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Just like that person who gives you voice commands through your Maps app, Craig is always “recalculating” when he’s running a meeting. Or in a conversation. Or navigating through a relationship!

Craig explains in this short video from a historic Inn on the Maine coast.

(Oh, and he tries a British accent.)

This video has captions. To see them, click CC on the video screen.

Here’s what Craig says in the video

Hi everybody.

Hey it’s Craig Freshley. I just facilitated a day-long meeting right here. It’s called the Harpswell Inn on the coast of Maine. It was an international Board of Directors. We had people here from South America, North America, Europe, Asia.

At the afternoon break somebody came up to me. I’ll even do an accent for you. “I was just on the phone to someone back home and I was telling them that you’re like that woman in Google Maps! The one that says: recalculating.” And yeah. It occurred to me, and this guy, that that’s kind of what I do when I’m facilitating a meeting.

There were several times today when I made a new plan for the rest of the agenda. There were several times today when I wrote a conclusion on the wall and then rewrote it. There were several times today when I made a proposal for what the group might do as next steps, and then based on what they said and how the meeting went, crossed it out and made another proposal.

If you are a meeting facilitator or if you are in a conversation with somebody or if you’re in a relationship with somebody of any kind, you do well to be always recalculating.

It’s good to have a map and a plan but you know what? We make wrong turns, we drive off the map, stuff happens that we don’t anticipate — like traffic — and we have to continually recalculate.

I serve my group, my conversation, my relationship well when I’m not wedded to the initial plan; when I am always focused on trying to get that person or trying to get us to our destination. When I’m always “recalculating.”

I hope this helps you help your group make good decisions. Thanks for listening everybody!