Nothing to talk about

Here’s the Men’s Camellia Club attending to important camellia business. (Florida Memory)

In my work with teams, one of the biggest challenges is to get leaders to stick to the meetings that matter.

Especially when the boss is the owner of the company and trying to streamline her schedule, she’ll have a tendency to cancel the weekly check-in meetings with her direct reports once things are under control.

This is a big mistake. First of all, it means that she’s training her team to only communicate (and communicate with her) when there’s a problem.

And if an issue comes up with one of her employees, she will have to schedule a meeting to talk about it, which makes even a little thing seem like a big deal.

Meanwhile, little problems that could have been prevented or addressed early on become big problems that the employee may not have the support and feedback to recover from.

A better approach is to stick to the recurring meetings with each of her direct reports, even if there are no problems and there is nothing to talk about. That’s when things get interesting — in fact, believe it or not, those are the circumstances that yield some of the best and most productive meetings.

Now, when more people are involved, you need an agenda. But with only two or three people gathered together, the agenda can be vague: How are we doing? How could we be doing even better? What’s going well? What do we know we need to do that we aren’t doing? What do we want to stop doing?

It can also get more personal: What problems are bothering you that seem too small to mention? What projects are you doing that you’re bored or frustrated by? What could I be doing to better support you?

When there are no pressing issues and things are running smoothly, that’s the perfect time to go deeper. It’s an opportunity to dig beneath the everyday routine and question assumptions that have been made. It’s a chance to optimize, not just repair what’s broken.

When my kitchen is clean, I can go into deep-cleaning mode. That’s when I take the burners off of the stove and clean under them. I take all of the utensils out of their holder and clean the holder. I wipe out the fridge. There’s no sense in doing these things with a full sink of dishes, but once the dishes are done, other things can be taken care of.

So it is with meetings. Potential challenges can be proactively addressed. Invisible misunderstandings can be cleared. An exciting new idea can arise, and a plan of action for it can be created right away.

Some of the best meetings I’ve ever had occurred when there was nothing to talk about. An offhand comment can lead to a transformational coaching session. A laborious undertaking that everyone assumed was necessary can be scrapped, and long-dormant project can move unexpectedly to the front burner.

In these moments, a meeting isn’t just a dull journey through a list of bullet points. It’s a period of genuine connection, each person showing up to give their best with no distractions. Small misunderstandings are resolved and key truths are revealed. Within that space emerges the scary thing that someone didn’t realize they had needed to say, or perhaps the words of praise or validation that someone didn’t realize they had needed to hear.

Setting aside a short time each week to talk about nothing with the important people in your life or work can be one of the most beneficial habits you undertake. The truth is, there’s never nothing to talk about. There’s always something. That’s the good stuff.