Avoiding the groan fest

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Permalink Reply by Gill Hunt on December 21, 2009 at 2:38

I think it's really difficult, particularly if it's a relatively fixed group of people so the groaning has become a habit! I've had a similar situation in a client project I'm working on - as a group we've all become very frustrated with various issues - and attempts to raise these with senior management have essentially been ignored.

Fortunately I think we all came to the same conclusion at the same time, that we needed to give up complaining for a while and start working on constructive things we could do to move the situation forward. Before a recent meeting (that could very easily have descended into a groan-fest) we agreed that no-one would mention certain key problems. Not everyone was in on the agreement (not deliberate that, just how it happened) - but the result was a much mire productive session than we've had for a while.

So maybe at the next meeting you could just say - 'how about we all agree not to mention the recession' - or whatever else is bugging people? Not everyone will co-operate but if you're lucky there'll be enough to bring things back on course!

Good luck!

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