Working with other people effectively is an art. It requires skill and empathy on many levels to lead people and inspire them about the journey you want to take together. It's easy to get this wrong and only tap into a small percentage of the potential that could unfold if working together is done right.
One paradigm I believe in is that the deeper the relationship between you and the person you work with, the more potential there is to tap into the highest capabilities of both of you. In this sense, depth is understood as the quality of the relationship you have, the degree of awareness and presence that exists, as well as the level of psychological safety.
All of these are an art in themselves to establish, so for now I want to focus on a simple routine I've discovered over the years that helps me work more effectively with people, especially in the context of meetings.
And this is the routine:
At the start of important meetings, I spend 2 minutes doing box breathing with everyone. This is a method that calms your nervous system and allows you to become aware of your body and thoughts, sort of like a mini meditation. Then, we start by checking in. This consists of answering 2 questions and giving as much space as needed to everyone: "How are you here?" and "What has your attention?"
The whole routine takes a couple of minutes, and afterwards, the quality of how everyone is present and the level at which we can have the meeting is remarkably better. You create a calm state and environment to talk about difficult things, ask striking questions, and share hard truths. It's a distinct quality that allows for better work with other humans.
I'm sure an instinct is that this is wasting everyone's time, and that we're here to "work". And I respect people viewing practices like this in that light; however, I think those people miss out on truly effective working relationships. The truth is, most of our behavior and being is subconscious. We can put great effort into pushing it away to show up with our perfect self that we want in our conscious existence. And in this mode, we believe we can just get the work done and are effective. But the truth is, you miss out on the majority of the potential of people if you are stuck on that level. There's more to it - more depth, more presence, more being, more performance. And a practice like this favors surfacing exactly that level of being, allowing you to work with people on a higher dimension, more effectively, and better.