Found this on I Hope This Old Train Breaks Down and love it! “If an issue is contentious, always talk it over in person rather than discussing it over emails. Emails escalate situations unnecessarily quickly. Within 60 seconds of talking to someone, find something that you can (genuinely) praise them for; this will help them to open up to what you have to say. If you do some casual “pre-talking” to people about their opinions before group meetings, you can help them to trim their thoughts down to key points, and therefore save time during the actual meeting / prevent drawn-out discussions. Most of the time people just want their…