“They came to the meeting with their own agenda.”
“I’ve never liked that person, they always have an agenda.”
It’s strange how often we see having an agenda as a negative thing when, in fact, we all have one. The only reason we criticise someone else’s is because it clashes with our own. ‘They’ are likely thinking the same about us.
How much easier would life be if instead of holding tightly to our own agenda and getting upset when someone refuses to follow it, we spent time working out what our common agenda is?
It’s hard in the beginning, but in the long run it’s going to be more productive than slowly developing long-term, frustrating, destabilising disconnection when we’re trying to deliver a project.