I’m on the playground committee for my kid’s school.
They need a new playground ASAP and we need to raise money for it.
Here’s the problem though:
Every meeting is stuck in circles.
For someone (me 🙋) who believes in efficiency, it’s maddening.
And the guy who volunteered to run it is a really nice guy – he just doesn’t have the skill set to think strategically about all the pieces.
He’s focused on tasks, not strategy – bake sales, clothing drives, and other familiar ideas.
Have you ever sat through meetings where:
❌ No one can make a decision
❌ No one’s on the same page
❌ Or worse yet, they’re not even in the same book
Good meeting design, prep, and facilitation can fix a lot of this.
But what if you’re not the leader – and they’re the one who needs help?
Here are some helpful suggestions:
If you’re in a position to offer help (good relationship or opportunity to lend your skillset)
✔️ “Hey, I have some ideas that might be helpful, but I wanted to run them by you first, would you be interested in hearing them?”
The key here is to not imply they’re doing a bad job – it’ll just trigger defensiveness and take you off track.
If you have a great relationship with them
✔️ “Hey, can I give you some feedback about the meetings?”
If you already have a trusting relationship with them, then give them the feedback!
If they’re defensive or unwilling to hear out your ideas (or you just don’t have an opportunity to talk it out)
Some really good questions to clarify things for the group:
✔️ “What do you/we need to feel comfortable making a decision here?”
✔️ “Do we need to include someone else to make this decision?”
✔️ “Just to make sure I don’t miss any action steps, what do we need to do next? Do we have everything we need to do that/decide on that?”
At the end of the day, you don’t necessarily need authority to fix broken meetings and create clarity, you just need courage and curiosity.
And you may not get any credit for it, but personally, I’d rather make progress than sit through the same meetings again.
Any other techniques that work for you? Reply back and let me know!
Cheers,
Chris
P.S. I’ve been building something special for November — a short, high-impact experience called TRUST, all about leading through tough conversations. I’d love to have you in the first group. Details are here [https://www.myleadershippotential.com/trust]
