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Authentic Communication:
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Dealing with Moose-on-the-Table
your children
Conversation skills by Jim Clemmer
Emotional Maturity
Enhancing your marriage
Family Life Imagine a team meeting around a conference-room table. They are reviewing
Interpersonal relationships progress and making plans. Charts are reviewed, slides are projected, documents
Speaking skills are handed out, and calculations are made.
Writing skills
Now imagine that standing in the middle of the conference-room table is a great
BUSINESS
big moose.
COMMUNICATION
Business ethics
Business etiquette
Business writing
Communication in
the workplace
Cross-cultural
communication No one says a word about the moose. Everyone carries on polite and
Conflict resolution earnest conversation as if this situation is very normal.
Creative thinking
Crisis management Meanwhile the moose is eating papers at one end of the table while plopping
Customer relations out moose pies at the other end of the table splattering a few participants'
Effective meetings
Job-hunting skills
business suits.
Management strategies
Marketing communication Team members are passing papers around the moose's legs. They shift in
Negotiating skills their chairs to make eye contact with each other under the moose's belly or
Networking in business to see past it to the front of the room. Papers need to be pried out from
Presentation skills underneath the moose's huge hoofs. When the moose lifts its head, his
Team building
massive antlers poke into the meeting room ceiling, raining down chunks of
Telephone marketing
ceiling tile and knocking out a light.

No one says a thing about this. The leader carries on blissfully with the
SITE meeting.
UPDATES
This, of course, is not a real scenario (at least, not
Like a dysfunctional in my experience!), but a symbolic one. The moose
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updates by email of
family with an abuser represents an issue that everyone knows is a
new articles added to in its midst, no one problem but isn't being addressed.
this site. wants to confront the
To subscribe, click on problem. People are trying to carry on as if things are
the button below: normal. Meanwhile the issue is blocking progress
and has caused some team members to tune out of conversations. Like a
dysfunctional family with an abuser in its midst, no one wants to confront
We're proud of our the problem.
ethical standards and
take your privacy By failing to declare the issue, they further empower it. The moose grows
seriously bigger.

SEE SAMPLE ISSUE The Moose-on-the-Table scenario is one that we run into very often within
management teams.

The problem is that conversations among the team aren't authentic. They
don't deal with the real issues that are blocking progress. Some teams have
a huge moose to deal with; others have a smaller moose.

What are the symptoms?

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Some teams have a whole moose family crowding them out. Do you have a
moose on your meeting room table? Here are a few symptoms:

The real conversations happen in the hallways or office after the

meeting. There the moose or issues are clearly named.

Team members complacently agree to a consensus at the meeting –

then go off and do their own thing. They don't voice their
disagreements for fear that they'll be labeled as not being team
players.

Commitments aren't kept and deadlines are missed. It's considered

whining or copping out for a team member to give his or her real
opinion about the feasibility of the proposed change.
CLICK HERE
FOR FULL INFO Once the team leader gives his or her opinion, everyone else stays
quiet or falls in line behind the executive. Team members suck up to
the leader and pretend the moose doesn't exist.
Why
Sudden surprises often come "out of the blue" – especially from within
Men the organization. The team leader is frequently surprised to see a
simmering problem suddenly erupt into a full blown crisis.
Leave
The team leader dominates meetings and most conversations. If he or
And Other she wants any of your ideas, he or she will give them to you.
Unexpected
Surprises ...and what are you doing about it?
A REVOLUTIONARY How do you deal with Moose-on-the-Table? There are many potential causes
NEW PROGRAM of the problem, so there never are any pat answers to that question.
WHICH PROVIDES
YOU WITH FAST
AND PROVEN Timing is everything. Depending upon the situation and players involved,
MEANS OF poorly timed or clumsy attempts to deal with "moose issues" can be a CLM
CREATING JOYOUS (either a career limiting move...or career limiting moose).
AND DEEPLY
SATISFYING One way of dealing with the Moose-on-the-Table is to introduce the concept
RELATIONSHIPS.
to everyone in the team and play with it. It's a powerful and fun way to get
For people serious issues out in the open.
with
troubled Some teams have given everyone a little stuffed moose. Others made up
marriages, Moose Hunting T-shirts after a retreat where we discussed and resolved
and are tough issues.
seeking
marriage
help You could get people at a meeting to anonymously write down and hand in
a few of the biggest moose they feel are present. Cluster the similar issues
For singles and hold a secret ballet vote on the top clusters.
who
repeatedly If you suspect people aren't being open during a discussion, ask "is there a
find moose-on-the-table we need to talk about?" Or if you see a potential issue
themselves
in hurtful emerging you might say, "I'd like to put a little moose-on-the-table..."
relationships
For all the talk of communication today, there's pitifully little of it going on.
For dating
couples As Mark Twain once observed about the weather, many managers talk
seeking to about communication but too few really do anything about it.
save their
relationships Copyright, The CLEMMER Group, 10 Pioneer Drive, Kitchener, ON N2P 2A4, USA.
For couples Excerpted from Jim's bestseller, The Leader's Digest: Timeless Principles for Team and
who are Organization Success. View the book's unique format and content, Introduction and Chapter One,
currently and feedback at http://www.theleadersdigest.com. This book is a companion book to Growing the
happy, but Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success.
seeking new
ways to Jim Clemmer is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and

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Business Communication: Dealing with Moose-on-the Table http://www.hodu.com/moose.shtml

improve management team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal
their growth. Visit his website at: http://www.clemmer.net.
relationships
even further

CLICK HERE
FOR FULL INFO
Some Related Articles:

Dealing With Meeting Disruptors

Consensus - What it is and When to Achieve it
The Most Abused Tool in Meetings
Creating Norms: A Simple Method for Managing Group Conflict
The Queen and Her Bobble-Heads: Uncovering Hidden Agendas
Asking Forbidden Questions to Heal Unhealthy Systems
The System Made Me Do It!
The Problem With Problem-Solving
Directness Takes Courage and Gains Respect
Dismantling a Culture of Knowledge Hoarding
Getting a Group to Think Like a Genius

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