David shares a model created by Darren Lockwood all about better self-management.
Over the last 12 months, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Darren Lockwood from VolkerRail. As usual, I’ve rambled from pillar to post box in our many conversations and then ‘boom!’, Darren (a self-confessed model admirer) produced his ‘silver bullet’ to better engagement model, which he felt summed up our conversations. I love it and Darren has given us permission to give it a Rambutan ‘paint job’ and share it. Great work, Darren!
It’s a process that helps you to remain calm and in control, whatever the stakes of the meeting are and despite any poor/hostile behaviour from others. It allows you to move from being the servant of your emotional state, to being the wise master of it! The old saying states, ‘never write a letter when you are angry’. Darren’s model rewires this to, ‘never get angry and then you can always write letters’. You can apply it to all forms of communication… especially meetings.
In essence, you start at the top right, by analysing your mindset before you go into a meeting and ensuring you’re clear on your outcomes and free from any negative judgement and/or justification about the person/people you’re meeting. You then make a personal commitment to yourself to ‘be professional’! Assuming you avoid any ‘hostile behaviour’ from anyone, after the meeting, you reflect on whether you achieved your outcomes and any learning for next time… quite a linear top-to-bottom process… yay!
When the sailing is not as plain, then things get more interesting in terms of your post-meeting reflection! Firstly, you need to do a bit of a self-audit to work out when and what triggered you. Acknowledging how the trigger(s) made you feel and saying this out loud (I’m assuming you’re on your own at this point!) will start to cause any negative feelings you still have lingering from the meeting to dissipate. You then need to look for and replace any negative judgement and/or justification that is forcing you to hold on to any remaining negative emotions.
This means you can start afresh at the top right and not take any emotional baggage to the next meeting you have with the same person(s).*
Give it a try and let us know how you get on!
*If you read this far, you may have figured out how useful this process could also be in your interactions with loved ones!
Click here to download a PDF of the ‘silver bullet’ model…