Do you See the Moose on the Table?
A useful hack for getting a meeting focused on what's important
People I’ve worked with often call me the “Moose on the Table” Guy.
Probably once a month, I get a message from a friend saying, “I was just in a meeting and brought up your Moose on the Table phrase—everybody got it and loved it.” What’s this mean? Let me introduce you to one of the best hacks for improving teamwork in the business world…
Putting the Moose on the Table
I was first introduced to this concept early in my career at a big company where there were many meetings and debates among multiple owners. During one of these discussions, someone said, “Let’s put the moose on the table…” and brought up an obvious issue that no one in the room was directly addressing. It got my attention—both as a disruptive turn-of-phrase and in its result: We cut through the crap and dug into the most critical issues around whatever decision we were working through. I bookmarked that trick in my brain.
Some people use the expression “the elephant in the room,” and there might be others that work. Pulling this expression out is a valuable way to break through the barriers of our social nature. We mostly dislike having uncomfortable conversations, and the bystander effect keeps us from being the first to act.
Here are a few examples of significant issues that companies encounter every day:
Your startup only has three months of runway, and your leadership team is debating the new website design for an hour.
You’ve got a weekly Sales Leadership Team meeting and spend half the time debating whether everyone has updated their deals in Salesforce.
You’re in a Board meeting to review the last quarter, and your investors are asking basic financial questions—because they didn’t read the deck you sent ahead two days earlier—per their request—specifically so they would get these answers.
I guarantee you’ve been in these meetings and sat there thinking, “WTF are we doing here?” That’s when it’s time to put the Moose on the Table…
It’s like we’re in this conference room (or Zoom call), and a real-life moose is walking around, eating the snacks, slurping the coffee, changing his background image, and taking a dump behind your chair. Eventually, SOMEONE has to say, “Hey, uhh, when are we going to talk about this moose in the room?”
When you take it for the team with this expression—followed by pointing out what your specific meeting moose issue is—it breaks the ice and moves the meeting to a more productive topic without anyone feeling insulted or blamed. It works like the “assembly line stop cord” that became famous at Toyota plants; anyone in the room has the right (and responsibility!) to pull the Moose Card. When this hack is used, people usually smile, reset themselves, and get down to business.
Now that you know the Moose that roams your conference rooms and calls, you’ll find that sighting it is a superpower—and you’ll be sending me emails of gratitude. You’re welcome.
Leaders Design Organizations
The Jedi level of learning in this post is that your job as an organizational leader is to design how organizations work. If you’re not doing the work, your work is helping others work more efficiently, and the best way to do this is to walk around and watch for areas where your team isn’t performing productively.
In meetings, for example, the most senior person usually plays a king or queen role, with nobles asking for their opinion and decision. Maybe that worked at one point in history, but not today. You’re better off getting your teams to come up with solutions on their own. Your job is to watch whether or not this is happening and make adjustments that get them back on track. Getting them to put the Moose on the table is one. Another is making sure that everyone in the room has a chance to speak.
I introduced the Moose concept several times with my teams over the years. Not only did it solve a problem at the moment, but became its own “meme” that spread throughout the company in many meetings that I was not a part of. People created a Moose Icon for Slack discussions, and one friend bought plush Moose toys for their conference rooms to keep the concept top-of-mind. The Moose even lept over into the 1,000-person company that acquired ours.
So the next time you see the Moose wandering, call a time-out, describe the concept for newbies in the room, and watch the magic happen…
Bob Gilbreath is a 2x-exit entrepreneur and co-founder of Hearty, a curated matchmaking service that combines top software developers with early-stage, venture-backed startups.