by Lynn Scott, Featured Contributor

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]L[/su_dropcap]AST WEEK we looked at the importance of being able to Read the Room and I shared an experiment to help you do just that.

Three people got in touch with the following comments:

‘It has always frustrated me that people commit to doing things in meetings and then make excuses why they haven’t done them; the most common reason being ‘I don’t have time’. When I did the Reading the Room experiment it became obvious to me that commitment was lacklustre at best.  I realised I need to do something with this in the meeting itself rather than ‘letting it go’ and then getting annoyed when the deadlines aren’t met’.

‘It made me realise how much people talk for the sake of it and don’t add anything new to the conversation.  It also made me realise how much I do that too.  Ooops!  Work to be done’

‘I’m embarrassed to realise that we all talk over the only woman in this project group.  I noticed her trying to get a word in on a few occasions and people just choose not to pay attention or don’t even hear her as they are too busy trying to get their own point across.  She’s quietly spoken and but that is no excuse’

Great observations here and an opportunity to take stock and do things differently.

One reader reminded us to ‘Read the Room but Don’t Over-read it’ and shared this great article

There are some great points in this article particularly linked to my comment last week about noticing body language but not making assumptions or trying to interpret what it means.  A simple ‘is everything okay’?  is often enough to find out what is really going on.