Instead of “so… what’s new?” or “what’ve you been up to?”, lately I’ve been asking “what are you most excited about this week?”
It's working wonders for a few reasons:
- It sets a positive tone.
- It grants permission to be aspirational.
- It creates follow up questions of substance.
But most of all, it lets people share what they actually want to talk about instead of what they think they need to say.
onward.
-dmac