Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
Speaker 2: of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
Speaker 2: they take their days from great to awesome and any
Speaker 2: advice they have for the rest of us. So today
Speaker 2: I am delighted to welcome Rebecca Hines to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 2: Rebecca is the author of the new book Your Best
Speaker 2: Meeting Ever, Seven Principles for designing meetings that Get Things Done. So, Rebecca,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Laura, I'm excited you could be here, and meetings is
Speaker 2: a good topic. You know.
Speaker 1: Why did you tell our listeners a little bit about
Speaker 1: yourself first?
Speaker 3: Sure? So, I've always been fascinated by organizational design and
Speaker 3: how do you create organizations that are good for business
Speaker 3: and good for people and collaboration in particular as an
Speaker 3: area I've long been fascinated by ever since I did
Speaker 3: my bachelor as I went to Stanford and fell in
Speaker 3: love with, you know, organizational behavior design there. I then
Speaker 3: did my masters in the same program and subsequently my PhD.
Speaker 3: Currently I lead the work AI Institute at Glean, which
Speaker 3: is our internal think tank, and previously I led the
Speaker 3: work Innovation Lab at Asana, which was an internal research center,
Speaker 3: and have long been fascinated as well about translating academic
Speaker 3: type rigorous research into practical strategies and frameworks for executives
Speaker 3: and leaders and workers in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, meetings is an area that is definitely ripe
Speaker 2: for improvement, as I know, you know and here all
Speaker 2: the time, like what do mores organizations get wrong with meetings?
Speaker 2: Because it seems like, you know, we have to meet
Speaker 2: on occasion, and yet many people are very very unhappy
Speaker 2: with the way those things go.
Speaker 3: Fundamentally, you know, we've accepted meetings, and in particular bad
Speaker 3: or dysfunctional meetings, as an inevitable cost of doing business.
Speaker 3: And at the root of so much of the problem
Speaker 3: is the fact that we use meetings as a lazy, default,
Speaker 3: knee jerk reaction for communication that doesn't deserve to be
Speaker 3: a meeting.
Speaker 1: When we think.
Speaker 3: About a meeting, it's you know, in the premise of
Speaker 3: my book your best meeting ever is a meeting is
Speaker 3: a product, right, It's the most important product that you
Speaker 3: make as an organization. It's where decisions get made, priorities
Speaker 3: get set, culture gets built, and yet it's also the
Speaker 3: least optimized. And considering how much time, how much effort,
Speaker 3: how much money we pour into meetings, the fact that
Speaker 3: we don't take the time to intentionally design them is
Speaker 3: both fascinating and deeply frustrating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because, I mean, first, there's the problem of volume.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you have some interesting numbers about
Speaker 2: the sheer volume, both overall volume and then the proportion
Speaker 2: of that that people feel as a waste of time.
Speaker 3: It's massive, and we've seen in particular over the last
Speaker 3: two decades. Ever since the turn of the century, we've
Speaker 3: seen collaboration in general in our organizations increase. We've seen
Speaker 3: the time we spend in meetings increase, and I think
Speaker 3: what's especially fascinating is through the pandemic, and in particular
Speaker 3: between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four, we saw the
Speaker 3: time we spend in dysfunctional meetings increase significantly across all
Speaker 3: levels of the organization. And you know, in theory it
Speaker 3: should have decreased because we had all these new digital
Speaker 3: tools that should have allowed us to spend less time
Speaker 3: in meetings and certainly less time in dysfunctional meetings.
Speaker 1: But what we didn't have.
Speaker 3: Is a system lens. Employees often didn't have clarity in
Speaker 3: terms of where to do the work, and we know
Speaker 3: when there's a lack of clarity again, we default back
Speaker 3: to meetings because they are the most reliable way to
Speaker 3: transmit information, although the most expensive one as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's one of the things driving the volume
Speaker 2: is that it's bad community, right, That's one of your
Speaker 2: main points, is that what goes wrong with communication that
Speaker 2: people are like, no, I need to have a meeting.
Speaker 3: Often meetings are used for information exchange, you know, and
Speaker 3: we see that in status updates, we see that in
Speaker 3: broadcast briefings, even within specific meetings, you know. Often so
Speaker 3: much of the communication is information exchange that we know
Speaker 3: can not only be done more efficiently in asynchronous channels,
Speaker 3: but also more effectively. And we need to get out
Speaker 3: of this habit of using meetings for those information exchange.
Speaker 3: If they are this very expensive product, which they are,
Speaker 3: you know, we should be using them very strategically. It
Speaker 3: should only be used, you know, if we're making a decision,
Speaker 3: if we're discussing something that's complex, if we're deciding something.
Speaker 3: You know, if we're developing ourselves or our team, all
Speaker 3: of these things require often synchronous, real time back and
Speaker 3: forth collaboration in a way that information.
Speaker 1: Exchanged is not yeah, so it's something.
Speaker 2: It's like something needs to change in the world as
Speaker 2: a result of this meeting taking place, and money do
Speaker 2: not seem to actually clear that bar.
Speaker 3: And it needs you know, meetings. There's a reason why
Speaker 3: your best meeting ever is a positive promise and not.
Speaker 3: You know, meetings suck because I truly believe that, you know,
Speaker 3: meetings are the highest leverage way that we can improve
Speaker 3: our ability to lead and our organizational performance, and yet
Speaker 3: you know often they're not used for that very strategic purpose.
Speaker 2: Well, let's start with the volume and how one might
Speaker 2: go about reducing the volume of meetings. Maybe first you
Speaker 2: can talk sort of systematically, and then we'll look at
Speaker 2: what individual people can do, like if you aren't in
Speaker 2: charge to reduce your volume.
Speaker 3: So often when we when we think about volume in particular,
Speaker 3: and I compare it to technical debt, I call it
Speaker 3: meeting debt. Just like in our our products, we often
Speaker 3: have technical debt that builds up over time. Shortcuts fixes
Speaker 3: with meetings. The same thing happens in the form of
Speaker 3: often legacy meetings or meetings that are scheduled once that
Speaker 3: drag on and become recurring meetings and don't ever get
Speaker 3: taken off the calendar, and we don't think intentionally about
Speaker 3: is our calendar serving us right now? And so often
Speaker 3: I'll work with organizations where the meeting debt is so bad,
Speaker 3: you know, the meetings are so dysfunctional, and you know,
Speaker 3: often these were meetings that once had a strong purpose
Speaker 3: and were intentionally put on the calendar, but no longer
Speaker 3: serve the work. And in those cases, often what I'll
Speaker 3: recommend is a complete calendar reset. I call it a
Speaker 3: meeting doomsday. It's a forty eight hour calendar cleanse, and
Speaker 3: it's designed very intentionally. It's designed to put the ownership
Speaker 3: into the hands of employees. Ideally it's done at a
Speaker 3: system level, an organizational level, or team level, but it's
Speaker 3: structured in a way that employees do the culling of
Speaker 3: the meetings. They delete the meetings, and then tips and
Speaker 3: t and strategies are given to them to decide which
Speaker 3: meetings to bring back on the calendar. Every meeting needs
Speaker 3: to earn its place, and that type of reset not
Speaker 3: only clear as time and clear as calendars, but it
Speaker 3: also because it is a fresh slate, it starts to
Speaker 3: rewire our assumptions about what actually deserves to be a meeting.
Speaker 3: And it also gives people explicit permission to decline meetings,
Speaker 3: where we know that so much of that is psychological
Speaker 3: in terms of we fear canceling meetings because meetings are
Speaker 3: such a personal act. It's a social contract. When someone
Speaker 3: schedules a meeting with you, you feel obliged to reciprocate
Speaker 3: that invitation and doomsday. These calendar resets, if they're done intentionally,
Speaker 3: they give employees permission to decline meetings, delete meetings in
Speaker 3: a way that isn't taken personally by the organizer, because
Speaker 3: it's it's an intentional, system wide or team wide effort.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and
Speaker 2: then i'll be back with Rebecca Hines talking about better meetings. Well,
Speaker 2: I am back talking with Rebecca Hines about how to
Speaker 2: have Your Best Meeting Ever, which is the title of
Speaker 2: her new book. So, Rebecca, we've been talking about things
Speaker 2: we can do systematically, and I know you've worked with
Speaker 2: a couple of organizations that have done a meeting's doomsday,
Speaker 2: a meeting armageddon, as it were, a forty eight hour
Speaker 2: cleanse to get rid of all these meetings on the calendar.
Speaker 2: Let's say I don't work for one of those places,
Speaker 2: and they have not brought you in as a consultant.
Speaker 2: I am just feeling like I have a lot of meetings.
Speaker 2: Is there something I can do to start changing that
Speaker 2: volume on my calendar?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we are all co designers of better meetings, and
Speaker 3: this is highly dependent on your role within the organization,
Speaker 3: whether you're primarily a meeting organizer or a meeting attendee,
Speaker 3: and the level of psychological safety within the organization. But fundamentally,
Speaker 3: we all need to have a good understanding of what
Speaker 3: our priorities are at work, and realistically, our priorities at
Speaker 3: work are what our calendar says they are, and so often,
Speaker 3: you know, when I'm working with individuals or advising individuals,
Speaker 3: the first step is look at your calendar, and that's
Speaker 3: a reflection of your priorities. Bucket the time you spend
Speaker 3: often the majority is in meetings or some form of collaboration.
Speaker 3: You know, bucket into different categories and then take a
Speaker 3: beat and look at, Okay, what are your priorities as
Speaker 3: you wish they would be, and how does that match up?
Speaker 3: Because often what we'll see is you're spending disproportionately high
Speaker 3: time in meetings and less time on the really important work,
Speaker 3: the skilled work, the strategic work, the customer relationships. And
Speaker 3: seeing that mismatch is often a first step, and then
Speaker 3: you know lots of other strategies in terms of how
Speaker 3: do we protect time. I'm a big proponent of meeting
Speaker 3: blocks on our calendars and protecting those and then thinking
Speaker 3: very carefully about when we do organize a meeting. I
Speaker 3: often look at four key dimensions, so the length, the cadence,
Speaker 3: the attendees, and the agenda items. And for each of
Speaker 3: those dimensions there are lots of strategies that we can
Speaker 3: put in place, even as an attendee, but especially as
Speaker 3: an organizer, in terms of redesigning the length, the cadence,
Speaker 3: the attendees, and the agenda items to be more valuable
Speaker 3: for the people in the room. Length is a classic
Speaker 3: example where we know meetings suffer from Parkinson's law. Meeting
Speaker 3: work expands to fill the time allotted. If you look
Speaker 3: at your calendar and most of your meetings are thirty
Speaker 3: minutes or sixty minutes. It's a sign that we've just
Speaker 3: accepted the calendar default and not thought intentionally about could
Speaker 3: that thirty minute meeting be a twenty five minute meeting,
Speaker 3: Could it be a fifteen minute meeting. All of these
Speaker 3: things add up in a way that can meaningfully prove
Speaker 3: our ability to hit our personal goals, have better work
Speaker 3: life balance, and boost our organizational performance as well.
Speaker 2: So I mean with one of that you mentioned in
Speaker 2: the book that maybe ten hours was the tipping point
Speaker 2: I was going to give people if they're adding up
Speaker 2: their calendar, they're looking at what time I'm spending in meetings.
Speaker 2: It's sort of ten hours what you might be aiming
Speaker 2: for that or less if you're not in a role
Speaker 2: that is like purely meeting based.
Speaker 3: It's on average. So this is research that comes from
Speaker 3: a fantastic organization that I've interacted with and worked with
Speaker 3: over the year's work litics, and what they've essentially shown
Speaker 3: is for the meetings they analyze, a whole host of
Speaker 3: negative consequences tend to kick in once people exceed that
Speaker 3: ten hour a week threshold. Now many many people, most
Speaker 3: people are well above that threshold, and so I often
Speaker 3: use it as a benchmark. You know, what would happen
Speaker 3: if you did cut your meetings down to ten hours?
Speaker 3: Would things fundamentally change in terms of your ability and
Speaker 3: in particular hinder your ability to move work forward and
Speaker 3: hit your objectives. And it's a useful conversation, It's a
Speaker 3: useful benchmarket. It's never one size fits all, but I
Speaker 3: think you know, having that ten hour a week threshold
Speaker 3: and understanding that, you know, focus time, engagement tends to
Speaker 3: dip once we get to that threshold, I think is
Speaker 3: a is a useful thought exercise and for some people,
Speaker 3: you know, very helpful in terms of a hard barrier.
Speaker 3: And I've worked with many folks who will set that
Speaker 3: hard barrier in terms of I'm not going to have
Speaker 3: more than ten hours a week in meetings because I
Speaker 3: recognize that my ability to perform in the meeting outside
Speaker 3: the meeting is negatively impacted.
Speaker 2: And how would you recommend like having that conversation with
Speaker 2: a manager, Like let's say I add up the meetings
Speaker 2: on my.
Speaker 1: Calendar and I met like, I don't know, twenty five.
Speaker 2: Thirty hours a week of meetings, and I would like
Speaker 2: to be closer to the ten hour number. How do
Speaker 2: you start that conversation with the people who are.
Speaker 1: Managing your team or your organization.
Speaker 3: It's always best to have objective data in terms of
Speaker 3: what's working and what's not working. And that's why you
Speaker 3: know these dedicated initiatives that I'll often you know, lead
Speaker 3: or advise companies on where your level setting in terms
Speaker 3: of what is an effective meeting? Right, an effective meeting,
Speaker 3: your best meeting ever, is a meeting where the attendee
Speaker 3: is not yourself as an organizer, leave knowing that the
Speaker 3: time they've invested in that meeting has been well invested.
Speaker 3: And so the more we can have data in terms
Speaker 3: of Okay, I've asked attendees or I've rated these these
Speaker 3: meetings and they're not effective, they're not serving me as
Speaker 3: an individual or the team, the more you can then
Speaker 3: give that information to the team member, the organizer, the
Speaker 3: manager and have that conversation. In my experience, managers typically
Speaker 3: respond very well to this. Certainly, there's some meetings where
Speaker 3: we might not be getting as much value as we're
Speaker 3: contributing to the meeting, and those in particular, we don't
Speaker 3: want to be taking off the calendar too quickly, but
Speaker 3: having that conversation. The big problem is many managers don't
Speaker 3: have this conversation with employees in terms of it's okay
Speaker 3: to walk out of a meeting where you're not contributing
Speaker 3: value or reaping it, and it's likewise okay to have
Speaker 3: a conversation with the organizer if the meeting isn't worth
Speaker 3: your time. If you're coming from a place of intentionality,
Speaker 3: people tend to.
Speaker 2: Respect that, And you also suggest asking sort of leading
Speaker 2: questions or curious sounding questions, like if we're discussing this topic.
Speaker 1: Will we have time to get to this thing on
Speaker 1: the agenda? Is that a good.
Speaker 3: Strategy if you're operating in a psychologically unsafe environment. Yes,
Speaker 3: because the more you can disarm the sense of threat
Speaker 3: that would be perceived by you calling out a bad meeting,
Speaker 3: the better your feedback or criticism disguised will be taking. Now,
Speaker 3: if you're operating in a psychologically safe environment, you can
Speaker 3: afford to be more blunt and assertive. We know that's
Speaker 3: going to be more efficient and move things forward much
Speaker 3: more effectively, and calling out specifically, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: think this meeting is effective for this reason. You know
Speaker 3: I'm coming from a place of wanting the meeting to
Speaker 3: be better for everyone. Again, the level of psychological safety
Speaker 3: really really matters in terms of the best most effective
Speaker 3: approach that.
Speaker 2: You talk about putting in little moments of joy to
Speaker 2: make people actually want to come to a meeting. What
Speaker 2: can we do to make a meeting seem sort of fun,
Speaker 2: I mean a little bit like a party.
Speaker 3: I guess it's really important because if we're using meetings intentionally,
Speaker 3: we should have fewer meetings, which means the meetings that
Speaker 3: we have should be deeply human. Right, That's the purpose
Speaker 3: of live synchronous interaction is those things that we need
Speaker 3: our human empathy, our human body language trust to develop.
Speaker 3: And we've gotten into, you know, a situation where people
Speaker 3: have a visceral negative reaction to meetings. You ask people,
Speaker 3: you know, do you like meetings? No one likes meetings.
Speaker 3: You know you hear the grumbles right away. And so
Speaker 3: I'm a big proponent of within all of our meetings,
Speaker 3: as an organizer, you should be injecting at least one
Speaker 3: moment of delight. It can be a five second moment,
Speaker 3: it can be a two second moment, it can be
Speaker 3: a minute moment. But delight is this very interesting combination
Speaker 3: of joy and surprise. And I think the surprise element
Speaker 3: is really important because it causes people to think differently
Speaker 3: and remember that moment that they weren't expecting. So it
Speaker 3: can be a shout out, you know, you've done a
Speaker 3: good job on this. You know, the person wasn't expecting
Speaker 3: that the shout out. It can be you're bringing a
Speaker 3: food item that has a you know, cookies or cupcakes
Speaker 3: that has you know, some personal significance to you, something
Speaker 3: that will cause in employees and the people in the
Speaker 3: room to have a lasting positive impression because that will
Speaker 3: then make them want to show up the next time
Speaker 3: engaged in the contributions and the content of the meeting.
Speaker 2: Just to say here, I mean, it's probably not asking
Speaker 2: people for a fun fact, right, I mean, is there
Speaker 2: a sort of another one that we could do for
Speaker 2: making a moment of delight?
Speaker 3: Yes, I think And we also, you know, I've seen
Speaker 3: this this you know, negatively impacted meeting as well. When
Speaker 3: we start to ask about weekend activities also anything where
Speaker 3: you might have differences in terms of people's you know,
Speaker 3: work life balance. You want to make sure your level
Speaker 3: setting in terms of So that's why I love shout outs.
Speaker 3: I love kudos. You know, everyone goes around and you know,
Speaker 3: celebrate someone else. You know, we don't want to be
Speaker 3: doing this in every meeting, but we know that peer
Speaker 3: to peer recognition is also very effective and intrinsically motivated,
Speaker 3: motivating for so many people. So that type of thing
Speaker 3: where your level setting, you're ensuring you're not you know,
Speaker 3: you're including everyone and asking questions where everyone feels excited
Speaker 3: to contribute in some way.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, We're going to take one more quick ad break
Speaker 2: and then I'll be back with more from Rebecca Hines. Well,
Speaker 2: I am back talking with Rebecca Hines, who is the
Speaker 2: author of Your Best Meeting Ever. So switching gears a
Speaker 2: little bit. Rebecca, I wonder if you can tell us
Speaker 2: a little bit about how you work, Like what does
Speaker 2: a day look like for you these days?
Speaker 3: Sure? So I try to structure my meetings very intentionally.
Speaker 3: So I try. You know, I mentioned the four d
Speaker 3: CEO tests in the book. A meeting should only happen
Speaker 3: if you know fundamentally the purpose is to decide, debate, discuss,
Speaker 3: or develop, And I'm pretty you know, stringent in terms
Speaker 3: of that. If If I don't think that's the case,
Speaker 3: I'll ask for an agenda, or I'll ask, you know,
Speaker 3: what is my role in the meeting. I'll often, you know,
Speaker 3: watch meetings asynchronously at one point five or two speed.
Speaker 3: When I know that I'm not contributing value in the
Speaker 3: meeting or reaping value from that that live synchronous communication.
Speaker 3: I try to bundle different types of tasks. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm in the phase of my career where
Speaker 3: I know how I work best, and I know when
Speaker 3: you know I'm most creative. I know when I need
Speaker 3: those deep focus blocks. If I'm doing similar types of activities,
Speaker 3: I bundle those. I don't have too many back to
Speaker 3: back meetings. Non negotiable for me is having you know,
Speaker 3: some portion of every day where I'm at the gym
Speaker 3: and working out and being active. Those are those are
Speaker 3: non negotiables in terms of how I how I structure
Speaker 3: my time.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, do you have a morning routine.
Speaker 3: I do have a morning routine at Ebbs and Flows.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm at the late stages of life launching
Speaker 3: this book, and so for the past year it's it's involved,
Speaker 3: you know, doing work on the book before you know,
Speaker 3: I go into my day job, and often that's you know,
Speaker 3: a very early morning for a couple hours, and then
Speaker 3: I'll switch gears for the majority of the day and
Speaker 3: often I'll I'll go back and you know, catch up
Speaker 3: on bookwork at the end of the day. It ebbs
Speaker 3: and flows throughout my career, but I have learned in
Speaker 3: terms of, you know, that balance of physical activity, taking
Speaker 3: time each day where I'm off the screen, even if
Speaker 3: it's for half an hour, and sleep. I try to,
Speaker 3: you know, be relatively consistent about in terms of I
Speaker 3: recognize how important that is in me being able to
Speaker 3: show up each day.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so I always ask my guests, what is something
Speaker 2: you have done recently to take a day from great
Speaker 2: to awesome.
Speaker 3: So I'm a huge New Year's resolution person, and I
Speaker 3: use resid lightly because they're more like goals for me.
Speaker 3: I grew up as an athlete and I've always loved
Speaker 3: goal setting and that's been something that has given me
Speaker 3: a lot of stability and clarity and motivation through you know,
Speaker 3: every phase of my life and career. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: I love those three or four days before the start
Speaker 3: of the new year where I'm tinkering at my New
Speaker 3: Year's resolutions, new Year's goals. I usually have, you know,
Speaker 3: I usually have twelve or sixteen each year, recognizing that,
Speaker 3: you know, if I hit ten, that'll be that'll be
Speaker 3: a success, and have them be from different categories as well.
Speaker 3: And I find, you know, that's already taken me from
Speaker 3: good to great in terms of how I'm approaching this
Speaker 3: year and the intentionality with which you know, I'm spending
Speaker 3: my time in investing my time.
Speaker 1: Can you share one of them?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so superstitious. Okay, all right, I'll have to,
Speaker 3: I'll share. So I always have, you know, there are
Speaker 3: two or three that are more physical physical activity related.
Speaker 3: They're always two or three that are more family relationship oriented.
Speaker 3: There are always two or three that are more work related.
Speaker 3: I'm still very active doing research and academic research, so
Speaker 3: I build in a category for that. And then also
Speaker 3: I do have you know, one or two each year
Speaker 3: that are about that delight and joy and being happy
Speaker 3: and doing things that will make myself happy and others
Speaker 3: happy as well. I'm a big believer in generosity and giving,
Speaker 3: and so those are the sorts of categories that I
Speaker 3: think about each year.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, what are you looking forward to Right now.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to the book launch. It's been so
Speaker 3: fun to work with organizations and help them fix their
Speaker 3: meeting dysfunctions. You know, I've last week I was working
Speaker 3: with both a very large oil and gas company and
Speaker 3: a book publisher and a tech company and seeing the
Speaker 3: similarities but also the unique nuances of each industry and
Speaker 3: person has been so fun. And shifting from the writing
Speaker 3: to you know, the real practical which I love to
Speaker 3: do as well.
Speaker 1: Excellent And where can people find you?
Speaker 3: So my book is is everywhere your favorite bookstore. My
Speaker 3: website's Rebecca Heines dot com and I'm active on LinkedIn
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us. Thank
Speaker 2: you to everyone for listening. If you have feedback on
Speaker 2: this or any other episode, you can always reach me
Speaker 2: at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. And in the meantime,
Speaker 2: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 2: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 2: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 2: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
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