WEBVTT - How to Have the Perfect Meeting 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:04.200 From executive search to talent strategy, leadership development, rewards and 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:06.880 succession planning. Corn Fairy can help you realize the full 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:09.879 potential of your people so you can take your business 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.520 where it wants to go up. Learn more at corn 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.280 Ferry dot com, slash up forgive me listeners. But I'm 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:18.320 going to go a little Andy Rooney here for a bit. 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.720 Those pesky meetings, right, everybody hates them, and they're always 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.560 under some form of constant improvement. There are any number 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.680 of books, gurus, videos, articles that you can read to 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.280 talk about how meetings are being revolutionized, disrupted, up ended, 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.920 and yet we still have them, and most often they 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:51.880 are terrible. This week on game Plan, we're talking about meetings. Hi, everybody, 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.640 I am Sam Grobart. I am a writer at Bloomberg 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.080 Business Week magazine. And I'm Rebecca Greenfield. I'm a reporter 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.440 at Bloomberg Berg cover the work Place. And I will 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.200 say Becca that the only meetings I actually enjoy our 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.040 our meetings to talk about what we're going to talk about. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.200 You don't have to say that, no, but it's true. 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.040 It's true. But most other meetings they're terrible. Well, they're 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:15.600 just there are a lot of them. A lot of 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.039 people think that they waste time and meetings and can't 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.000 get actual work done. I think is one of the 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.560 big problems absolutely, And in fact, we decided to go 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.559 out and ask some of our coworkers what they thought 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.679 about meetings, and we have some of those clips here now. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.600 I hate it when people schedule meetings and then canceled 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:37.440 in period, but particularly when they do it at the 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.720 last minute. For introductory meetings, when people ask you to 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.840 say a fun fact about yourself, I can never think 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.520 of a fun fact, and then usually just make something up. 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:52.360 So no grandstanding, no putting people down, don't make stuff out. 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.440 The most egregious sin one can commit is to come 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.360 to a meeting without a plan. The worst thing that 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.680 I think someone can do in a meeting is if 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:06.920 they're in like the position of power and there's food 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:08.720 at the meeting, I think the worst thing that they 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.440 could do is to not eat. Not get the food 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:13.600 and eat it, because then you're sitting there and everyone 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.040 else is in the meeting and you're just like looking 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.880 at this delicious looking food. Probably you haven't eaten all 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.520 day because you've been waiting for this food, and you're 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.640 just sitting there and the person in power is apparently 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.480 not hungry. Apparently they don't spend all their time looking 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:36.120 for free food around the office. Okay, so, yes, talk 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.120 to me about the things that you don't like in meetings. 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.080 So I think the thing I have to start with 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.600 as the woman on this show is that, as a woman, 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.880 you feel sometimes that meetings are the place where sexism 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.040 is the most apparent in the workplace, which is really unfortunate. 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.920 I'm constantly thinking about how I have to force myself 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.799 to speak up. But then I know there has been 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.400 research that has shown that women get interrupted more than men, 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.240 and then also research that shows that women who do 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.160 speak up are judged more negatively than men. So but 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.639 if I don't speak up, then I feel like I'm 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.320 not being a good employee. Right, So you're damned if 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:18.840 you do, you're damned if you don't. Either you're going 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.320 to be sort of quiet and mousey, or you're gonna 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:26.280 be bossy and overly aggressive. But that's that is a 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.079 perception out there, right, that's the problem, and it's real. 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.680 It's totally real. The patriarchy is real. Yes, And furthermore, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.720 I would say totally acknowledging the point that you're making 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:42.160 that meetings overall are often an odd sort of performance 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:46.120 and even competition. And that goes for men too. Yeah 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.760 that you know, people kind of come into them with 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.520 a goal. The goal is not a successful meeting. The 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:56.120 goal is a successful presentation of themselves. Yeah, you're selling 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:57.880 yourself in the meeting. So you have to make the 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.040 next funniest joke or or cut down the next idea 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.480 that somebody has, or or be the first person to 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.440 say the obvious idea, right, which is something I wrote 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.040 about before I worked here at Bloomberg. Found this very 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.160 popular article I wrote about brainstorming, and a lot of 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.719 business school researcher types think brainstorming is really bad for 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.280 coming up with ideas, which is the purpose of brainstorming, 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:25.520 because of this thing called anchoring, where everybody rallies around 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.320 the first idea, which is usually the most obvious idea. Sure, 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:31.120 and you know it's funny. I was thinking about this 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.680 actually in the context of web comments, that somebody they'll 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.039 be commenting on an article and then somebody will make 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.480 sort of an outlandish claim and then all the comments 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.480 that follow are just about that one post. Yeah, and 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.280 you've completely moved on from maybe you know, the core 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.120 definition of the article. And that's also true in meetings. 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.480 So somebody says something and everybody now talks about that. 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:54.359 Was that the thing that we should be talking about? 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:56.560 Totally unclear, but that's what we're doing. Yeah, there's a 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:58.480 business school term for that that I read about, also 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:03.000 called conformity press. Sure. I think you see certain kinds 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.000 of tropes pop up in meeting, certain types of characters. 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.919 Like we've said, there's you know, the jokester. I hate 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.520 the jokester. I'm usually the jokester. I'm sorry. I know 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.160 I like laughing too. I like jokes too, but yeah, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.680 it's it's just like, we get it, you're funny, I am, um. 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.400 And then you have the critic, right, the naysayer. It's 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.680 really easy to say something negative in a meeting. That's 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.360 way easier than coming up with an original, good idea. Right. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.840 There's often times I feel the repeater, somebody who maybe 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.840 quite artfully but nonetheless says exactly the thing that the 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.560 person just before said. Because you feel pressure to say 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.839 something in meetings. I think the tricken meetings is really 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:41.640 not to say much of anything at all. But then 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.279 you're wasting your time, which is why I think everybody 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.320 feels about meetings. Well, people have been trying to get 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.359 at the core of this issue for a long time, 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.720 and we have one person with us here today who 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.080 has tried to solve the problem in a very zen way. Um, 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.760 for a number of years, he just didn't have any meetings. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.599 We are joined by Chris White, the founder and CEO 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.839 of Viable Markets, and independent consulting firm that works in 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.680 the financial industry. And the reason we have Chris with 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:19.800 us here today is in part because he did something extraordinary. Chris, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:25.560 for two years, you, I understand, never called a meeting, right. Um. 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.400 I was working for a major investment bank and I 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.599 had been working there for about five years, but the 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.200 last two years that I was there, I purposely employed 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.440 a strategy of not calling any meetings. And what was 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:42.359 ironic about it, or really surprising was I remember my 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.800 boss pulling me aside one day and just saying, I've 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.280 seen so much improvement from you over the past six months. 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:50.799 And it was literally six months into me not calling 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.039 any meetings. So um, it just started me thinking very 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.680 differently about meetings. Why did you pursue that strategy of 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.960 no meetings. What brought you to that decision, Well, Um, 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.720 the type of work that I was doing was something 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.520 that is a little bit nontraditional. Within an investment bank, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.440 my responsibility was to help the traditional sales and trading 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.280 business modernize. And when you're dealing with businesses that make 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.440 a tremendous amount of money and your job is to 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:23.080 talk about change and to help the business progress, that's 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.360 met with a lot of resistance because obviously that famous 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.280 phrase if it ain't broke, don't fix it is sort 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.040 of ingrained a lot of people's mentality. So though I 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.720 was doing what I thought was right according to my 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.720 my job title, it was not necessarily winning me any 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.040 friends internally, So I had to figure out a different 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.120 way to be influential. Wait, so when you were in meetings, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.920 when you were still doing meetings, it wasn't working well. 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:54.200 For a very very long time, I've used meetings, um strategically, 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:59.240 I think that there's a perception that decisions are made 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:03.160 in meetings, and and that is something that is something 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.520 I've just not experienced. In fact, it's very difficult to 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.400 come to actual hardcore decisions within a meeting. Another reason 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.600 why I stopped calling meetings is because one of the 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.320 pieces of advice I was given by one of my 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:20.000 superiors was that I had to know what everyone was 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.840 going to say in the meetings that I was holding. 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.120 So that meant that I would have to have bilateral 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:31.480 meetings with every single individual prior to hosting the group meeting, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.480 and it became exhausting. Meetings on meetings, on meetings, exactly. 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.079 It's meetings all the way down, Chris, I want to 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.319 jump back to something you were just saying before. You 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.080 said that a meeting is not a place for a 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.760 decision to be made, right, tell me a little more 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.120 about about that thinking. It depends on where you are. 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.080 If you're in a startup or certain other environments, maybe 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.360 not all of this applies, but certainly if you're working 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:57.040 in corporate America, and particularly in the world of finance, 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.559 there's a tremendous amount of risk to saying yes. So 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.160 anytime you're trying to move something forward, you're actually waiting 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.920 for somebody to say yes, let's do it. And when 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.240 you call a meeting and there's everybody sitting in a room, um, 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.679 it gets a lot harder. The larger the group, the 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:14.839 bigger the meeting, the more senior people in the meeting, 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:16.760 the harder it's going to be for you to actually 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.000 get a yes. People are are pretty much convexed to 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.120 say no because there's no risk to saying no, right 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.200 because you never know what could have happened. You're not 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.600 going to be responsible for the disaster of the yes. 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.760 So normally, what what I think is the best use 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.120 of a meeting and what your goals and expectations should be. 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.160 Meetings are for status, and meetings are also for authority. 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.600 When you do not have authority, that meeting status oh god, 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:45.600 but good to know we're being honest. Well, it depends 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:47.680 on who It depends on who you are in the meeting. 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.800 So in my role, I'm not a I'm not a technologist, 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.840 but I relied on the work of I T I'm 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.480 not a lawyer, but I relied on the work of 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:00.760 our legal and compliance department. And so I used these 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.199 meetings as a form of authority because what it did 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:09.520 is that they put transparency around their progress. And that's 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.160 actually why I did it. So it was meant to 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.520 be uncomfortable for them because they were being tasked and 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.320 I knew that if they had said something last Thursday, 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.800 in my next Thursday meeting, I could say, oh, John, 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.800 last Thursday, you said that this would be done by Wednesday. 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.680 What's the status? And that always makes someone feel uncomfortable 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.120 if they if they're not following through. Well, that proves 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.920 my suspicion in my own experience that many of the 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.000 meetings that I have attended, which might be sort of 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.640 a weekly meeting, sort of standing meeting to check on progress, 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:44.280 the purpose of that meeting is the threat of shame 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.600 if you have not met the deadline that you are 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.760 going to talk about at that meeting. The meeting itself 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.280 is just a way to get you to do your work. Yes, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:58.400 that is the beauty of human sociology. The biggest incentive 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.480 behavioral incentive is how you appear to others. That's why 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.800 I say a meeting can be your authority, depending on 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.280 what position you're in. If you structure the meeting such 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.920 that your process makes it transparent when somebody is not 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:18.480 meeting their responsibilities, you're actually able to get really large, 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.559 fantastic complex things done, even if you don't have direct 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.480 authority over anyone in the room. Up happens when the 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.280 power and potential of every employee and leader in your 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.560 workforce is released, and corn Ferry can get you there 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.880 by aligning your people to your strategy, attracting, developing, engaging, 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.320 and rewarding them to reach new heights. With corn Ferry, 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.480 you get a partner who truly understands people, leadership, and 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.040 the new landscape of work, a partner who knows how 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.160 to take your business up. Learn more at corn ferry 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.160 dot com slash up. I want to go back to 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.400 your two years son's meetings for a little bit. What 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.600 were you doing to get things done then? Like, how 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.520 did you run those big projects that you're working on? Well, Um, 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.280 the way that I handled getting things done was I 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.160 would just have many discussions with the people that I 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.760 knew had the authority, and if I knew that that 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.920 person needed reference information before making the decision, I would 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.400 make sure to get a SoundBite from other people that 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.760 I know they'd want to check in with. So Becca, 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:21.760 I would I would go to you and I would 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:23.319 talk to you about something. I'd say, do you think 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.079 this is a good idea? And then you'd say, yeah, 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.320 I think it's a good idea, And then immediately, Sam, 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.040 I'd come to you and I'd say, well, I was 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:31.839 talking with Becca and you know what she thinks is 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.320 a good idea, and then I would be basically move 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:40.439 I can move things forward that way without necessarily positioning 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.640 the initiative or what I was doing is being Chris 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.280 White's idea, UM, which is is it's just not going 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.439 to work unless it's Chris White's company, which is why 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.000 I started my own company. It kind of reminds me 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.120 of like a really good reporter who I sit near 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.439 some really good reporters and yeah, they do a lot 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.720 of I heard this thing from this person. What do 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.960 you think about that? Totally? It is UM. It's a 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:06.160 technique that I think UM comes quite naturally if you're 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.040 having to talk about things or do things that people 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.640 may not want to necessarily prioritize. Do you have any 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.440 thoughts about when you're actually in the meeting sort of 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.000 the tactics of that moment. Are there things that you're 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.840 doing or not doing um? Other than having called the meeting? 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.600 Of course, what you've explained sort of why the meeting exists, 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.559 But what about actually when you're conducting the meeting? Sure, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.480 I like to let other people in the meeting do 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.959 the talking, and all I was acting as is really 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.560 the talk show host. UM. In that way, I think 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.920 just people feel more engaged, they feel like they have 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.240 a voice, they feel like they're being respected. There's nothing 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.480 worse than sitting in a meeting for you know, forty 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.400 five minutes and one person is talking on and on 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.560 and on, and you're not hearing a different voice, and 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.239 you're not hearing any sort of community within the discussion. 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.480 So I always I always paid attention that. UM. I 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:06.000 think it's especially important when you're working in a diverse 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:11.360 work environment because there are politics at play that maybe 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.640 we we don't sometimes notice where certain people get drowned 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.199 out and if you don't give them at least some space, 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:19.880 they're not going to be heard and their content isn't 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.120 going to be appreciated. So I was really really conscious 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.280 of that. Yeah, I think about that a lot in meetings. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.560 How I have to force myself to be heard sometimes 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.920 not because anybody's malicious or doing anything, it's just you know, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.240 being a younger woman in the room, Yes, necessarily going 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.360 to be the loudest person in the room. Well, did 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:39.720 you I don't know if you guys had a chance 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:41.840 to read this, but there was an article out about 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.200 what the women who are part of the Obama administration 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.560 do in the meetings, and what they do is when 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.160 a woman says something, then another woman would repeat what 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.360 that woman said, just to make sure that she was heard. 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.800 I think it's a brilliant tactic because those dynamics are 0:14:57.800 --> 0:14:59.720 at play in some of these meetings. It's not just 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.120 a gender. It could also be about age. I mean 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.720 you mentioned being a younger woman in the room. People's 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.840 listening ears sometimes turn off, um, depending on who's doing 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.520 the talking. So the exact same thing can be said 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:16.320 by two different people, but it will have varying different impacts, uh, 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.440 depending on the source. It appears to me that from 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.960 how you're describing your approach to meetings, I think it's 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.800 actually a lot more methodical, and you you do have 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.560 sort of a script almost and a and a plan 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:29.760 as far as how the meeting is going to commence, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.640 who is going to speak within it, and what the 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.560 objective is at the end. Whereas, honestly, and I've been 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.440 guilty of this as well, meetings are often just called 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.080 like hey, let's talk about X, you know, like Hey, 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.320 we're all here, so uh, and there's no and then 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:50.200 you spend twenty minutes shooting the talking about last night's debate, right, 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.120 and then yeah, you do like brainstorming. That seems not 0:15:55.240 --> 0:16:00.800 that useful. There's no trajectory. Well, I think with regards 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.640 to my own situation, there were specific things that I 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:05.680 was trying to move forward, and so I was quite 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.080 clear as to why I was using the meeting. If 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.480 the meeting is just to kick around ideas, I think 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.080 it is going to have that sort of looseness to 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.000 it and it might meander, but I but I always 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.840 was thinking of where the business needed to be six 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.640 months from now, was based on the meeting that I 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.720 was having that day. Um. And another thing that I 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:30.640 did consistently and still do try to practice is to 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.400 have that follow up email. I'm sure there are some 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.040 some meetings you have where there's like the follow up email. Well, 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.960 there's nothing gave me greater pleasure than to have somebody 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.880 come to me, let's say, six weeks after something was 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.840 in motion and say why are we doing this? Or 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.360 I you know who signed off on this? And I 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.800 would dig through my follow up emails and I'd say 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.720 Oh yeah, Um. On January ten, I sent out the 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.640 status this is what was said. You were in the 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.040 room at that time. You didn't raise an objection, And 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.480 I really had to do that in the environment that 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.840 I was in. I was working for large investment banks. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.560 You're dealing with, you know, really aggressive personality is a 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.359 lot of you know, I would say a types in 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.520 the room, and there's no way in terms of what 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:19.919 I was doing and had to do a lot with 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.159 technology and modernization, there was no way that I was 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.480 going to run over anyone. That would just have made 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:28.520 me completely ineffective in the world. So I had to 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.600 figure out how to use their weight against them. And 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.840 the best way to use someone's weight against them is 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.600 to sort of bury them in a process, and then 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.480 as they try to move outside of that process, you 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.520 can kind of, you know, show them the evidence, um 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.760 that you were following the steps and had been transparent 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:45.960 with everyone. Yeah. I think that follow up email is 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.920 definitely controversial, and I send them in our meetings when 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.520 we talk about this show sometimes and I feel very 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:56.880 self conscious because it feels kind of naggy almost you're 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.000 going to do this, but it gets people to do 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:01.719 stuff is and to your point, it creates a record, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:03.919 so it's not left to the sort of fuzzy memory 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.120 of did you agree, did you not agree? I don't 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.639 know who's to say totally. I mean, I was actually 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:11.480 just having a conversation with a friend of mine on 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.840 on the way up to this podcast, and he was 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.359 complaining about a technology project that was running behind. And 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:19.760 the advice that I gave him, I said, all you 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:24.560 need is a simple Excel spreadsheet that shows each of 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.080 the technology tasks when the technologists said it was going 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.680 to be complete, and the current status and everything that's 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.480 like that's late. You make sure that this the cell 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.760 color is red, a bright red, and then you take 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.200 that image and you send that to the boss with 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.919 all of the technologists see seed. I guarantee you that 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.920 project will get right on time. I think our most 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.000 organized listeners are really into this advice. Yes, and maybe 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.840 some are slightly frightened. You are less organized, but it's 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.359 good to hear all the same. Chris white thank you 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.000 so much for joining us today. It's been a real 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.000 education and pleasure. Oh thank you my pleasure as well. 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:11.359 And good luck with your meetings everyone. Chris white Man 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.640 with a plan. That guy's got it all worked out. Yeah, 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:16.720 it's clearly working for him. Like I said, I really 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.239 do think that it probably stresses some people out. Not 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:20.600 sure that I would want to be in a meeting 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:22.760 with him. I feel like I would constantly feel like 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:28.440 I was in trouble or something for his projects. But yeah, 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.200 it's he has found ways to make meetings work for him. 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.080 They are specific, particularly, I think, to his industry and 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.359 the culture and his industry. It may not always apply 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.320 to every place that you work, but as we've been 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.840 sitting here talking about how terrible meetings are and how 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:44.280 we can try to fix them, I mean there are 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.159 some good things about meetings. We do like meetings, or 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.119 at least some of them. Yeah, I do like meetings. 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.480 They break up my day in a way that I 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:55.560 think helps me think of ideas in a different way, 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:59.320 which in our industry seems important. Sure, I don't oftentimes 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.680 see people in meetings that I might not otherwise see 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.960 on a fairly regular basis. So from a social standpoint, 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.840 it's great. That's some part of work. Yeah, I think 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.040 making connections. But yeah, I think the best meetings I have, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.000 Like you mentioned, you liked our meetings, and I think 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.120 that's because we have a really specific purpose and it's 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.600 fairly small group of about four people usually, and we're 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:22.800 really trying to get something done. It's it's not like 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:24.880 a meeting for the sake of having a meeting, which 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:26.639 I think a lot of meetings are, and if a 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.239 meeting is related to a task. In this case, our 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.880 meetings are very close to the task in hand, which 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.040 is let's make another episode, as opposed to sort of 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.480 the more really strategy based meetings. We're not sitting around 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.680 like what kind of podcast should game plan be if 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.200 I sustain and what words would you associate. I also 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.040 think not having them on a regular basis is kind 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:51.800 of good. There's a lot of meetings where it's like 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.320 we need to have a weekly nine am and we 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:56.320 are kind of like, oh, no, we should probably meet. 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:58.960 It's more at yeah, yeah, it's more tailored to the 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.679 needs of the podcast. I also think meetings have become 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.159 better because of the rise of programs like Slack and 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.320 hip chat, where a lot of the conversations that we 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.480 don't like our happening and all those performative things also 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:16.800 happened there. You have to ask yourself the question if 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.000 you're ever thinking about having a meeting, you know, is 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:21.200 anything here that I can do in the meeting? Can 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.720 I put that into an email or a Slack conversation 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:27.320 or some other format? Is it is a meeting the 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.080