Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
We invite you to join us as we talk about the world of leadership during times of complexity.
Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
S4: E9 Practical Tips for Leading Engaging and Efficient Sessions
Can meetings really be efficient and enjoyable? Find out how to transform your team's gatherings with our latest episode of "Lead On with Greg and Mark!"
Learn about different strategies for setting agendas, whether collaboratively or with advance notice, and discover Seth Godin's essential checklist for ensuring meeting success.
We'll also discuss the importance of having a clear agenda, setting desired outcomes, and making relevant information available ahead of time.
Plus, we highlight Ray Dalio's common-sense rules for meetings, emphasizing the need for clear objectives and priorities.
Join us to uncover insights that will help you lead more productive and meaningful meetings!
Check out all episodes of Lead On with Greg & Mark on your favorite podcast platform!
You're listening to Lead On with Greg and Mark, brought to you by the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units. Join us this season as we engage in conversations on leading on through times of complexity. Now for your hosts, greg and Mark. Let it play, let it play, let it play.
Speaker 2:Let the music play. Let it play. Let the music play. Let the music play. All right, all righty. A few folks are asking me like what happens after? Like the.
Speaker 1:They always hear that part like the same part.
Speaker 2:So like does it keep going? It goes for a while.
Speaker 3:It goes for a while. I think it goes another couple minutes oh listen to that A little bass solo, uh-oh. Oh look at that.
Speaker 2:Hear that A little delay pedal on the guitar. This is kind of cool. Yeah, uh-oh, two guitars. We're dancing here.
Speaker 3:All right, let's spare them, All right. So that is a minute and a half of your life that you'll never get back.
Speaker 2:I'll never get back, though I feel satisfied.
Speaker 3:Your one buddy's going to have to fast forward past that.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly Get to the point, will you? I'm like I don't think I've ever listened to that song in its entirety. No, it's very good. I've heard like the first 15 seconds I know we, we licensed that song, obviously, and so like we listen to, like we only need like 10 seconds, yeah, like it only takes 10 seconds to beatbox, you know oh, well, yeah, your beatboxing skills continue to impress.
Speaker 3:Yes, I told you, dying art, dying art, dying art. Yeah, uh, how you doing? I'm doing great.
Speaker 3:I just had an awesome lunch out here delicious lunch in bucks county oh my gosh I so shout out to the cross keys diner and, uh, my driving skills I thought were very good and we're on our way. Marginal and mark goes greg, you need to pull into this pea green, uh, colored building right here. That's where we're eating. I was like, okay, but you get inside. You get inside and it's a classic old colonial house that was redone into a restaurant and the service Nancy the waitress was wonderful.
Speaker 2:The best right, she was the best. And what did you think of the food? Food was out of this world. So great service, great food. Locally owned yes, locally owned, yes, locally operated.
Speaker 3:Yep, not a chain. No, not a chain. It was awesome, I loved it.
Speaker 2:Greg, we spend a lot of time in meetings. Oh a ton. Maybe it's a necessary evil, maybe we meeting ourselves to death. The meetings that we're in are needed, and then maybe sometimes we're in meetings that we don't need to be in be summed up with an email?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, or the things that can't. Sometimes the protocols that are used in the meetings are not effective, and so you gather for something that should be discussed in person and some variable or some part of the successful meeting formula isn't correct and therefore the time isn't well spent. Right, correct? So a lot of our listeners have said to us they like it when we talk about meetings. Yes, because it's like a corporate reality, right?
Speaker 3:It is, it is, and yeah, I know we talked about sticking to the agenda too. Well, sure, so many times you get into a meeting and then there's some tangent, you go on this weird tailspin, sure, and then all of a sudden you're talking about something that isn't even related to the meeting. Yeah and yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:And also, just like tracking it. Like. You talk about sticking to the agenda, well, don't forget about the step of developing the agenda. Yes, right, I've been in organizations where you know the boss would set the agenda and you would arrive to the meeting and find out what was on the agenda when you got there. I've been in organizations where you can collaborate and ask to put things on the agenda, Right, and then you know, sometimes people give advance notice of what's on the agenda, with the things they expect you to read in advance. I think Amazon does that. Or or they start the meeting where you read like a like a two minute briefing or something like that, where everybody's have it's expected to have done the homework before the meeting.
Speaker 2:And then there's there's just so many things to talk about. We've got we've got two documents here, both readily available on the internet. The first is actually by Seth Godin, who is a very prolific business and sort of like a business guru. He has a blog I think it's just literally like sethcom or something like that One of the first bloggers that made it big. He's written a lot of books. Yes, he looks familiar, a very, very famous keynote guy, famous for his glasses.
Speaker 3:And, yes, yes, he's got a distinctive look about him.
Speaker 2:He wrote a little blog and the things I like about him. I think of him as almost like a micro blogger. That makes sense. So when he puts something out, it's not paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs, it's short spurts, and so this is an example of that. This is something he wrote way back in April of 2018. So Seth's blog, april 2nd 2018. It's titled Whose Meeting Is this A simple checklist, and he says Can your next meeting not a conversation, not a presentation, but meeting pass this test? And he has seven yes or no questions, seven questions and he says If you score a seven meaning you get them all right count me in, and he's implying that if one of these is missing, or I should say, if any, any of them are missing.
Speaker 2:He's not coming because he believes that you need these seven things. So do you want to read one?
Speaker 3:I'll read one yes, I'll, we'll start, I'll start off.
Speaker 2:Here there's one person responsible, one person responsible so I don't know what he means by that. You know, like one person responsible for setting the agenda or one person responsible for facilitating?
Speaker 3:I think, I think setting up the agenda, that's my take on on it. Sure, there's one point of contact. Sure, everybody you know, make sure you send what your items are to me and then, that way that one person can decide, does it all align with what is most important? Yeah, like, is it priority one?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Are they priority one types of items maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then also you need someone not only to your point, like stick to the agenda, but then someone who's going to be strong enough to say we're off topic or we've only dedicated 20 minutes and we've now spent 30. Do we do? We want to spend another 30? Do we want to move on? Uh, probably also someone who's responsible for assigning action items and follow-up accountability.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, so I talk about that a lot here. Back to your question. I'm thinking it's both. I think it's collecting, setting up the agenda and facilitating the meeting. One person.
Speaker 2:Right, and then all the things that are a result of that meeting, like what happens next. Right, you can have a meeting, but if you're not following up, and I think we'll get to that in the other article. So that was number one. Number two so is there someone in charge of this meeting? Is someone responsible in his words? Two the time allocated matches what's needed, not what the calendar app says.
Speaker 3:Right, and we fall into a trap.
Speaker 1:Every meeting is an hour or every meeting is every hours every three hours, whatever it might be.
Speaker 3:We need we need to move that whole, you know, move that whole concept from our minds and look at it. How much time does it take to solve it? And there might be meetings you sit in and I know there's ones that I've been in five minutes we have it figured out. I look at everybody, so that's the most efficient meeting we've had. You know, let's, let's move on. Everybody knows what they need to do and it's done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting, like, um, do you have sole topic meetings or do you have meetings where you have lots of different things on there? And um, but I like that, like, if it. If you need three hours and you only have an hour, then you're obviously two hours too short, right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Don't have the meeting, wait until you have three hours. You got it, you got, and that I've been in those meetings as well. And then what's the other one? The peter principle, right, the or no? The parkinson's principle, which is, um the time expands to no, work expands to fill the time allotted.
Speaker 3:yes, so like you might have it done in five minutes, but if the calendar says you have got an hour, sometimes people feel the psychological pressure to fill the hour agreed, rather than walk away with 55 minutes, oh, but going back to the reverse, like when, if you only have an hour and it should be a three hours to really show it you know how to do it justice uh that I feel so unsettled after that because there's all these items that aren't addressed and we're not doing it properly, it's not efficient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good, what's three?
Speaker 3:number three is everyone invited is someone who needs to be there and no key party is missing.
Speaker 2:So there's two parts that are really important. Let's do the first part first.
Speaker 3:Right, so everyone invited is someone who needs to be there?
Speaker 2:Which implies that so looking around the table.
Speaker 3:You need to make sure does everyone like? Are they the right people? People and and I think we, we also fall into a trap. Sometimes it's only leadership from the leadership team. Yeah, there are times where you need a cross-section of your staff to be there to to share their voice yeah, I think this first part also implies that, that there aren't people there who don't need to be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, like in other words, you don't just because you have a certain title doesn't mean you should be at this meeting, right? You don't need to be here. You're excused.
Speaker 3:There's times a business manager that I can think of going back, that she didn't need to be in the meeting in my case. Well, there's thousands of examples. There's a lot, but that's just one. There's some meetings where I'm like why am I here?
Speaker 2:Right, why am I here? Right. And then the opposite no key party is missing, which is the other point, right? Yeah, so the first part is that you don't have extraneous people, that you're wasting their time, right. And then the other part is that you're not missing someone who has to be there, whose voice is important.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I think both are equally important, right? They really are. You know, it's also interesting. If someone doesn't have a vested interest in what's being discussed, then they probably tune out or they start inserting themselves in something that they might not have responsibility for. Back to that first piece, and then you're just sort of like, well, what do we do with that person's input if they don't actually have any knowledge of the issue, right? And then also, sometimes it's never good to have a meeting with an audience, right? Sometimes, if people that are in the room don't need to be in the room, they become the audience, and sometimes it becomes performative between the people that have a vested interest in what the outcome is. They feel like they're performing for the other people.
Speaker 3:That makes perfect sense and it does happen. Oh, it happens all the time. It's a little, they have an audience and then, you know, watch some posturing, oh, posturing, yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:So that's the first three. I think I'm up for four. Yes, there's a default step forward if someone doesn't come. So that's interesting. I wonder what he means. So let's think about that. There's a default step forward, meaning there's something that happens if someone doesn't come. So if you have the meeting Greg and technology is supposed to be there or finance is supposed to be there, human resources is supposed to be there and they don't come, there's a default step forward.
Speaker 3:I think I might know what he's talking about Go ahead. But I'm wondering if this is considered a default step. If you have another representative of that department to be there in their place, is that a default step? Yeah, or if a decision is going to be made without them and they have to take ownership over it because they couldn't be there. Because they couldn't be there, it could be one or the other.
Speaker 2:I guess the other possibility is, if they don't come, it gets rescheduled. I mean that could?
Speaker 3:It depends on the meeting, right yeah.
Speaker 2:And it probably also depends on the context. If someone doesn't come, it's one thing. If someone has it on their calendar and they just are absent-minded and they can't make it at the last minute or maybe someone's ill and they can't make it right Like to suggest. That someone's not at a meeting doesn't mean that they're malicious. No, I mean, there could be a real reason why they're not there. Right Right, maybe there was a sales issue that they had to go deal with or a client customer issue, right yeah.
Speaker 3:So go ahead, okay. So the fifth is there's no better way to move this forward than to have this meeting, so that it really needs to happen in order to get things moving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or that you couldn't do it through an email, phone call or text message. It has to be a face-to-face meeting. Yeah, like that, meeting in person with 20 people isn't your default Like. If there's another way to get to it, the desired outcome is clearly stated. I think a lot of meetings missed that point, including meetings that I facilitated.
Speaker 3:I'll take responsibility for that. Yeah, I, I think so too, because we've talked about this in the past. What is the purpose of the meeting? Is it information gathering? Yeah, are you walking out of there with tangibles and action items that you need to do?
Speaker 2:is it to gather input? Is it to vote? Is it to or?
Speaker 3:is it to just brainstorm? Brainstorm and then get back at another time with what you know, some ideas. Yeah, Is it advisory.
Speaker 2:So he says um, the desired outcome is clearly stated. The organizer has described what would have to happen for the meeting to be to be canceled or to stop midway. So he would say, or she would say this is what I want to happen, and if there's a yes, we're done. So that's right.
Speaker 3:To. So that's back to your other point. Like if you get to consensus, after 10 minutes, you're done. Yeah that's it, and then yep, and then you everybody knows what they need to do, clear expectations, and then you all right, what's the last one? The seventh final item is all relevant information, including analysis, is available to all in plenty of time to be reviewed in advance yeah that's that whole um.
Speaker 3:We talked about this in education with flipping the table kind of a thing, um, providing the information ahead of time so that participants can digest it a little bit, so that they show up to the table ready, ready to talk about it, to do their homework ahead of time, and that that'll save some time during the meeting from from reading and thinking about it and a reflection and all that kind of thing. They show up ready to talk about whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because a lot of people need processing time. So a lot of times, what we do here is, if you don't get the information in advance, the meeting might be, the agenda item might be. Here's something I'd like you to review in advance of next month's meeting yes, where we will make the following decisions. You have a month and months meeting, yes, where we will make the following decisions. You have a month and in that month, read it, ask me questions, talk to your team, get input, but we're going to put it back on the agenda for follow-up. So it's essentially two agenda items once in, let's say, august, and again in september.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And then you're you know you're being fair to your team members. Yeah about you know? Here's the information we're talking about. You're giving them enough time instead of having to think on your feet and I think some of us are better at thinking on our feet and others may not be and we need to be respectful of that and give everybody the opportunity to digest that information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you were representing a department or a division or you're representing a group of stakeholders, it's completely reasonable that you'd want to take the information back to them to get their input Right. So Ray Dalio is another very famous individual, a very wealthy financier, author of books, speaker at TED Talks, things like that. In 2017, in December 2017, he wrote nine common sense rules for getting the most out of meetings, he says make it clear who's directing the meeting and who it's meant to serve. Very similar to Seth's first one right.
Speaker 1:Who's in charge?
Speaker 2:of this Every meeting should be aimed at achieving someone's someone's goal.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And they're the one responsible for the meeting and to decide what. What happens, he says. Meetings without someone clearly responsible run a high risk of being directionalist and unproductive. That happens all the time.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:All right Go ahead.
Speaker 3:number two? Okay, number two is make clear what type of communication you are going to have in light of the objectives and priorities. So he's talking about protocols.
Speaker 2:Yes, back to what we said. Is this to brainstorm? Is this to make a decision? Is this to give the executive input? Is it to just share information, right? Number three he says that for a meeting to be effective, you have to lead the discussion by being assertive and open-minded. Reconciling different viewpoints can be difficult and time-consuming. It's up to the leader to balance conflicting perspectives, to push through impasses and to decide how to spend the time wisely. And then we actually just talked about this one what happens when someone inexperienced offers an opinion? We literally just talked about that. Yes, so he says, if you're running the conversation, you should be weighing in the potential cost in the meantime that it takes to explore their opinion versus a potential gain and being able to access their thinking and being able to better understand what they're like. But essentially it's your job as the facilitator to make sure that everybody's opinion and the context that's being given in is evaluated fairly.
Speaker 3:Right yeah, this next one.
Speaker 2:I really like. Yeah, you mentioned this.
Speaker 3:It's watch out for what they call topic slip. Yeah, so this is when you're in a meeting and you start talking about a topic and then you move on to the next one and it's like a random drifting from topic to topic, no conclusion, no action steps. This drives me insane. This is when you get to the end of a meeting and you're like what did we achieve here? What did?
Speaker 2:we achieve. I found that protocols are very helpful for me because I could be a victim to topic slip. I'm okay with leaving things unresolved, and that's not a good thing all the time. Sometimes it's good because things need to percolate and marinate. Right, that's not a good thing all the time. Sometimes it's good because things need to percolate and marinate. But I have team members that have always suggested let's use a protocol for how we're going to make a decision. Let's let's say what the protocol is, the beginning we're going to take a vote we're going to do this, that out.
Speaker 2:You put it out there and then it helps the facilitator, who this might be easy or not, might not be the easiest thing for them, right? I found that's helped me, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 2:He says, enforce the logic of conversations. Emotions tend to heat up when there's disagreement. Remain calm, analytical. It's more difficult to shut down a logical exchange than an emotional one. So, anyway, emotions shade how people see reality. So anyway, he says, you know when things get difficult. That's the question. Is it true, or is that your opinion? Opinion, Are we dealing with facts or are we dealing with emotion?
Speaker 3:But it takes guts as the meeting facilitator to say something like that it sure does To stay objective, sure, especially if you're talking to your boss. Yes, right.
Speaker 2:So you need that psychological safety? Yes, you do, and if you are the boss, you need to provide it so that others are willing to tell you that this is not just a group of yes people. We've probably been in situations like that. Kyle, what's the next one?
Speaker 3:The next is be careful not to lose personal responsibility via group decision-making. So it says here too often groups will make a decision to do something without assigning personal responsibilities, so it is not clear who is supposed to follow up by doing what. So be clear in assigning personal responsibilities. We talked about those action items.
Speaker 2:Accountability. Write it down.
Speaker 3:Here's what we're going to do and here's who's going to do it, and here's when we need to do it by.
Speaker 2:We actually put in the meeting that we're in. We'll open up the agenda for the following meeting and put that down. So we're building the agenda for the next meeting based on what we need to follow.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 2:I'll do the next two together, you do the last one.
Speaker 2:Sure. So seven and eight utilize the two-minute rule to avoid persistent interruptions. When people are having conversations that are heated, of course it's logical that people might jump in, especially if they're comfortable. So allow others to talk for two minutes. We also say if you've noticed that you're in a large group and everyone else hasn't had a turn to talk since you've spoken, wait, Give. Had a turn to talk since you've spoken, wait, Give, wait, time Give. Well, don't speak again until everybody else has chimed in. If you find that you're the one speaking after every other person or after every second person, then obviously you're speaking too much. And then watch out for assertive fast talkers. Fast talkers can be effective, particularly against folks that that's not their natural inclination, particularly against folks that that's not their natural inclination. Then essentially bully or direct a conversation the way they want, simply by how they're speaking.
Speaker 3:And the final ninth achieve completion in conversations. So the main purpose of a discussion is to achieve completion and get in sync which was one of Mark's favorite bands back in high school and it leads to decisions and or actions, all right. So conversations that fail to reach completion are a waste of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just were talking about, like you say, you get to the end of the agenda and like no accountability has been assigned.
Speaker 2:What do we do here? What do we do there? Yeah, yeah, this is something that I think you could do, all these things, but it only comes with of failed meetings in my career and I feel like maybe I'm only starting to get good at it, and it's simply because I'm more open to my own deficiencies and also to the protocols that I need to help structure meetings so that it's meaningful and productive, because each person that's coming to the meeting has their own preferences and biases and deficiencies, and so, as you know, the team you start to learn like. In order for this group to be effective, here's what I know I'm going to have to give them in advance. Here's what I know I'm going to have to set the framework to be during, and here's the accountability structures I need to put in place afterwards for the whole thing to have been worth it so.
Speaker 3:so what I'm hearing here, this is a leadership skill some, something that we do every day organizing these meetings, but it's a leadership skill that you need to really develop, and I can hear from what Mark's saying too. I was the same way starting off, when I was early in my leadership career. I was guarded and I just I just thought this is how we do it. We just put an agenda together and this is what we do. Never thought about all the expectations like, and responsibilities and and the purpose of the meeting, all these kinds of things that would were discussed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause if you don't do it it's a morale killer. And then, of course, it's an ineffective use of time, and then people start to judge you based on the inefficient way you're wasting their time Right, hopefully that scratched the itch that people have with meetings. I would love some feedback from folks about effective strategies that they use that we can incorporate into a future podcast episode. Excellent, yeah, so what do you say? I mean, what do you say we wrap it up.
Speaker 3:Let's wrap it up. Well, it's always a pleasure there, Mark Hoffman. It's nice to be back recording here, yeah it's been a while.
Speaker 2:This is the. These few episodes, I think, are going to be the exciting conclusion to our season.
Speaker 3:They will be so in the meantime, listeners, let's make it a great day and innovate BA USA and USA. Bye Gregory Bye Mark.
