4. Where we are, shapes how we speak.

Ann Desseyn
Nov 3
2 min read

If you’ve ever joined a meeting straight after walking on a Hebridean beach, you’ll know: the sea doesn’t rush. Waves find their rhythm, the wind decides who speaks next, and silence carries weight.

Now put that same person in a boardroom in Frankfurt or Singapore — clock ticking, screens glowing — and everything changes. The pace, the tone, even the kind of listening we use.

The Geography of Communication

Environment writes its own rulebook. On an island, you learn patience — weather delays, ferry timetables, one shop, one chance. Interruptions aren’t rude; they’re real. Conversations bend around what nature allows.

In cities, we treat time as a resource to control. The silence that’s normal on Uist would be read as hesitation in London. A pause to think feels like lag. So we fill it. That difference alone can change the entire mood of a meeting.

When Pace Becomes Power

In the MC3 Method, we talk about communication ecology — the idea that behaviour isn’t random, it’s environmental. An island pace teaches you to listen with endurance. A corporate pace rewards those who fill gaps fastest. When these rhythms collide in multilingual teams, meaning slips through the cracks.

The fix isn’t forcing one side to speed up or slow down. It’s designing meetings that respect both.

Designing Meetings That Work Everywhere

Try thinking like an islander for your next global call:

Start with stillness. Open with two minutes of quiet reading time before discussion. It equalises voices.
Set natural turn-taking. Don’t chase “lively debate” — invite rounds of reflection.
Build weather windows. Allow space in the agenda for drift — ideas need air.

These aren’t sentimental gestures; they’re structural empathy. And they prevent burnout as efficiently as they prevent misunderstanding.

The Leadership Lesson

Leadership is local before it’s global. The calm of an island, the tempo of a city, the silence of a forest — they all train your communication instincts differently. When leaders understand that, meetings stop feeling like battles for airtime and start feeling like shared navigation.

Because clarity isn’t just a skill. It’s a landscape.

The MC3 Method™ helps teams design meetings that travel — carrying the best of both worlds: the stillness of the island and the structure of the boardroom.