Workforce Wednesday // The 'And Not But' Meeting Ground Rule

I'm a big fan of the Manager Tools and Career Tools podcasts and urge everyone who's interested in communication, management, and career planning to listen to them. They are simply packed with great advise! This podcast, however, stood out to me because it's so damn simple and useful - not just at meetings, but also when communicating outside of work. The rule is basically this:

When you're in a meeting, don't ever say 'BUT'. Say 'AND' instead.

E.g. "Tom thinks X but I think Y" becomes "Tom thinks X and I think Y" (Or "Tom thinks X. I think Y"). And as Mike and Mark, who made the ingenious podcast, point out: Whenever you say 'but' you highlight the conflict between two ideas. So now the focus is on the conflict rather than the ideas. When you say 'and' you simply present two different ideas, and even though you leave out the 'but' people are smart enough to know wether it's two opposing ideas or not.

Here are a few more examples:

"I see what you mean BUT I don't think that would work because..."
"I see what you mean AND I don't think that would work because..."

"We are trying to make the deadline BUT we didn't have enough staff."
"We are trying to make deadline AND we didn't have enough staff."

I thinks it's very helpful advice, and even though I haven't mastered the rule to perfection yet, I hope I can with a bit of practice.

Here's a link to the podcast.