A common cause of meeting troubles is the hidden agenda — participants' private goals, toward which they steer the meeting at what seems to others to be every opportunity. Although both hidden and blind agendas waste time and although both can lead to toxic conflict, they're fundamentally different. The hidden agenda is known to its proponents, but unknown to others. The blind agenda is unknown to its proponents, but known to others. The two agendas lie in two different panes of the Johari Window.
This seems paradoxical: how can the proponent of a blind agenda be unaware of it? One example is a set of individual differences related to what psychologists call the need for cognitive closure, which is the need for definite knowledge about some issue, the need for clarity, or the need to make a decision on the open question.
For any given situation, different individuals can experience different perceived needs for cognitive closure. These differences can arise from differences in perceptions of the urgency of the situation, or from differences in disposition. Some people will usually feel a greater need than others do, while some people might see greater urgency in the shared situation than others do.
What is most fascinating about these individual differences is that many of us believe that our own sense of need for closure is the most appropriate. Even in small groups, we're usually unaware — or we easily forget — that the sensed need for cognitive closure is personal, and that differences are inevitable.
Whatever our level of need for cognitive closure in a given situation, we sometimes incorporate into our contributions to discussions some thoughts that are motivated mostly by our desire either for closure or for further deliberation. Usually, when we do, we don't realize that we are blind to our own agendas.
Since no Many of us believe that
our own sense of need
for closure is the
most appropriateparticular point on the spectrum of need for cognitive closure is inherently correct for all situations, a group is stronger when it finds among its members a variety of needs for cognitive closure. But when the group polarizes around the question of urgency itself, not realizing that judgments about urgency are often personal and subjective, it is on a path that leads to the swamp.
When you next find yourself in a meeting in which some want to make a decision now and others want to think more carefully, watch as the former characterize the latter as ditherers or perfectionists, while the latter characterize the former as rushing or careless. When you see this, blind agendas might be playing a role.
Individual differences in the need for cognitive closure are not the only possible blind agenda. Any individual difference can serve. The desire for elegance, adherence to convention, the need for structure, and even allowance for individual differences are good examples. What have you seen lately? Top Next Issue
Do you spend your days scurrying from meeting to meeting? Do you ever wonder if all these meetings are really necessary? (They aren't) Or whether there isn't some better way to get this work done? (There is) Read 101 Tips for Effective Meetings to learn how to make meetings much more productive and less stressful — and a lot more rare. Order Now!
For more about differences and disagreements, see "Appreciate Differences," Point Lookout for March 14, 2001; "When You Think They've Made Up Their Minds," Point Lookout for May 21, 2003; "Towards More Gracious Disagreement," Point Lookout for January 9, 2008; and "Is the Question "How?" or "Whether?"," Point Lookout for August 31, 2011.
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Related articles
More articles on Effective Meetings:
- What Haven't I Told You?
- When a project team hits a speed bump, it often learns that it had all the information it needed to
avoid the problem, sometimes months in advance of uncovering it. Here's a technique for discovering
this kind of knowledge more systematically.
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- Where do the days go? How can it be that we spend eight, ten, or twelve hours at work each day and get
so little done? To recover time, limit the fragmentation of your day. Here are some tips for structuring
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- Divisive Debates and Virulent Victories
- When groups decide divisive issues, harmful effects can linger for weeks, months, or forever. Although
those who prevail might be ready to "move on," others might feel so alienated that they experience
even daily routine as fresh insult and disparagement. How a group handles divisive issues can determine
its success.
- Newly Virtual Politics: Meetings
- Pandemic or not, workplace politics marches on. But with the pandemic and the prevalence of formerly
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- Gratuitous Use of Synonyms, Aliases, and Metaphors
- The COVID-19 pandemic has permanently changed how we work. We're now more virtual than before. In this
new environment, synonyms, aliases, and metaphors can pave the path to trouble. To avoid expensive mistakes,
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See also Effective Meetings and Emotions at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming May 8: Antipatterns for Time-Constrained Communication: 3
- Recognizing just a few patterns that can lead to miscommunication can reduce the incidence of problems. Here is Part 3 of a collection of antipatterns that arise in technical communication under time pressure, emphasizing past experiences of participants. Available here and by RSS on May 8.
- And on May 15: Should I Write or Should I Call?
- After we recognize the need to contact a colleague or colleagues to work out a way to move forward, we next must decide how to make contact. Phone? Videoconference? Text message? There are some simple criteria that can help with such decisions. Available here and by RSS on May 15.
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