Are You Letting Your Emotions Run Your Meetings?

Are You Letting Your Emotions Run Your Meetings?

One of the secrets to running effective meetings that most people don’t realize is emotion management.

When strong emotions are stirred up during a meeting, they can completely derail the group and steer it away from its goals. Defensiveness and anger have no place in a business meeting. Displaying these emotions can only damage your reputation and they never produce positive results.

Since the meeting room isn’t the place for outbursts and meltdowns, strong emotions have to be well managed.

Prepare Thoroughly

There is less chance for emotional explosions in a meeting that’s tightly structured. Prepare the meeting well by creating a detailed schedule. Try to anticipate which topics may bring up strong emotions and create a contingency plan for dealing with these situations if trouble arises.

Employ Empathy

When strong emotions erupt, try to handle it calmly. Start by putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. What are they feeling that is causing the outburst? Rather than condemning them for letting their emotions get the best of them, try to see the situation through their eyes. Remember that they are “right” in their mind.

If you can see it through the other person’s eyes, you’ll better understand how to defuse the situation.You can also let them know that you understand, and this can also calm them down.

One way to calm them is to let them know you understand. Most people want to feel heard and understood. Say something like, “I understand you are concerned about (whatever they bring up).” By rephrasing their concern, they feel heard.

Even if you don’t agree with their point of view, wait until you have heard their concerns before bringing up your own counter-points.

Take a Break

A great strategy for dealing with strong emotions during meetings is to simply take a break and cool down. This is the “business meeting version” of counting down from ten and taking deep breaths.

Leave the meeting room and let everyone go their separate way so that they can decompress. Allow five or ten minutes, or however much time you deem necessary for everyone to cool down and process their emotions. Come back to the meeting when everyone is feeling more calm and collected.

Apologize Quickly and Easily

It’s very easy for people who are emotionally intelligent to say that they’re sorry. These simple words can defuse many tense situations. An apology may be all the upset person wants to hear.

The outburst may not be your fault, but learn to apologize easily. Apologizing shows sympathy and it shows that you understand how the other person feels.

Avoid the Blame Game

Things get heated quickly when accusations and blame are being thrown around. Try never to blame someone in a meeting, even if they clearly did something wrong. This is almost sure to trigger defensiveness and all of the strong emotions that come with it. Instead, identify a problem that exists for the meeting to solve.

Know Your Own Emotions

Get to know your own emotions and emotional triggers. Even if a meeting gets out of hand, keep yourself calm and learn to deal with your emotions appropriately. Develop your own emotional intelligence and let it help you keep things under control.

Want to learn more about EI and how to develop yours? Consider taking our Emotional Intelligence Basics course.

To your success!