When people come together, they often assume that everyone thinks like them about the event or the meeting. For them there is not much to think about before that meeting or when it starts. They take it for granted that whatever starts the meeting will lead to the expected result. It helps them participate and hope that the meeting serves a function they are interested in or can contribute to.

Quite quickly, things might not happen exactly as expected, and they become agitated. That’s when they start to seek ways to orient the meeting or to keep it afloat. They might also start to distance themselves from it, for example through daydreaming or by shifting their attention to their laptop or smartphone.

It’s a moment where people might start to ask themselves questions. Three are particularly interesting:

Why are we here together?

What is our meeting for?

What do we want to discuss or do?

If their answers to these questions don’t match the event, they can use them to verify with the others how they understand the situation.

It’s how they can stop losing time, they can decide to leave if the meeting isn’t for them and nobody has a reason for them to stay. They can also decide together to transform the meeting into something useful for everyone.

That’s true for professional or casual meetings.