“Hey, can I stop by on my way back to my office?”

Heather worked in a different building across the street. We had just come out of a contentious leadership meeting that had ended in confusion, raised voices, and — I’m not making this up — a barking dog. She was upset. She needed to debrief.

This is a familiar moment. Someone you work with wants to process what just happened, and they’ve chosen you to do it with. That’s not nothing — it means something that they trust you enough to show up at your door still activated from the meeting.

The question is how you show up for them without losing yourself in the process.

Assess before you engage.

Before you respond to anything, ground yourself. Feet on the floor. Feel the support under you. Breathe in, breathe out.

Then think about who you’re actually talking to.

You have data on this person. You’ve watched them in meetings, in hallways, in moments like this one before. What do you know about what they actually need right now? Are they looking for empathy — someone to say I see why that was hard? Are they looking for problem-solving? Or do they just need to be heard without anyone trying to fix anything?

If you’re not sure, default to listening. Just listen.

What listening actually looks like here.

You don’t have to agree with everything being said to make someone feel heard. Phrases like I get it or that makes sense signal that you understand why they’re frustrated — without pulling you into the complaint itself. You are present. You are trustworthy. You are not adding fuel.

Here’s the harder truth: unless you are actually in a position to solve their problem, your opinion about what happened in that meeting is unlikely to help either of you. This is not about being cold or withholding. It’s about recognizing that venting sessions have a way of becoming something else - something that circulates, that gets attributed, that lands somewhere you didn’t intend.

When in doubt, opt for restraint. You can be warm and still say very little.

Listen for signal, not just noise.

As Heather talks, stay attuned to what you’re actually hearing. Is this frustration — understandable, human, not particularly actionable? Or is there something in what she’s saying that represents genuine information you need to know? Something about the meeting, the dynamics, the decisions that were made?

Discernment applies here too. Not everything that comes out of a post-meeting debrief is noise. Some of it tells you something real about the environment you’re operating in. Know the difference and file it accordingly.

End with the person in front of you.

Whatever you take away from the conversation, don’t lose sight of the fact that a person trusted you enough to be honest with you. That matters. Acknowledge it — not effusively, just genuinely. I’m glad you came by. That was a lot.

Then, when the conversation ends, let it end. Close the loop internally. Return to yourself. You’ve been in a meeting, and then in the aftermath of a meeting, and your nervous system has been working the whole time.

Come back to center. The rest of the day is still yours.

In the Room continues tomorrow. Day 4 is about collaboration — the colleagues who actually make the work easier, and how to work with them more deliberately.

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