Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to try nested meetings. By having meetings
Speaker 1: back to back involving some but not all, of the
Speaker 1: same people, you can meet much more efficiently. Perhaps you've
Speaker 1: seen a set of nesting dolls somewhere. One pretty painted,
Speaker 1: larger doll opens up to reveal a smaller one. You
Speaker 1: open that up to reveal a smaller one, and so forth.
Speaker 1: It's a whimsical concept in a toy, but when it
Speaker 1: comes to meetings, it is a smart one. Here's what
Speaker 1: I mean. Let's say, like many organizations, that you have
Speaker 1: an all staff meeting at one point, you also meet
Speaker 1: with smaller teams. To envision this as nesting dolls, the
Speaker 1: all staff meeting would be the biggest one. Everyone is there.
Speaker 1: Maybe the next smallest doll is the program meeting, which
Speaker 1: includes senior leaders and program staff, but not the receptionists, bookkeepers,
Speaker 1: and other support folks. The final doll, smaller still might
Speaker 1: be the senior leadership team. To set this up as
Speaker 1: nested meetings, you might start with the whole staff at
Speaker 1: nine thirty am. Then when that meeting is done. Let's
Speaker 1: say it ten fifteen. The support staff leaves and the
Speaker 1: program meeting begins. The big doll is opening up to
Speaker 1: reveal the second doll. Maybe that program meeting ins at
Speaker 1: and everyone except the senior staff leaves. You address any
Speaker 1: topics you need to in that group, and say your
Speaker 1: goodbyes BYT or so. By nesting meetings like this, you
Speaker 1: have just had three meetings in one meeting block. You
Speaker 1: only needed to wait for latecomers, spend time on team building,
Speaker 1: and do your chit chat once, and then you got
Speaker 1: your business done. Nobody was stuck in a meeting that
Speaker 1: didn't pertain to them. Even people who were in all
Speaker 1: three meetings spent way less time in meetings than they
Speaker 1: would have if there had been three separate meeting blocks,
Speaker 1: each with time waiting for latecomers and with time lost
Speaker 1: to transition. With less time devoted to meetings, you have
Speaker 1: more time to get going on implementing the great ideas
Speaker 1: that you developed in those meetings. You can picture the
Speaker 1: same idea with parallel department meetings. If you have a
Speaker 1: whole staff meeting, you can then immediately break up into
Speaker 1: different working groups or departments, right after a board could
Speaker 1: split after the whole board meeting into individual committees. People
Speaker 1: only have to travel once and there has only been
Speaker 1: one meeting block. The main idea is that by reducing
Speaker 1: the number of distinct meeting blocks anyone has on their calendars,
Speaker 1: you reduce the total amount of time in meetings and
Speaker 1: transitioning to and from the meetings without reducing the time
Speaker 1: for collaboration. That sounds like a good idea to me.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's b E the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled
Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look
Speaker 1: forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
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