Speaker 1: Recently, we heard from a listener who has something about work.
Speaker 1: She just hates Hi. There, this is Grace calling for work.
Speaker 1: For me, I feel like meetings are something that just
Speaker 1: creep into my life and calendar and before I know,
Speaker 1: it's day is over and I haven't gotten anything done.
Speaker 1: So I guess my question is, how do you find
Speaker 1: the balance of meetings when you work at a company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hear you, Grace. You're not the only one who
Speaker 1: thinks that meetings are a hellish time suck. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's a common theme on the ted Talk productivity Expert circuit.
Speaker 1: There's the moderator has no idea how to run the meeting.
Speaker 1: There are the participants have no idea why they're there.
Speaker 1: The whole thing kind of collapses into this collaborative train,
Speaker 1: and meetings are just toxic, terrible, poisonous things. During the
Speaker 1: day of work, the man your calls the meeting so
Speaker 1: the employees can all come together, and it's an incredibly
Speaker 1: disruptive thing to do to people because meetings aren't work.
Speaker 1: Meetings there are places to go talk about things you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing later. The average meeting, if you
Speaker 1: look at it um it goes too long. It's badly ran.
Speaker 1: We spend about of our time collaborating with people, which
Speaker 1: makes it more and more difficult to get our work done.
Speaker 1: So we're doing too much of it and most of
Speaker 1: it has handled badly, but our meetings guaranteed to be terrible.
Speaker 1: Is there something we can do besides canceling all meetings altogether?
Speaker 1: I'm going to find out. This week on Works for Me,
Speaker 1: I make over the weekly team meeting. Hi, I'm Becca
Speaker 1: Greenfield and I'm Francesco Et. Every week on Works for Me,
Speaker 1: one of us focuses on a real life work problem
Speaker 1: that she's having and try to solve it. That way,
Speaker 1: we can see if the solutions that productivity experts are
Speaker 1: selling will work for you. And this week it's Francesca's turn. Francesca,
Speaker 1: what productivity problem is preventing you from being your best
Speaker 1: work self? I want to get better at meetings. I
Speaker 1: go to a lot of meetings, I run a few meetings,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it right. So
Speaker 1: what do you think you're doing wrong? I've set up
Speaker 1: so many meetings where I feel like people kind of
Speaker 1: shuffle in and they stare blankly while I talk and
Speaker 1: they maybe don't even think they should be there, and
Speaker 1: then I end up doing a lot of the talking
Speaker 1: just to Philly mp space. And I think if I
Speaker 1: were better at something like preparing people for the meeting
Speaker 1: or saying the right things in the meeting, then people
Speaker 1: would be interested and they would get a lot out
Speaker 1: of it. So I want to learn the skills that
Speaker 1: make a meeting like that, which is hard because everybody
Speaker 1: hates meetings. Everyone's been on the other side where you're
Speaker 1: just like, why am I on this list of eleven
Speaker 1: DP people totally to talk about this abstract thing that
Speaker 1: nobody has explained to me, And it's just a meeting
Speaker 1: appointment that appeared on my calendar, and now I have
Speaker 1: to sit in the room and listen to somebody blather on,
Speaker 1: and I'm on my phone the whole time, like checking
Speaker 1: my calendar and sending emails. Or there's the meeting where
Speaker 1: it's almost the opposite, where everyone feels like they need
Speaker 1: to participate to prove themselves, which again is useless in
Speaker 1: a different way. I really just the performative very popular
Speaker 1: in the journalism world. It's a performer. So that's another
Speaker 1: type of meeting that I think is bad. Are you
Speaker 1: a meetings person? Like? Do you generally? Are you one
Speaker 1: of those people who hates meetings? I know the answer
Speaker 1: to this one. You love meetings. I like a good
Speaker 1: I like in person conversations, but I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: like meetings that are pointless. Right, who does you say
Speaker 1: you want to be better at meetings? So where are
Speaker 1: you going to start? There's one meeting I have that
Speaker 1: I think has gone pretty far off the rails. As
Speaker 1: you know, I'm the head of podcast here a Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: So I set up a regular check in where the
Speaker 1: small group of producers on my team can come in
Speaker 1: and share what they're working on, get updates from me,
Speaker 1: and ask questions. It sounds useful to me. It should be,
Speaker 1: but it's just kind of blah. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: really wants to be there. Sometimes, if somebody's out or
Speaker 1: if I'm just busy, I'll cancel the meeting. And when
Speaker 1: we do have it, I feel like I have to
Speaker 1: drag the team from their desks to the conference room
Speaker 1: and then it's this lackluster round table of updates. This
Speaker 1: is a meeting we recorded recently, and here's the vibe
Speaker 1: in the conference room when we all get together, all right, mangus,
Speaker 1: why don't you start? Oh, does anyone happen in general announcements? Um? Right.
Speaker 1: The most exciting it gets is when we go way
Speaker 1: off track to talk about our personal lives or movies
Speaker 1: we like, which happens a lot. It's if you if
Speaker 1: you do end up liking someone, you either have to
Speaker 1: be like, okay, hours up, or you have to really
Speaker 1: contrive something to do, because trying to find something to
Speaker 1: do in New York City at three o'clock in the
Speaker 1: afternoon on a Saturday is kind of hard. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: definitely getting maximum engagement in the times that I don't
Speaker 1: think are really work related. Yeah, the banter um like
Speaker 1: what you just heard that that can go on for
Speaker 1: a while, or meetings supposed to be a half hour
Speaker 1: and it can go forty five minutes or an hour
Speaker 1: just with like that advanter. Yeah, I know I've been there.
Speaker 1: I've been in those meetings. Are you guys talking about
Speaker 1: where to go on a date in the afternoon? Just
Speaker 1: wondering what I think. There was a conversation about like
Speaker 1: what young people do on dates these days, and there
Speaker 1: was a disagreement over weather coffee dates are okay or not.
Speaker 1: I've been on some coffee dates. I think coffee dates
Speaker 1: are fine. I'm not a fan. See if this were
Speaker 1: my team meeting, we'd be talking about this for a
Speaker 1: long time. This is why it happens because it's fun
Speaker 1: to talk about not work. Yeah, that's exactly the problem.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I'm always down a chat and be social,
Speaker 1: But when nothing else meaningful happens in the meeting, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm doing a bad job because it's my meeting.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel like a bad boss if I
Speaker 1: don't get us to actually follow through on the real
Speaker 1: purpose of the meeting, which is to keep everybody in
Speaker 1: foremants solve problems as they come up. So you want
Speaker 1: to create this perfect, engaging, meaningful, useful meeting that proves
Speaker 1: that you are the good boss that you are. So
Speaker 1: how are you going to do that? There are a
Speaker 1: lot of solutions out there, So I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: to a bunch of meetings experts and enlist them to
Speaker 1: help me revamp my sad little team meeting. But first
Speaker 1: I need to diagnose the problem with this meeting. In particular.
Speaker 1: To do that, I'm going to talk to my team.
Speaker 1: My name is Magnus Henricson. My name is Toford for
Speaker 1: my name is Liz Smith Magnus. We have a weekly
Speaker 1: team meeting every Monday in Theory. Yeah all did lie?
Speaker 1: I uh, I like it when it happens we don't
Speaker 1: have them enough, I guess I feel like we haven't
Speaker 1: had a meeting. I know we haven't. I guess that's
Speaker 1: kind of well, that's an issue with the meetings. They're inconsistent. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I particularly love having a team meeting every week. We
Speaker 1: all have different projects that we're working on, and it's
Speaker 1: nice to come together and hear what other people are
Speaker 1: working on. UM and then I think, just as a unit,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of questions that we have, and
Speaker 1: it gives us an opportunity to ask those questions and
Speaker 1: sort of put our heads together to answer those questions.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a social event too. What do
Speaker 1: you think would make the meeting better? I think that
Speaker 1: making ourselves have it every week is step one. So
Speaker 1: the more consistency the better. I do feel sometimes that
Speaker 1: the question asked is so open ended, well, like what
Speaker 1: do you have coming up? That sometimes I feel I
Speaker 1: don't It's hard to find a balance of what people
Speaker 1: need to know or not. I like hearing, you know,
Speaker 1: just going around the circles, seeing what everybody's up to
Speaker 1: and what they have coming down the pipeline. And it's
Speaker 1: a team obviously pretty important to literally work well together,
Speaker 1: but to kind of get to know each other and
Speaker 1: have a good social rapport. All right, thanks Liz anytime,
Speaker 1: Thanks so for yeah, thank you anything else? Great, great job,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for coming in today, magnus, thank you.
Speaker 1: This a beautiful space. Have Yeah, I know. So my
Speaker 1: team doesn't hate this meeting. In fact, they value it
Speaker 1: enough to feel annoyed when it falls through the cracks.
Speaker 1: But they definitely have some complaints. There's a lack of structure,
Speaker 1: no one is sure how long it's going to go
Speaker 1: and what they're expected to say. And honestly, the thing
Speaker 1: that they seem to like best about the meeting is
Speaker 1: that it's a time to goof often get to know
Speaker 1: each other and to your stories. Which might be a
Speaker 1: fun meeting, but it isn't necessarily an effective or productive one.
Speaker 1: And explain why you don't like the meeting, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you like it probably having fun too, But you're the
Speaker 1: boss and the situation and probably wants something to come
Speaker 1: out of it. I can feel productive, right, I can
Speaker 1: see them enjoying the parts of it that aren't really relevant.
Speaker 1: And then I'm wondering, like if I'm doing a good
Speaker 1: job of manage it, and it's the point of the
Speaker 1: social hour, And now that you've gotten everybody's input, what
Speaker 1: is your next step. I'll spend a few weeks talking
Speaker 1: to experts and trying to design a whole new kind
Speaker 1: of meeting. The big payoff will be when I invite
Speaker 1: everyone to an all new, vastly improved weekly team chat.
Speaker 1: And what will your measure of success be for this
Speaker 1: new and improved meeting. Basically, if my team says they
Speaker 1: like it better, I'll believe them and I'll call it
Speaker 1: a success. The first problem I tackled was the structure.
Speaker 1: Thing the producers had mentioned that our meeting well had none.
Speaker 1: I thought about one thing the meeting didn't have, and agenda.
Speaker 1: Serious meetings have agendas. They have memos or power point
Speaker 1: dex with a list of things to talk about. All
Speaker 1: I had to do was write one of those and
Speaker 1: voila structure. Right. What it comes down to is what's
Speaker 1: on the agenda did you build this agenda by considering
Speaker 1: various viewpoints and perspectives? Are the items on the agenda
Speaker 1: truly strategic and items that couldn't be assessed, you know,
Speaker 1: or examined through just an email? Um? Do you involve
Speaker 1: others in the agenda? Meet Steve Rogelberg. I found Steve
Speaker 1: after talking to a lot of experts about the modern meeting,
Speaker 1: and he was the answer to my meeting prayers. He
Speaker 1: wrote a book called The Surprising Science of Meetings. The
Speaker 1: great thing about Steve's book is that it tackles a
Speaker 1: lot of the conventional wisdom about meetings with data, and
Speaker 1: something his research found is that agendas are very often
Speaker 1: in a active So when we think about an agenda,
Speaker 1: so many leaders just think that if they've done an agenda,
Speaker 1: they have succeeded. But when you actually analyze agendas that
Speaker 1: people use, the crazy thing is that probably are close
Speaker 1: to the time, it's the same agenda weekend and week out.
Speaker 1: What Steve saying is that agenda's only work if you
Speaker 1: thought deeply about whether each item on it really needs
Speaker 1: to be discussed at this particular meeting. And he's against
Speaker 1: coming up with agendas in a vacuum. He gave me
Speaker 1: the idea to ask other people in the meeting what
Speaker 1: they wanted to talk about and assign them a time
Speaker 1: limit for each item. I knew all of that would
Speaker 1: help with giving the meeting a structure, but a little
Speaker 1: bit of structure isn't enough. I wanted structure on steroids
Speaker 1: for that. Steve has another trick. Make meetings forty eight
Speaker 1: minutes long exactly. I don't want leaders to see sixty
Speaker 1: minutes of some magical time that they really can think
Speaker 1: carefully about the time um that was needed to address
Speaker 1: what they think they have on there. So decide how
Speaker 1: much time you think it will take, but then take
Speaker 1: five minutes off to kind of create some of that pressure.
Speaker 1: And I think that when a meeting leader is playing
Speaker 1: with the amounts of time, then it creates a curiosity.
Speaker 1: It makes it seem like something unique and special is happening.
Speaker 1: By slicing a small, highly specific amount of time off
Speaker 1: of that predictable sixty minute block, Steve's research shows you
Speaker 1: can keep people from falling into a lull and also
Speaker 1: force them to stay on schedule. And if a meeting
Speaker 1: start time is very specific, people are more likely to
Speaker 1: assume there's a reason for it and to get their
Speaker 1: own time. So I sent around a meeting invitation with
Speaker 1: a start time of eleven twelve. Exactly what were people's
Speaker 1: reactions when they got Did they notice where they like
Speaker 1: this as a type of um, what am I going
Speaker 1: to do for twelve minutes between eleven and eleven twelve?
Speaker 1: There was a lot of intrigue about the eleven twelve
Speaker 1: start time. I got a lot of comments about it
Speaker 1: and email and chat. So mission accomplished, right, right, that's
Speaker 1: what you want, an element of surprise them off. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're really focused on the structure of the meeting
Speaker 1: as it's happening, keeping it on track. Were there are
Speaker 1: other problems that the meeting experts helped you solve? Yeah?
Speaker 1: There was one other main problem that came up after
Speaker 1: I talked to the team and just from my own
Speaker 1: observations of the meeting, which was getting everybody excited about it.
Speaker 1: That meant getting people excited about the parts of the
Speaker 1: meeting that we're work related, not just laughing about like
Speaker 1: tender dates or funny things our kids did. Steve says
Speaker 1: that the meeting leader should think of themselves as the
Speaker 1: host of a party, someone making good use of other
Speaker 1: people's time. You have to be happy to be there
Speaker 1: to create an atmosphere of positivity. Thinking about meeting leadership
Speaker 1: differently is really the most important first step in solving
Speaker 1: the meeting problem. The most effective leaders recognize that they
Speaker 1: are a steward of others time. The tactics, approaches, and
Speaker 1: processes that you choose are going to be different when
Speaker 1: you truly embrace your stewardship role. If I wanted everyone
Speaker 1: pumped and ready to talk about work, I needed to
Speaker 1: prepare ahead of time. Remember how Steve said I should
Speaker 1: involve everyone in the agenda. I was going to do
Speaker 1: it in a way that got them excited. Two days
Speaker 1: before the meeting, I sent everyone an email that began
Speaker 1: this way, Hi, hope everyone's looking forward to tomorrow's team
Speaker 1: meeting as much as I am. Please do two things
Speaker 1: in advance of the meeting so that we can make
Speaker 1: the most of our discussion and ensure everyone's time and
Speaker 1: efforts are valued. I continued the email by asking everyone
Speaker 1: to suggest an agenda item, warning them that they have
Speaker 1: five to seven minutes of a lot of discussion time,
Speaker 1: and then having them prepared to discuss highlight from the week,
Speaker 1: a long term issue, and an update on their work
Speaker 1: that week. I finished with a lot of exclamation points. Wow,
Speaker 1: I have never received an email like that about a meeting.
Speaker 1: What were people's reactions? Yeah, this is not my normal
Speaker 1: email tone, so I expected a lot of like what
Speaker 1: the hell, Francesca. Well, it's also asking a lot of
Speaker 1: people to prepare for me, which usually you like a
Speaker 1: remember of a meeting in five minutes and show up.
Speaker 1: So nobody responded to the tone like nobody said Nobody
Speaker 1: pointed out that I sounded kind of crazy and overly
Speaker 1: happy and excited about the meeting or fake even um
Speaker 1: and everybody did actually put together what I asked them
Speaker 1: by the deadline that I gave them. I'm em passed.
Speaker 1: People responded, good job, team. I mean, they could have
Speaker 1: just ignored it, and then I would have really been
Speaker 1: in a pickle because we would have had no collaborative
Speaker 1: agenda at all. So once I kind of like gathered
Speaker 1: together everyone's responses and adapted them to the format I
Speaker 1: was thinking about, I had enough for my awesome, dynamic agenda,
Speaker 1: but making the meeting exciting, productive, actionable that was going
Speaker 1: to take more than just an agenda. I would have
Speaker 1: to work to keep their attention and interest throughout the
Speaker 1: course of the meeting itself. To spark joy and delight
Speaker 1: in each moment, I'd have to be a great wedding
Speaker 1: DJ basically find out how that goes. After the break,
Speaker 1: the day of the meeting had finally arrived. It was
Speaker 1: going to be structured and focused, fun and thought for poking.
Speaker 1: It was a Thursday, not our usual day for the meeting,
Speaker 1: so as to disrupt our normal routine and inject some
Speaker 1: surprise into things, and it was nearing twelve minutes after eleven.
Speaker 1: I put store bought donuts and several cups of fruit
Speaker 1: salad from the drug store downstairs at the meeting table.
Speaker 1: Food Steve's research has found is the number one way
Speaker 1: to get people interested in a meeting. I had more
Speaker 1: things placed strategically on the table, like a Rubik's cube
Speaker 1: and several jars of toy slime that people could fidget with.
Speaker 1: Steve had mentioned that the research supported using activities like
Speaker 1: these to stimulate thought and keep people from playing with
Speaker 1: their phones. Steve it also said that some leaders make
Speaker 1: their meetings fun using music. So I blasted I of
Speaker 1: the tiger as the three producers walked down. Hello, welcome
Speaker 1: to the team meeting. Please help yourself to some fruit
Speaker 1: or donta enjoy fiddling with some of these nine and
Speaker 1: enhancing choys if you need something to do with your
Speaker 1: hands so as not to attempted to play with your phones.
Speaker 1: The rooms keeps already solved. Though you sound like you're
Speaker 1: trying so hard. It was I truly was to be
Speaker 1: like the MC of like a bought metzva that is
Speaker 1: a meeting and the kids are just not having it.
Speaker 1: I was my like amped up level was at around
Speaker 1: eleven and they came in a four. Yeah, but just reasonable,
Speaker 1: fair meeting at eleven twelve on a Thursday. But I
Speaker 1: was the party host, so I had to act like it.
Speaker 1: So after everyone was settled and all this social engineering
Speaker 1: was done, I got the meeting started. Great first bullet
Speaker 1: on the agenda. For the rest of the meeting, I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a short, short presentation. Once we
Speaker 1: started slogging through the agenda, the conver station slipped into
Speaker 1: the same rhythm we were used to, albeit a little
Speaker 1: more organized and on topic. With one difference. Each agenda
Speaker 1: item was timed, so I had my eyes on the
Speaker 1: clock constantly. After all, we had a lot to fit
Speaker 1: in and only forty eight minutes exactly to do it in.
Speaker 1: And then I'll just like once I had recorded, I'll
Speaker 1: give you the low down. So many episodes, not like
Speaker 1: when we have a new show, like having themes for show.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the meaning seems to be moving along. Are
Speaker 1: are you stressed out because you have to keep your
Speaker 1: eye on the clock though? Yeah. Completely. At one point,
Speaker 1: Liz wanted to talk about something that I had forgotten
Speaker 1: to put on the agenda, and so we had to
Speaker 1: go off script, and I was trying so hard to
Speaker 1: engage with the words she was saying, while being totally
Speaker 1: conscious that we were not strictly following the agenda. Oh
Speaker 1: that's unstressful. I mean, you're keeping the meaning on track,
Speaker 1: but it's at the expensive your own engagement. But with
Speaker 1: all of this engagement and efficiency going on, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to lose the one thing about these meetings that
Speaker 1: everyone involved had said they enjoyed the opportunity to be
Speaker 1: social with their colleagues. So I scheduled five minutes at
Speaker 1: the end for a team bonding activity. It was around
Speaker 1: the holiday, so we picked names for a Secret Santa exchange.
Speaker 1: So we have up to four minutes for for fun times. Cool,
Speaker 1: you guys, just pick. Don't think I got myself. Okay,
Speaker 1: everybody for back. Okay, everybody gets somebody else. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: we have to eat this, I guess. So alright Secret
Speaker 1: Santa gifts to end it next week Friday. Friday, we
Speaker 1: have like pizza or we were finally done, really great,
Speaker 1: really great meeting, guys. All right, bye, okay, Well that
Speaker 1: was that was that was the music for you to
Speaker 1: walk out on. Okay, So it seems like the over
Speaker 1: the top music can be next because mostly people made
Speaker 1: fun of it. Yeah, and I didn't really have like
Speaker 1: the audio visual expertise to make sure that it was
Speaker 1: like fading in and out appropriately. I'm just I picturing
Speaker 1: a scene scenes from Arrested Development. Otherwise, the meeting sounded
Speaker 1: good to me, I think more importantly, how did you
Speaker 1: feel about it? In the moment, I felt like really
Speaker 1: nervous about executing it well, and all of the timing
Speaker 1: stuff really threw me off, Like I didn't realize how
Speaker 1: much how difficult it was going to be to actually
Speaker 1: think about what people were saying when I'm keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on the clock. But we did keep on schedule
Speaker 1: and people did get to say what they had to say,
Speaker 1: So I guess in that respect it worked. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: you're a master of ceremonies as well as a member
Speaker 1: of the team. That's a lot to juggle. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: the big question did your experiment succeed? Was the new
Speaker 1: and improved meeting any better than the old one? I
Speaker 1: talked to the team a second time to find out. Overall,
Speaker 1: I thought that it was a nice change to have
Speaker 1: some structure to our meeting. Um, so we have a
Speaker 1: specific time to get something done, and so we know
Speaker 1: when we start, we know we're going to finish. We're
Speaker 1: now we're going to hit all the things and not
Speaker 1: get too off the beaten path, though there still was
Speaker 1: some time left for that at the end. So I
Speaker 1: feel like it encompassed everything that we could possibly need
Speaker 1: or want from a meeting. I thought it was good.
Speaker 1: It was obviously a kind of artificial atmosphere in parts
Speaker 1: the music and the toys. See, I found the toys
Speaker 1: to be distract acting because, for instance, like the Rubik's Cube,
Speaker 1: I would start playing with it and then look at
Speaker 1: me like, oh no, wait, I just lost twenty seconds
Speaker 1: of the meeting um and then the slime. I think
Speaker 1: it made Magnus's hands smell for hours afterwards. I think
Speaker 1: of it in terms of, like, because I don't dread
Speaker 1: these meetings. I've been editorial meetings before. We're like, we
Speaker 1: do it every week and no one wants to be there,
Speaker 1: and so I don't feel that way here. It already
Speaker 1: feels like not like high stakes. To me, it's already
Speaker 1: enjoyable and back and so like the music, I think
Speaker 1: just compliments that it makes me feel more relaxed. I
Speaker 1: don't think I checked my phone while I was in
Speaker 1: that meeting. Ok, Okay, you've got some positive feedback. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a win. But also people definitely notice
Speaker 1: that some of it was contrived, so I don't think
Speaker 1: that's great. Would you call it a success? You know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this one a win to Fir
Speaker 1: said he didn't pick up his phone, and Liz that
Speaker 1: she really liked the structure, and yeah, Magnus could tell
Speaker 1: that I was kind of acting and being over the top.
Speaker 1: But overall I do think they couldn't help, but like
Speaker 1: that someone had put this much effort in time and
Speaker 1: thought into making an experience just for them. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think people have this feeling that meetings are a waste
Speaker 1: of time, and when you make it feel like not
Speaker 1: a waste of time, people are going to leave feeling
Speaker 1: better about the experience. There's always that fine line you
Speaker 1: have to walk between being so cheesy that people will
Speaker 1: be rolling their eyes and they'll be taken out of
Speaker 1: the experience by how silly it is and being excited
Speaker 1: enough and exciting enough that people are not going to
Speaker 1: just feel like, oh, this is, you know, a meeting
Speaker 1: I can zone out of completely. Yeah. I think what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing a little bit is like the stuff that
Speaker 1: you're describing as cheesy is just kind of treats people
Speaker 1: like their kids who can't focus, and we need to
Speaker 1: engage them in these ways. But the things that engaged
Speaker 1: people in your meeting was you know, keeping people on
Speaker 1: track talking about actual work, and that's the stuff people appreciate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I find people people are into working and doing their
Speaker 1: jobs well, and if you can make that part of
Speaker 1: it fun, you don't have to invent smelly slime. And
Speaker 1: I think, to be honest, the person who most needed
Speaker 1: an attitude adjustment here was me like I had just
Speaker 1: kind of assumed that because I myself wasn't always getting
Speaker 1: the most out of this meeting, that like nobody else was,
Speaker 1: everybody felt the same way and we should just cancel it.
Speaker 1: But I was wrong, and I found out that my
Speaker 1: team really notices when the meetings fall off the calendar.
Speaker 1: And you know, I learned from as cheesy as my
Speaker 1: but mitz for EMC Voice sounded, I learned that my
Speaker 1: outlook makes a difference. My team is interested in the meeting,
Speaker 1: so I should fully commit to it and be enthusiastic,
Speaker 1: start the meetings on time, and hold the meeting every week.
Speaker 1: I really like this new attitude of yours. Are you
Speaker 1: going to have this elaborate meeting every week now? No?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. That is like way too much work for
Speaker 1: a weekly meeting that has four total people in it. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do music. Maybe sometimes I'll do food,
Speaker 1: but I am going to try to make everyone think
Speaker 1: of something to talk about ahead of time and give
Speaker 1: them a set format that we kind of follow every week,
Speaker 1: and hold the meeting every single week whenever possible. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm jealous of this meeting. Um, do you think it
Speaker 1: come really could be. I mean, I'm part of you.
Speaker 1: Would you like to give a guest presentation? Oh, that'd
Speaker 1: be good, good thing to Maybe I'll bring my own music. Anyway,
Speaker 1: has this changed your outlook on meetings? Yeah, it sort
Speaker 1: of has. I think meetings are too easy to hate.
Speaker 1: They're just like such an easy target. Everyone goes after them,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are boring and some of
Speaker 1: them are unnecessary. But like you said before, so much
Speaker 1: falls through the cracks when you try to communicate exclusively
Speaker 1: through email or chat, and people like talking face to
Speaker 1: face for a reason. In I think the trick is
Speaker 1: learning that conducting meetings is a skill in and of itself,
Speaker 1: and it's a skill most of us aren't taught. Here's
Speaker 1: how Steve put it. There was a statistic that came
Speaker 1: out not too long ago that found I think it
Speaker 1: was of all leaders received no training on how to
Speaker 1: lead a meeting. I mean, that is a mind boggling statistic.
Speaker 1: You know, the meeting training has to go beyond just
Speaker 1: simple tactics and more about really kind of thinking about
Speaker 1: meetings from a much more strategic perspective. I like that
Speaker 1: those are some very wise word Steve. Anyway, I gotta go.
Speaker 1: I'm late for our meeting. Thank you for saying that
Speaker 1: live that I scripted you to say. Next week on
Speaker 1: Works for Me, Becca goes hunting for a mentor first email.
Speaker 1: Here we go, presidentson see it's kinda scary. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to another episode of Works for Me. If you
Speaker 1: like our show, please head over to Apple Podcasts or
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Speaker 1: show in front of other people. If you have a
Speaker 1: workplace problem that you're trying to solve, we would love
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Speaker 1: a boy smail we might use it on the show,
Speaker 1: or you can find me on Twitter. I'm at rs
Speaker 1: Greenfield and I'm at Francesca today. This show was hosted
Speaker 1: and reported by Me, Francesca Leavy and Me back at Greenfield,
Speaker 1: and it was produced by Topah four Est Jordan's speared
Speaker 1: to be illustrations on our show page, which is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com slash Works for Me Special. Thanks also to
Speaker 1: the other meetings experts I spoke to for this episode,
Speaker 1: including Bob Sutton and Patty McCord, and to our producers
Speaker 1: Magnus Henrickson, Liz Smith, and of course took for foreheads
Speaker 1: for being a part of this episode. Francesca Levy is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of Podcasts and we'll see you next week. Hi,