!

I decided it was time to stop avoiding conflict and instead, learn how to deal with it effectively. To begin with, my conflict resolution methods resulted in more conflict and lots of feelings. After many occasions of going almost all the way then pulling back ... again and again, I decided to stop avoiding the feelings (which only made them more intense all round) and go there anyway. Rather than shut down and withhold even more, I chose to keep breathing and keep communicating and keep feeling until the energy shifted and the conflict was truly resolved.

Until the next time ...

And there is always a "next time" as shown by my experiences over this past month. I would love to say that I have nailed it (whatever "it" is!) and conflict resolution is a breeze for me these days. Alas ... it is not. Sometimes resolution is fairly easy, yet lately, I have been deciding that what is occurring really is a very personal attack on me and I then feel wrong and upset and angry and all sorts of things I don't like to feel.

My avoidance and reactions to conflict simply show me where the "not-good-enough" context still informs my feelings and thus my behaviour. Much of my life I have feared being wrong so I have developed very sophisticated and elegant strategies for avoiding any conflict where I could be perceived as being wrong. And when I chose to stop avoiding conflict, I also chose (albeit without consciousness at the time) to stop avoiding this version of the "not-good-enough" stuff ...

And therein lies the loving intention in my choice to keep creating conflict: It provides many opportunities to fully acknowledge the "not-good-enough" stuff and return to love.

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"We often must become painfully aware of the unworkability of a pattern before we're willing to give it up."

Return To Love by Marianne Williamson

You Are Not Your Feelings

Who you are is perfect LOVE - pure, simple, boundless, limitless, joyous, expansive, creative, powerful ... LOVE.

Yet, what you often feel is anything but that ... AND yet, you are the one who chooses to feel the way you feel. Jill Bolte-Taylor made the observation that emotion (energy-in-motion) takes 90 seconds to complete it’s journey though you and be done. If any feelings lasts longer than 90 seconds ... you must be doing something to make them stay ... you start to feel something, then you agree with whatever meaning you make out of the feeling then you feel it even more and on it goes ... sometimes for a lifetime!

Now you may not like this or understand it ... in fact I can hear the silver-tongued fearful ego voice in your head saying ... ”this is nuts, I don’t choose all my feelings, sometimes other people just make me feel stuff”.

No they don’t. No one can make you choose anything you do not choose. You always have a choice even when you feel you do not. The truth about “I didn’t have a choice” is actually: “I did not like any of the other options so I chose the least painful/awful of what was available to me at the time”.

So, who taught you how to feel your feelings?
Where did you learn how to respond to what you are feeling rather than react?

My guess is ... no one did.
In fact, you have probably had little or no education or training in what feelings are, what they mean and how to use them as a resource for change rather than as a reason to stay wounded and suffering.

Consider this:  How much of your life have you spent feeling that you are not good enough - not worth enough, or deserving enough or pretty enough or smart enough or successful enough or strong enough or brave enough or lucky enough or quick enough or calm enough or ... just not enough?

Well enough of feeling not ok, enough of doubting your own loving heart, enough of choosing the illusion of fear when only love is real. Enough of pretending to be who you are not when the truth about who you really are is magnificent.

Step One:	ACCEPT and LET GO Choose to accept you are ok, lovable, valuable, powerful and unlimited EVEN WHEN you don’t feel it. Let go of needing to figure it all out rationally and just accept that you are LOVE and let yourself BE.
Step Two:	REMEMBER: FEELINGS ARE NOT FACTS When you start to feel anything at all ... pause for a moment, take a breath, get present in your own body, breathe, and let the feeling (energy-in-motion) move through you - remember 90 seconds and the energy will shift. If you find yourself getting involved with your fearful thinking mind, tell yourself “this is just a feeling, it’s not a fact ... just because I feel X doesn’t mean X is true, it’s just true that I am feeling X and breathe ...
Step Three:	CHOOSE AGAIN Choose how you want to feel, what you want to do next and how you want to show up - then BE and DO what you have chosen. Revisit Step One often and Step Two as needed!

Whatever your story, wherever you are now, whatever has been before ... you are OK, you are perfect LOVE and you can experience this if you are willing to accept your magnificence and choose to live into WHO you are moment by moment, one loving breath at a time.

It’s really very simple ... but don’t mistake simple for easy. Sometimes simple is the hardest to do and yet, when you accept, surrender your resistance and simply choose to accept LOVE rather than fear ... well it starts to get pretty simple!

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"The highest feeling is the experience of unity with All That Is.
This is the great return to Truth for which the soul yearns.
This is the feeling of perfect love."

Conversations With God Book 1: Neale Donald Walsch

Whatever ...

Every year I choose a context for myself - the primary filter or framework I am consciously choosing to experience myself and my life from and within for the year. Whatever comes to mind first is what I choose ... and this year it was ... well ... "whatever ..."

I laughed!

How perfect for me for 2013 - year of whatever. Sitting with my choice I noticed I felt quite tickled by the possibilities of "whatever". If I am not attached to anything in particular, then whatever is perfect. So simple to see and say, so hard to do ...

"Whatever" is my shorthand for accepting that whatever is happening, is happening. It's about allowing, observing, noticing and being with whatever is already occurring. It doesn't mean I don't have a choice because I always have a choice. It does mean not attaching to my choice but rather letting myself BE with whatever is actually happening whether it looks/feels/is like my choice or not.

Mastering the moment-by-moment habit of accepting "whatever" is challenging to say the least. I am like a baby learning how to walk - I know I will become attached to particular outcomes and choices, expect things to happen in certain ways and feel a lot of things along the way. And whatever feelings arise, they too are just ... whatever!

What an exquisite paradox - letting things that are already happening, happen without needing to impose my conscious preference, expectation, desire or control on any moment while accepting that whatever is happening is my choice, my creation and it's perfect.

I know the value of support for me in my process on my journey so I invest in a range of things including daily exercise and fresh organic food, regular sessions with my healer/coach, daily meditation and time for me to "whatever".

Ultimately, simply BEING and accepting whatever produces inner and outer harmony and profound peace.

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"He who lives in harmony with himself,
lives in harmony with the world."

Marcus Aurelius

When Giving Isn't

Well here we are again ... the end of another year and the festive season is upon us - a time of peace and joy and giving ...

Or is it?

Giving is a choice ... a choice to freely give means to let go and expect nothing in return ... and that is the sticking point because so much giving really isn't. At this time of year giving has become synonymous with giving stuff and along with it goes the stress and frustration of shopping and spending money and battling crowds of people all hell bent on giving stuff too. And not just giving stuff but giving more stuff we really don't need or want to those who really don't need or want it either!

As Christmas looms, I have found myself confronting some old beliefs about giving including the polarising adage "it's better to give than to receive", which in the paradigm of cause, is utterly ridiculous because it is not possible to give without receiving ... two sides of the same coin! I have become acutely aware that sometimes I make choices to "give" when really I am not! As soon as I realise I expect something in return, I am confronted by the truth that my "giving" is really a trade-off, a tit-for-tat reaction that has nothing to do with giving. I usually end up feeling disappointed, resentful and/or angry because the choice I am actually making is not about giving ... it's about being attached to a particular outcome as a result of my "giving". And it never works.

So this Yuletide I am making a different choice: To give me, not just stuff or things, but me, the whole and the all in every interaction, in every situation. To give freely the love that I am without expectation of anything particular in return. I know that something will be returned and my choice is to detach from any expectation of form and instead to receive with ease and grace whatever shows up.

Nothing like a challenge to kick-start 2013!

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"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

Kahlil Gibran

Feeling Stressed?

Much has been written about stress - what it is, indicators, why it occurs, how to manage it, etc - and when I started researching the many and varied definitions of stress I got 580,000,000 hits on my initial google search! Talk about stressful ... !

Yet with all the information and help available today, it would seem that we are more stressed than ever. According to some recent research here in Australia: “Young adults 18 to 25 years of age reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than the general population.” (Ref: The Australian Psychological Society)

Other research done by Medibank tells us: “Australian employees are absent for an average of 3.2 working days each year through stress. This workplace stress costs the Australian economy approximately $14.81 billion.” (Ref: Medibank)

So what’s going on?

My take on all of this is that many people just don’t get the power and possibility of our own minds, hearts and souls to consciously, consistently and effectively respond to what’s really going on, moment by moment from love. We are so scared of what we really feel that we distract ourselves with all the “stuff’ going on outside us to avoid going within and dealing with our own fearful thinking and feelings.

Stress is not a feeling. It’s a convenient catch-bucket response to the question: “How are you going?” or “How are you feeling?” and that sums up the source of the problem ... your own thinking mind. If you are feeling “stressed” it’s because you keep agreeing with your infernal, internal, ego-mind that keeps you focused on the past (“remember when ...’) or projected into the future (“what if ...”) and there is no peace or joy in either location!

Time to move on. Let go of the past and the future and BE. HERE. NOW.

Stop and breathe ... and breathe ... and breathe.

Let yourself BE while you observe the thoughts and the feelings. Let the energy move through you rather than attach to you and breathe ... breathe ... breathe.

Keep breathing until you feel the energy shift ... it will and so will you.

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"If you do not go within, you go without."

Neale Donald Walsch

Enough Already!

This month I find myself sufficiently aroused and suitably fed-up to speak out and speak up so please stay with me as it’s a bit longer than the usual offering.

As taxpayers, our leaders and politicians at all levels are employed by me and by you... in fact all of us are their employer. To sit back and do nothing is to tacitly accept that this toxic political culture of persecutor/victim/rescuer wrapped in blame and shame is ok. If someone who worked directly for you was behaving the way our leaders from all spheres of influence are behaving would you keep them on the payroll? Or say: Enough!

Enough I say to all the leaders of influence in our great nation. Enough I say to our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott and every politician in this country; Enough I say to the media owners, journalists, broadcasters and reporters in all media forms and forums; Enough I say to Business Leaders and all persons of influence.

Enough of the immature personal attacks and bullying, enough of your ego-centric grandstanding and point scoring, enough of name calling and cruel remarks intended to personally wound and hurt; enough of your wounded inner 3 year old running the show ... enough, enough, enough!!!

I am sick of the game you are playing and I have yet to find anyone who thinks or feels that what is going on is ok. It’s not. The role models that you have become are nothing short of appalling ... and we all wonder why bullying in schoolyards, in cyber-space and in the workplace is so very common in 21st century Australia. Well take a good long hard look in the mirror ... the fish rots from the head down and as the heads of the various fish that make up this whale of a great island nation, you are rotting at a very fast pace.

I wonder if you have considered that your legacy may very well be that you were directly responsible for the transformation of our political and social paradigm from one of “A fair go for everyone, respect, loyalty and fair-dinkum mateship” to one of “Profit before people, spin before truth, deceit, betrayal, me before you and us against them”?

How sad you cannot see that what you are doing, out of your unconscious yet insidious fear of “not good enough yet”, is continuously making choices that are divisive, limiting and above all sourced in your ego-centric thinking far removed from love, compassion and kindness. You keep creating exactly the response you get out of what you give yet blame the other for being a mirror of your own thinking. You fail to see that you are the source of all the conflict and aggressive behaviour you experience and encounter. And as the source, you can choose to change your way of Being, thinking, feeling, and doing. Your humanity is slipping and it’s time to get real, open up, tell the truth and be responsible for the whole of what you are creating. Only you can choose and ... you can choose.

Time to do something different. Time for a personal paradigm shift from Fear to Love.

How about it Ms Gillard? Mr Abbott? Anyone? Are you up for it?  Have you got the heart to drop your masks and let go of needing to prove you are good enough, accept that you (and every other human being on our planet) are fundamentally ok. Accept that you are essentially love in a skin bag of unlimited choices and start consciously choosing to BE the most magnificent you that you can be while you do what you do from love. Choose to really and simply start leading from love and truth and kindness and responsibility for the whole of how you show up and what you do, for the whole of what you cause moment by moment and the people of this great country will join you and support you in ways you never dreamed of.

That’s what I am doing by writing this piece. Telling my truth about how it is for me. And I want you to know that I wholeheartedly support you to BE your most loving self. I see you beyond the fearful stuff you keep choosing to do and I know you can BE who you are. You can.

All it takes is a new choice, a first step, an honest, open conversation free from attack and “staying on message” and spin and deflection and bullying, one real moment of truth could just change everything ...

So, what are you going to do next? Who are you going to be from now on?

I’m going to hit the “send’ button.

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