I think some of the techniques that I’ve always leveraged is opening the room before anything starts with, “Who has an idea?” Who has an idea? And then from right there, you see who has the capacity to do what we want to do, who is encouraged to do what we want to do, who is excited to do what we want to do, and from there, you can start to distill, okay, here’s who’s going to do what. But by opening it up like that, you do it in a way that’s transparent, you do it in a way that shows your decision making, and you do it in a way that brings everybody along.
Not every leader does this, a lot of leaders are like, “All right, everybody come into the room, here’s who’s going to do what, and here’s what we’re going to do.” By opening it up, right at the beginning, “Hey, here’s what we want to do, who has ideas of how to do it?” You start to get the brainstorm going, and you start to get different ideas, you start to see again, who’s going to join in or not. But I will say, it also allows you to see who’s not talking, whether they want to or not, whether they don’t feel comfortable or not. And it allows you to start to mold the dynamics of the team so that everybody has a say.
And so when I see people not talking, maybe they’re too shy, maybe they don’t feel comfortable, maybe they’re Type B, and that’s okay. They’re the introverts. I either say, “Alright, thank you for everybody that has spoken. I’m going to open the room up now for people who haven’t said anything. And like, if you have an idea, I would love to hear it, I think it’s valuable.” And then I follow up after the meeting, to the people who didn’t speak even at that moment and say, “Hey, I noticed you didn’t speak up.” Or “I would like to open it up for you here in this closed environment,” email or text, whatever. “What ideas do you have?”
I want all the ideas. No idea is better than the other. I want all the ideas, because the common denominator of all those ideas is probably what’s going to go to life. And so it allows you to be a more inclusive leader, it allows you to be a more transparent leader, and honestly, you empower everybody equally, but in their own ways.
