Human interaction is hardly ever easy, and often times just a bit of pre-defined structure can go along way in helping us get our needs met.
Almost a decade ago Jim and Michele McCarthy developed a set of such structures, which they branded as:
The core protocols are a set of conversations structures, or scaffolding, aimed at helping us get on the right foot in having some of the most important and frequent personal interactions in our teams:
- Check in (begin meetings)
- Check out (end meetings)
- Pass (declining to participate in something)
- Ask for help
- Protocol check
- Intention check
- Decider
- Resolution
- Perfection game (iterating on a proposal/idea)
- Personal alignment (self-reflection)
- Investigate (understanding someone else’s behavior)
They are incredibly helpful starting points for some of our most common interactions.
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