What an Awkward Meeting Taught Me

Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.

I mishandled a meeting today. Not disastrously—there were no raised voices or slammed laptops—but badly enough that I replayed it throughout the afternoon.

I was presenting an early proposal when Omar questioned one of my assumptions. Before he had finished, I began defending the entire project. I answered a broader criticism than the one he was making, which made him repeat himself and made me sound as though I had arrived prepared for combat. The room developed that particular stillness in which everyone becomes fascinated by their notes.

Afterward, I found Omar by the lift and apologized for talking over him. He shrugged, then explained his concern in two sentences. It was specific, fixable, and, irritatingly, correct. We went back to a whiteboard and changed the part of the plan that depended on my assumption. The conversation took six minutes. My resistance had taken most of the meeting.

The uncomfortable lesson is not simply that I should listen better. I already know that. It is that I sometimes treat questions as tests of whether I deserve to be in the room. Once that fear takes over, I stop hearing the question and start protecting my place.

For the next review, I am writing three words at the top of my page: “Let them finish.” It is a modest strategy, but today’s problem was not a lack of sophisticated knowledge. It was six missing seconds of silence.