Speaker 1: Today's episode is another my favorite tip episode where I
Speaker 1: go back to interviews from the past and I dig
Speaker 1: out the thing that was my favorite tip, like the
Speaker 1: thing that I got out of the interview that really
Speaker 1: impacted or resonated with me. Today's extract is from my
Speaker 1: chat with Professor Scott Sunenshein. Scott is a New York
Speaker 1: Times best selling author and professor of management at Rice University.
Speaker 1: I came across Scott's work quite a few months ago
Speaker 1: when I read his second book, Joy at Work. Scott
Speaker 1: wrote Joy at Work with best selling author and Netflix
Speaker 1: star Marie Kondo, who's cleaning methods I've used in my
Speaker 1: own home over the years, and you tube might have
Speaker 1: come across marie condo as well. So Enjoy at Work
Speaker 1: Scott and Marie offers story study and strategies to help
Speaker 1: you eliminate clutter and make space for the work that
Speaker 1: really matters. There are actually two my favorite tip episodes
Speaker 1: that I have edited with Scott, so this is one
Speaker 1: around how to dramatically improve meetings. So I think you'll
Speaker 1: really like this extract if you are struggling with meetings,
Speaker 1: or if you've got too many of them, or if
Speaker 1: they're too long or too inefficient. So Scott has a
Speaker 1: bunch of different strategies that you can use to improve
Speaker 1: the meetings that you're running at also the meetings that
Speaker 1: you're attending. So let's head on over to Scott.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's an important distinction we have in the
Speaker 2: book between running a meeting and attending a meeting, And
Speaker 2: let's talk about the attending a meeting because that's the
Speaker 2: position that most people find themselves in where they get
Speaker 2: invitations to go to things and some of them are required,
Speaker 2: they're even the ones that are optional are sort of required.
Speaker 2: Then it might look bad if they don't go. So
Speaker 2: the first thing that we do is you have to
Speaker 2: really get a sense of what the problem looks like
Speaker 2: and realize how much of your time are you actually
Speaker 2: spending in meetings, because what happens is they take half
Speaker 2: an hour on Monday, a couple of hours on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: and they add up over time and you don't realize it. So,
Speaker 2: just like when you're going through the con Marie method
Speaker 2: and you're taking all of the clothes in your closet
Speaker 2: and you're putting them in a big heap of a
Speaker 2: pile on your bed, and then going through each one
Speaker 2: and realizing I got thirty shirts. I don't think I
Speaker 2: really need thirty shirts. You do the same with your meetings,
Speaker 2: and I like to say, put them on an index card.
Speaker 2: Then have each index card represent a meeting and write
Speaker 2: down shortly in a sentence what the purpose of the
Speaker 2: meeting is, and then go through the same process metaphorically
Speaker 2: where you pick up each index card. Then you ask
Speaker 2: yourself essentially three questions. One is going to this meeting
Speaker 2: really necessary? It might be necessary because it's important than
Speaker 2: for your job, or sometimes you're just forced to go
Speaker 2: out of factors that are outside of your control, and
Speaker 2: that's just the reality of many people's jobs. So those
Speaker 2: are the meetings that you're going to want to keep anyway. Secondly,
Speaker 2: you ask yourself, does going to this meeting move me
Speaker 2: any closer to the joyful future at work that I
Speaker 2: want my ideal work life? Am I going to learn something?
Speaker 2: Is this meeting going to build connection and foster relationships?
Speaker 2: Is it going to advance my career? So those are
Speaker 2: all good reasons to keep going to a meeting. And
Speaker 2: then finally the third question is does this meeting bring
Speaker 2: me more joy? And there are some times when we
Speaker 2: get together as a group, and I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people are feeling this right now in the pandemic,
Speaker 2: when social connection is much harder, where you just want
Speaker 2: to go there for that connection and that enrichment or
Speaker 2: that interaction or these meetings are so generative because they're
Speaker 2: sparking lots of ideas and creativity or your accomplishing a
Speaker 2: lot of work, and those are certainly meetings that you
Speaker 2: also want to keep. So you go through these three
Speaker 2: key criteria, and then you have a pile of the
Speaker 2: meetings that you're going to keep and then the ones
Speaker 2: that you're going to try to go out of. And
Speaker 2: that's where some of the hard work happens, because it's
Speaker 2: quite frankly, it's difficult to go to a meeting organizer
Speaker 2: and say, well, you're not going to say this meeting
Speaker 2: doesn't bring me joy, but you're going to do it
Speaker 2: in more diplomatic ways to try and get out of
Speaker 2: the meetings and maybe talk about how you don't feel
Speaker 2: like you have anything to contribute to the meeting, and
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of things might happen. The meeting
Speaker 2: organizer might say, you know what, you're right, The direction
Speaker 2: of this group and how we meet has kind of
Speaker 2: evolved over time, and maybe you are not the most
Speaker 2: relevant person, or maybe the meeting organizer says to you, you
Speaker 2: know what, maybe we've been underutilizing you and I haven't
Speaker 2: realized that, you know, we could be running our meeting
Speaker 2: in a different way, and maybe that brings you joy
Speaker 2: and realizing that you're appreciated in ways that you didn't realize.
Speaker 2: But you never get to these types of conversations by
Speaker 2: just resigning yourself and defaulting to the meetings on my calendar.
Speaker 2: I have to keep it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's I imagine it's probably a
Speaker 1: really challenging conversation for listeners to have with their boss
Speaker 1: or the meeting organizer. I'm lucky in that I don't
Speaker 1: have a boss, so I guess I've got a bit
Speaker 1: of freedom there. But it is challenging, Like, what have
Speaker 1: you seen or heard from readers in terms of what
Speaker 1: are like aside from those ways that you've mentioned, how
Speaker 1: else are they getting out of meetings?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: For example, I'm imagining a close girlfriend of mine who
Speaker 1: works at one of the big banks here in Australia,
Speaker 1: and I feel like her life is meetings zoom meetings
Speaker 1: right now from eight am to six pm, sometimes later.
Speaker 1: And I kind of I think about her when I
Speaker 1: think about that meetings chapter actually, and I'm like, goodness,
Speaker 1: she needs to tidy up her meetings. But how is
Speaker 1: she going to do that because of all the poll
Speaker 1: takes a play in the bank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and politics are what really gets us into trouble.
Speaker 2: And I think it actually starts with ourselves before we
Speaker 2: even think about how we interact with other people. And
Speaker 2: what I mean by that is we have a sense
Speaker 2: of meeting fomo, this fear of missing out that if
Speaker 2: we don't have a seat at the table, it means
Speaker 2: that we're not worthwhile, or we're going to miss out
Speaker 2: on an important decision. Or the person who attends the
Speaker 2: most meetings, they're the person who everyone thinks is working
Speaker 2: the hardest, when the reality is meetings are not really
Speaker 2: a way of keeping score. They're a way of getting
Speaker 2: work done. And if you're not getting work done in
Speaker 2: a meeting, it's not worth going to. So I think
Speaker 2: the first thing we need to do is just get
Speaker 2: out of our head of our sense of fear that
Speaker 2: we're going to just miss out if we're not there
Speaker 2: in either a decision or in terms of what other
Speaker 2: people think of us, and realize that there's lots of
Speaker 2: ways of making contributions. And then the second thing to
Speaker 2: do is to then start interacting with the meeting organizer
Speaker 2: and realize that you know, for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 2: you know you might be asked to go to this
Speaker 2: meeting that don't really make sense anymore. Maybe you've always
Speaker 2: attended but the direction of the meeting has changed, or
Speaker 2: maybe people feel like you want to be involved when
Speaker 2: you don't need to be involved in this specific aspect.
Speaker 2: So what I like to tell people is start by
Speaker 2: asking for an agenda, and that's going to accomplish a
Speaker 2: couple of things. The first is it's going to start
Speaker 2: a dialogue. And that's what a lot of this is,
Speaker 2: because you're right that in a lot of our work lives,
Speaker 2: we don't have control. We work for other people and
Speaker 2: we work with other people, and we can't just decide
Speaker 2: to opt out. So when we ask for an agenda,
Speaker 2: we start a conversation that allows us to better evaluate
Speaker 2: whether or not this is really a meeting truly worth
Speaker 2: going for, and if the meeting organizer doesn't have an agenda.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty bad sign. And you can polite we
Speaker 2: ask back and say, well, would you mind sending an
Speaker 2: agenda so I can better prepare. And if they still
Speaker 2: can't give you that agenda, again, that's a big red
Speaker 2: flag and you're going to want to try and get
Speaker 2: out of that meeting. If they send the agenda though,
Speaker 2: and that agenda looks like, well, there's not much I
Speaker 2: can contribute here. You can politely suggest, well, maybe someone
Speaker 2: in this other group or this other area of the
Speaker 2: company might be better suited for the meeting, and here's why,
Speaker 2: and I'd recommend them. Or you can simply say, you know,
Speaker 2: given my scope of knowledge and responsibilities, I might not
Speaker 2: be the best fit for this, but you know, help
Speaker 2: me understand maybe you're seeing something I'm not. I'm happy
Speaker 2: to come if you feel like I have a contribution,
Speaker 2: but help me understand how I can best help. And
Speaker 2: once we have these conversations, I think we can kind
Speaker 2: of come to terms about those meetings that are most
Speaker 2: helpful for us to go to.
Speaker 1: I personally find that agenda strategy really helpful. Something that
Speaker 1: we do with my tamment invent him and I actually
Speaker 1: got this trick from Brian Scrutemore, who's the co founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of one eight hundred Got Junk, and I
Speaker 1: interviewed him on the podcast quite a while ago, and
Speaker 1: something that he does. He has this thing at his
Speaker 1: organization where he says all meetings have to have a
Speaker 1: payer or a poet, which basically stands for purpose, agenda, outcomes,
Speaker 1: and he says if there's no poet, it's no goer.
Speaker 1: And so at Inventium, we've been playing around with this
Speaker 1: and we now have a rule that if there's a
Speaker 1: meeting that involves three or more people, the meeting organizer
Speaker 1: needs to like the barrier to entry if you like
Speaker 1: to putting a meeting in someone's diary, is that they
Speaker 1: need to specify what's the purpose, agenda and desired outcomes
Speaker 1: from the meeting. And we were reflecting on this at
Speaker 1: our team meeting yesterday actually and kind of going it
Speaker 1: really has made us stop and think before taking time
Speaker 1: from each other, because it does take thought, and most
Speaker 1: people kind of put a meeting in the diary, I find,
Speaker 1: which without actually thinking too much about purpose, agenda and outcomes.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just so easy to go into outlook
Speaker 2: and schedule a meeting, it's much harder to actually think
Speaker 2: about what you want to accomplish in that meeting. So
Speaker 2: these digital tools have really enabled the proliferation of meetings.
Speaker 2: So certainly practices where organizers of meetings are required to
Speaker 2: specify these things in advance with not only one I
Speaker 2: think cut down on a lot of unnecessary meetings, but
Speaker 2: too it would help the meetings that you have run
Speaker 2: much more effectively.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. If you want to
Speaker 1: listen to the full episode, I link to that in
Speaker 1: the show notes, so you might want to check that out.
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Speaker 1: it for today's show, and I will see you next time.