Speaker 1: Professor Stephen Rogelberg is one of the world's leading experts
Speaker 1: on workplace meetings, and he knows that one of the
Speaker 1: biggest deciding factors on whether a meeting is successful or
Speaker 1: not is the ability of the person leading the meeting.
Speaker 1: Whether it's making the meeting all about themselves or failing
Speaker 1: to plan in advance, there are plenty of pitfalls that
Speaker 1: can undo a meeting for a leader. Additionally, there are
Speaker 1: also some key traits that all successful meeting leaders have
Speaker 1: in common, and Stephen is an expert on them. All.
Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals,
Speaker 1: and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor
Speaker 1: Amantha Imber. In today's quick Win episode, I speak with
Speaker 1: Stephen Rogelberg about what the best meeting leaders have in common,
Speaker 1: that some people make when running a meeting and the
Speaker 1: different kinds of strategies a good meeting leader can use
Speaker 1: to get the best results.
Speaker 2: Well, let me frame it this way and our research
Speaker 2: the best meeting leaders appear to have something in common,
Speaker 2: and what they have in common is a similar mindset,
Speaker 2: and that mindset is a mindset of stewardship. They're a
Speaker 2: steward of others' time. The thought of people leaving their
Speaker 2: meetings saying it was a waste is so uncomfortable to
Speaker 2: them that they act with intentionality. And this intentionality is
Speaker 2: instead of just you know, dialing the meeting in using
Speaker 2: default calendar settings, right, you're making choices. You're saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm having this meeting, this is how long I think
Speaker 2: it should be, this is who must be there. So
Speaker 2: you're just being intentional. And furthermore, one of the things
Speaker 2: I talk about in my book is this idea of
Speaker 2: a pre mortem, and a pre mortem is where you
Speaker 2: start to think about what are the potential challenges and
Speaker 2: problems that could arise in the meeting? And given that,
Speaker 2: how should I design the meeting? And so it's just
Speaker 2: stepping back and giving it a little bit of thought.
Speaker 2: And interestingly, we act with intentionality all the time when
Speaker 2: we're meeting with important stakeholders because we don't want those
Speaker 2: people to leave the meeting saying that was a waste
Speaker 2: of time. But we typically don't act with intentionality when
Speaker 2: it comes to meeting with our peers or directs. So
Speaker 2: this intentionality is just saying, all right, people are giving
Speaker 2: me the biggest gift. They have their time, so how
Speaker 2: can I honor that time? And so the decisions are
Speaker 2: you know, tightness of invites ordering of the agenda, right,
Speaker 2: hit the most important things first, you know, not the
Speaker 2: superficial stuff.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Keep the meeting as short and tight as possible. You
Speaker 2: can always find more time to meet. But we know
Speaker 2: from Parkinson's law that work expands to fill whatever time
Speaker 2: is a lot to do it, So keep it tight,
Speaker 2: you'll get it done. And those are some really important
Speaker 2: intentional design factors to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: What else have you found that the best meeting leaders
Speaker 1: have in common?
Speaker 2: So that's the main one, but then there's other ones
Speaker 2: that fall from that. For example, facilitation when one of
Speaker 2: the best predictors of people's perceptions of an ineffective meeting
Speaker 2: is the leader doing more talking than the attendees. The
Speaker 2: more the leader talks, the more the ratings go down.
Speaker 2: And that makes a heck of a lot of sense, right,
Speaker 2: because the leader is supposed to be facilitating. That's their job, right.
Speaker 2: They've called this party together and their job is to
Speaker 2: get these voices out. It doesn't mean that they can't
Speaker 2: talk during it, but mean it does mean that they
Speaker 2: shouldn't be dominating because they invited people. If they dominate,
Speaker 2: the meeting could have just been an email. So that
Speaker 2: propensity to facilitate is really critical. And what underlies that
Speaker 2: is this desire to listen right, to truly engage. And
Speaker 2: and then the other characteristic of really good meeting leaders
Speaker 2: is they understand that meetings need an end. Ding. So
Speaker 2: we know meetings end, right, everything ends, but an ending
Speaker 2: is something different, right. An ending is where you stop
Speaker 2: three to five minutes before the end and you say, okay,
Speaker 2: well did we actually decide and for each of these things,
Speaker 2: who is the dri the directly responsible individual and what
Speaker 2: did we not decide? You know, so we know that
Speaker 2: these are things that we have to discuss at another time.
Speaker 2: At the same time, during this ending, you're recording this
Speaker 2: key information so your non attendees can stay in the loop.
Speaker 2: So that is another key thing that really differentiates excellent
Speaker 2: meeting leaders from not so excellent meeting leaders.
Speaker 1: What else can we do during a meeting to get
Speaker 1: the best outcome, whether that be facilitation techniques that work,
Speaker 1: or other strategy that you found.
Speaker 2: I mean, facilitation is absolutely the most key, but you
Speaker 2: know there's lots of different ways to have a meeting,
Speaker 2: and so, for example, silence in meetings is phenomenal. The
Speaker 2: research shows that when people brainstorm in silence typing directly
Speaker 2: into their computers, they generate nearly twice as many ideas,
Speaker 2: and the ideas tend to be more creative, right because
Speaker 2: everyone can talk at once and you're not influenced by
Speaker 2: that very first thing you hear. So a meeting leader
Speaker 2: can say, okay, depending on what we're trying to solve,
Speaker 2: maybe silent brainstorming could be really meaningful. Again, depending on
Speaker 2: what you want to solve, Sometimes a standing meeting is
Speaker 2: really a helpful. Standing meetings generally take half as much
Speaker 2: time and yield the same quality decisions. You might choose
Speaker 2: to get people into pairs before the conversation. What we've
Speaker 2: found is that when you tell people, hey, again, to
Speaker 2: pairs and start to talk about this problem or issue
Speaker 2: for just three minutes and then we'll all come together.
Speaker 2: When you do that and then you return to the
Speaker 2: big group, people are participating, right, you've kind of greased
Speaker 2: the rails. So that's another technique that could be super helpful.
Speaker 2: So there's lots of choices, and that's I think a
Speaker 2: really key takeaway for your listeners is that we need
Speaker 2: meeting leaders to think about things and make choices. You know,
Speaker 2: we have around a billion meetings a day around the
Speaker 2: globe and they generally all look the same. That's not good, right,
Speaker 2: Let's mix it up. Let's change it up and position
Speaker 2: yourself as a leader as part of the solution, as
Speaker 2: opposed to being part of the problem.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this little quick win with Steven.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to listen to the full interview, you
Speaker 1: can find a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 1: If you like today's show, make sure you get follow
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Speaker 1: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
Speaker 1: the Warrangery People, part of the Cooler Nation
Speaker 2: Two