You've had it. You've been leaving voicemails and emails for your customer about decisions you need made that are holding up your delivery of her project. You've even tried to catch her in the hall to no avail. Today, you are copied on an email from this customer to her executive sponsor explaining that the project is slipping because you are behind on your deliverable.

What would you do? Think quickly about the first three actions you would take. Here are some common actions:

• Call her or email her immediately leaving a strong, angry message making it clear that you have been waiting for her and that she is the reason the project is late.

• Ask her to tell her executive sponsor the truth--that you do not have what you need to proceed.

• Send her a copy of every email you have sent to her, and cc: the executive sponsor.

• Go immediately to your boss, and ask for help defusing the situation.

• Go to lunch with your friends and bemoan the fact that you have such an insane client.

• Look for a new job.

Before talking about the best solution, let's look at some facts about the situation:

• You are under pressure and your customer is under pressure. In a stressed state, people don't always think clearly, understand each other, or say what they mean.

• Your piece of the project cannot be successful without your customer. She cannot be successful without your help. The company can't be successful if the project falls apart.

Now let's look at the same situation from a couple of different angles:

• It is possible that she thinks your requests for decisions are diabolical tactics to distract her from your inability to deliver your project outcomes. This may have happened to her before.

• What else could you have done with the project when it became clear that you were not getting what you needed? Were there interim milestones that could have been worked on? Were there other people who could have helped with the requirements?

• Most importantly, what could you have done (and do now) to make your customer look good AND meet your project goals successfully?

In the heat of the moment, it is pretty hard to get your thoughts around how to make that crazy person look good. But there are strong, logical reasons that require just that.

Let's look at it from an ROI perspective. There are two high-level options here:

OPTION 1: The conflict escalates, and both of you spend more and more time trying to catch the other one screwing up, while making negligible progress on the project. Your conflict adds 30 percent overhead to the already late project. The project is delayed and over budget. Clearly this approach, though normal, is insane.

OPTION 2: You find a way to provide her with a "safe bridge to retreat over" and help create a collaborative way to get the project back on track. This collaborative approach brings you the visibility you need to show you are a team player, and that she is as well. Not only is the project more successful, but you have built an ally for future projects as well.

There is no place where the collaborative approach's benefits show up more clearly than in project meetings. Think about your typical day at work. Think about how much time you spend in meetings each day. Assume you go to one one-hour meeting a day, which takes up roughly 12 percent of your work day. That means that 12 percent of labor dollars in companies is spent in meetings.

The news is still full of stories about companies continuing to cut headcount to hit the numbers. Labor is a giant number on a balance sheet and the obvious target when tough economic choices are required. What if that number could be reduced by more effective meetings instead of cutting headcount? Reduced labor costs would occur by learning a better way

• Choosing meetings more wisely, including eliminating meetings that should really be one-on-one sessions or email reviews.

• Reducing the redundant and frustrating habit of revisiting the same issues over and over again at multiple meetings.

• Getting the right people to the meetings completely prepared instead of spending time catching people up.

• Increasing each participant's ability to not just listen but hear.

• Increasing each participant's ability to collaborate toward a common business goal.

There are multiple businesses in town whose staff comes to work each day and mindlessly go to the meetings that appear on their Outlook calendars. Other people have put these meetings on their calendars, and often, they don't even know why they were invited. They shuffle off to the meeting, and then shuffle off to the next meeting listed in their Blackberry. They are unprepared and unengaged.

If you think this pattern sounds like a workplace performance gap, you are right. When was the last time you really invested in good meeting behaviors and tracked the improvement? What if you treated meeting competency the way you treat Sarbanes-Oxley compliance?

You can't just eliminate meetings. One post project review I facilitated for a very large project revealed that good meetings were the number one activity that improved the project's success. Not surprisingly, the bad meetings were what most screwed up the project.

In The Inner Game of Work, Tim Galway takes the same theories he uses to teach people golf and tennis, and refocuses them on work. His strategy is simple: to slow down meetings and self-talk so that people really hear each other. He asks his clients to notice how much time transpires between speakers at a meeting. The more silence, the more effective the meeting. If people are constantly cutting each other off or jumping into the conversation when the first speaker is barely done, they haven't had time to think through what was said or to come up with an appropriate response. Chances are they have been rehearsing what they were going to say inside their heads instead of listening. This behavior causes redundancy from circular conversations.

On an individual level, you can maximize your personal investment in project meetings by:

• Blocking 30 minutes between each meeting to prepare/summarize.

• Know what you want the outcome to be when you call a meeting and who can really help you get that outcome.

• Leave every meeting with a list of actions, owners, and due dates.

• Notice your self-talk--catch yourself rehearsing what you are going to say and keep returning your focus to the speaker. If necessary, quickly note what you want to say so you can get back to listening.

• Before you ask a question, check your motives. Are you speaking so people will notice you, or to trip up the speaker, or do you have an authentic question?

• Be clear with others about what you need from them. Do you need them to be aware, or do you need them to state an opinion?

When tired, stressed, or rushed people work on projects, it becomes too easy to ramble and digress in a meeting or drop quickly into conflict. But companies do not have time or money to waste. Remember that insanity in project responsiveness, whether in meetings or in delivery of work, is a given in today's business climate. Instead of fighting it, consider looking for new ways to collaborate.

2006 ASTD, Alexandria, VA. All rights reserved.