I had a recent experience that I want to share with you so that you can learn from it as well.
I was facilitating a monthly group coaching conversation last month with a senior team who were focused on discussing the company’s core priorities. Just as we were wrapping up the session and discussing the next steps, a team member brought up a sensitive and prickly topic that was big enough and important enough to have been the main focus of the entire session.
It was like a vacuum bomb had been quietly dropped into the middle of the room and you could feel all of the air being sucked out of the space the room.
As I took a deep breath, glanced at the clock and realised we only had 2 minutes to go I wondered:
‘Why did they not bring this up at the beginning of the meeting?’
I didn’t have time to think about it.
I recognised that this wasn’t something we could pack away for our next meeting.
So we dropped all expectations that we would finish on time and opened the room up for a discussion.
Later, reflecting on the situation, I realised that this experience was not unique.
Often, in both professional and personal settings, people tend to save the most critical topics for the end of a conversation.
It’s as if they need the entire duration of the discussion to muster up enough courage to bring up what’s really on their mind.
Do you find that you do the same?
Ximena Vengoechea, author of Listen Like You Mean It, calls this a “doorknob comment”.
It’s when someone finally brings up what they wanted to say the whole time, but only had the courage to do so right before the conversation ends.
It is equally valuable when thinking about your conversations with your direct reports or with your leader.
We might feel that it’s challenging to bring up that difficult topic whether it’s a performance issue, some feedback you need to give, a conflict that needs to be resolved, a salary negotiation, a restructure, a change in role, or perhaps an ethical issue.
I loved this perspective and piece of advice from Ximena Vengoechea as a way of refining 1:1’s with your team or with your leader:
By paying attention to patterns in your discussions over time, you can start to anticipate when someone might have a doorknob comment and be prepared to give them the opportunity to share what’s really on their mind.
One way to do this is to ask a simple question: “What would you save for the end of our conversation today?”
By starting with this question, you signal that you are open to hearing what’s most important to them and give them permission to share even the most challenging topics.
On the flip side, if you’re someone who struggles to feel heard in conversations, use clear and simple language to communicate your needs explicitly. Don’t talk around the issue but instead, take the most direct path to being heard.
I encourage you to take this advice and practice deepening your conversations in your next 1:1. By doing so, you might just be surprised at what you uncover and the deeper connections you can build with those around you.
Consider how you can create space for doorknob comments earlier in important discussions.
For more information about hosting effective 1:1s with your team, read this article.
