For Deep Discussions, Change Contexts

When you need to have an important conversation in business or in your personal life, it’s critically important to change the physical…

When you need to have an important conversation in business or in your personal life, it’s critically important to change the physical context where it takes place. Most recently I’ve observed this around people’s career growth conversations.

When you ask a person big-picture things like, “how do you see your passions evolving over the next few years” or “what is the impact and legacy you want to leave in this role,” something rings false if this occurs in a 30 minute bookended segment in a sterile conference room, even if that dialogue takes place at the coolest, hippest, most modern company.

Pulling these conversations out of the usual places (conference room, the same coffee shop everyone goes to) and putting the meet up into a new physical context scratches the emotional record and signals to both parties that things will be different in this conversation. It also frees a person of the insular thinking that develops inside any organization for just long enough to consider the even bigger picture.

It seems simple, but its effectiveness is amazing, give it a shot!

Originally published at http://adamjudelson.com on October 11, 2016.