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. So today's extract is from
Speaker 1: my chat with Dom Price. This is my second time
Speaker 1: having Dom on the show. I loved our first chat
Speaker 1: so much that I was keen to check back in
Speaker 1: with him during COVID and see how he was going
Speaker 1: and how the way he approaches work had changed. So
Speaker 1: if you haven't come across DOM before, Dom is the
Speaker 1: head of Research at Development and also the resident work
Speaker 1: futurist at Atlasian, one of the world's biggest and fastest
Speaker 1: growing tech companies. Dom has responsibilities spanning five global R
Speaker 1: and D scent and is the in house team doctor
Speaker 1: who helps Alessian scale by being ruthlessly effective, all while
Speaker 1: keeping one eye on the future. So in this extract
Speaker 1: from my chat with Dom, we talk all about how
Speaker 1: Dom has been making virtual meetings not suck. So there
Speaker 1: are some really practical strategies in this extract and I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy it. So let's head to Dom and
Speaker 1: I want to know own your leadership meetings, your leadership
Speaker 1: team meetings, about how you are now solving problems together,
Speaker 1: like what structure are you using, what software are you using,
Speaker 1: how are you facilitating that? Like what what would I
Speaker 1: observe if I was kind of like dialing into one
Speaker 1: of those meetings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've had to sort of sharpen our pencil there.
Speaker 2: You suddenly realize how many informal rituals and mechanisms you
Speaker 2: have in person, certainly around note taking, actions, decisions, reading bodyline.
Speaker 2: What are we doing about that? It's way more dynamic
Speaker 2: because in an in person meeting you can have more
Speaker 2: than one voice. But if you look at the way
Speaker 2: most video technology works, it really only enables one voice
Speaker 2: at one point in time. Right, And if you're on
Speaker 2: Zoom or any of these other tools and the three
Speaker 2: people talk, you get this no, no you go, no, no,
Speaker 2: you go, don't amout for you go, right, it's we
Speaker 2: all become overly polite. One of the things we've done
Speaker 2: is making sure we have clear roles at the start
Speaker 2: of any meeting. So in our leadership meeting, we have
Speaker 2: a wonderful a wonderful lady Nikki who's like our operations person.
Speaker 2: She keeps us honest. And so when we all start
Speaker 2: debating something, Nicky is the one who changes and goes,
Speaker 2: is there a decision here? Is there an action? Do
Speaker 2: we need to take this offline? Do we need to
Speaker 2: push this now? Is this a good use of our time?
Speaker 2: Just to keep us honest. And then what we've found
Speaker 2: is often if we need to go deep, we will
Speaker 2: allocate it to one or two people and go cool,
Speaker 2: you go and take this away next meeting, come back
Speaker 2: with your update, and we can work on it asynchronously
Speaker 2: across the week throughout. But actually we want to say
Speaker 2: that that synchronous time for complex problem solving and debating discussion,
Speaker 2: and then what's the stuff we can do asynchronously and
Speaker 2: that way it's easier for everyone to consume. And then
Speaker 2: the other thing that we've added into there, and I
Speaker 2: think we've spoken about this before, but I think we've
Speaker 2: become more sort of heightened on it is the one
Speaker 2: way door, two way door. So the one way door
Speaker 2: decisions are once you've made that decision, it's done right.
Speaker 2: They're the decisions you want to measure twice and cut
Speaker 2: once you want to deliberate, consult and analyze, get all
Speaker 2: the data, and be relatively confident you're making the right decision.
Speaker 2: But the vast majority of the decisions that we make
Speaker 2: on a daily basis are two way doors. All right,
Speaker 2: If you walk through the door, you find out what's
Speaker 2: the other side, but if you don't like it, you
Speaker 2: pay a toll for coming back through the door. And
Speaker 2: what we find is is that where there are two
Speaker 2: way door decisions, we allocate them to the person who
Speaker 2: we think is to the somebody are our expert, and
Speaker 2: we're like, come back with the decision you make. They
Speaker 2: pros the columns the options, but bring back a page.
Speaker 2: So normally we use confluence or trello, show us the options,
Speaker 2: tell us the decision you've made. Cool, let's proceed. So
Speaker 2: we will discuss and debate for a short period of
Speaker 2: time to help the person, but we're not going to
Speaker 2: overly debate those decisions because we learn a lot more
Speaker 2: by making them and then listening and learning. And I
Speaker 2: think that's almost more true now than ever before, because
Speaker 2: there's so much uncertainty around the world right now. The
Speaker 2: idea of perfect decision making, it just doesn't exist. So
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, if you can't make perfect decisions, make
Speaker 2: quick ones instead, and just make sure you're able to
Speaker 2: listen and learn from them.
Speaker 1: That's so good. I think that's such good advice. Well, like,
Speaker 1: what else would I say, Like, for example, how are
Speaker 1: you overcoming the very annoying fact that two people can't
Speaker 1: talk at the same time and you've got the awkward
Speaker 1: no you go, you go, like, how are you getting
Speaker 1: around that?
Speaker 2: I think it's one of those things, is kind of
Speaker 2: we're just getting used to it. I think when it's
Speaker 2: only kind of if every fifth meeting with video that
Speaker 2: feels a bit awkward, whereas now we've just got into
Speaker 2: a little bit more of a routine.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: What we're trying to do is keep our meetings a
Speaker 2: little bit smaller where we can. There seems to be
Speaker 2: a tipping point, and I've not I did see some
Speaker 2: suggested science on this, but I'm not sure I believe
Speaker 2: it yet that there's a tipping point on this size
Speaker 2: of meetings where people just can't contribute and they get
Speaker 2: easily distracted. And then for us, it's about having clear
Speaker 2: roles and agendas.
Speaker 1: And what is that size? Like, what have you found
Speaker 1: in terms of meeting size, in terms of what's what's
Speaker 1: the optimal, what's getting a little bit too big, what's
Speaker 1: definitely too.
Speaker 2: Big for me personally? Anything over eight. Right, it's no
Speaker 2: longer a meeting, it's a broadcast. Right. So I did
Speaker 2: a session yesterday. Thirty five people dialed in. Right, it's brilliant.
Speaker 2: It's me doing a presentation to our marketing team on
Speaker 2: the future of work. The way I structured it was,
Speaker 2: I'm going to present for twenty thirty minutes. Use the
Speaker 2: chat function in Zoom to log your questions as you
Speaker 2: think of them, so you can ask them as you
Speaker 2: instead of interrupting me. Log them in there as you
Speaker 2: think about them, so I've got free flow. And then
Speaker 2: the second half of the meeting, we'll go through the
Speaker 2: Q and a, Q and A and the discussion. I
Speaker 2: already had the list of questions because I could see
Speaker 2: people's names against them, and that meant that we could
Speaker 2: have smaller dialogue and conversation and we could keep it
Speaker 2: to those points. Right, So everyone's still in gauged and
Speaker 2: I've got some level of collaboration. It's not the same
Speaker 2: as doing it in the room, and I wouldn't claim
Speaker 2: it was, but at least we got some of the
Speaker 2: richness of the feedback loop. And I mentioned that on
Speaker 2: purpose because I think a danger that I've seen, or
Speaker 2: a mistake for a lot of leaders, is they're using
Speaker 2: this time of COVID and distributed to just broadcast more
Speaker 2: and they're inadvertently listening less. Right, there's lots of people
Speaker 2: doing loom videos or zoom videos pushing content out, but
Speaker 2: they've forgotten that real communication is using your ears as well. Right,
Speaker 2: it's not just using your math. And if we lose
Speaker 2: that sort of message check and understanding how we made
Speaker 2: people feel and the actions they took, then there's no
Speaker 2: point in doing the broadcast.
Speaker 1: I like that a lot. I like your use of
Speaker 1: the chat function, like what I've been doing. I've been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of virtual keynotes now for clients and events,
Speaker 1: and I love that I can have the chat box
Speaker 1: open on my screen so I can almost hear people's
Speaker 1: reactions live because I encourage people to type into the
Speaker 1: chat box and I kind of react where I But
Speaker 1: it's funny. I had this experience a couple of days
Speaker 1: ago where I was doing a virtual keynote to a
Speaker 1: biotech company. There are about four hundred people online and
Speaker 1: as always I encouraged sort of chattered through the chat
Speaker 1: box and they were so chatting, which is awesome, but
Speaker 1: then I'm like, hang on, no, this is overwhelming for me.
Speaker 1: I cannot respond to everyone. So I like what you're
Speaker 1: doing in terms of having the chat box open so
Speaker 1: you can kind of see what's going on there, but
Speaker 1: then carving out time to respond to all that. So
Speaker 1: you've got people recording their reactions and questions in real time,
Speaker 1: but then it's also not interrupting your flow, and I
Speaker 1: imagine that like one of the benefits to that is
Speaker 1: that you're also getting responses from more introverted people who
Speaker 1: perhaps wouldn't normally speak up. Are you finding that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's what you've hit the nail on
Speaker 2: the head, right, which is you know again, I think
Speaker 2: distributed and the technology using now can exacerbate that problem. Right,
Speaker 2: you can quite easily hide. If there's eight people in
Speaker 2: a video chat. It's not easy to hide, right, you
Speaker 2: can just get your phone out and catch upon you
Speaker 2: to list and just leave the video playing, because if
Speaker 2: they don't hear from you, they don't know what you've
Speaker 2: not said. I think it's a lot easier as a facilitator.
Speaker 2: For me, it's a lot easier to spot that inner room.
Speaker 2: But then I think that's the role of a great
Speaker 2: facilitator still, right. We make sure that, certainly for our
Speaker 2: larger meetings, when we're doing problem solving, we have someone
Speaker 2: almost facilitating, like Nikki the operations person, facilitating that conversation
Speaker 2: to keep us honest, keep us on track as top
Speaker 2: us going down those those rabbit holes, but also to
Speaker 2: make sure we're getting the right level engagement. It's not
Speaker 2: that all eight people should have us say in all decisions.
Speaker 2: It's just making sure we tap the right person. So
Speaker 2: it's like, ahh, dom, I've heard from you. I've heard
Speaker 2: from you, but amut there, Like, I'd love to hear
Speaker 2: your opinion on this because I think you might have
Speaker 2: a view that's important and bringing that person in that's
Speaker 2: the same in person is on video. I think it's
Speaker 2: just more important to do on video. And that's what
Speaker 2: the second half of that presentation gave me because suddenly,
Speaker 2: when I stopped sharing my presentation, everyone appears on screen, right,
Speaker 2: So I've changed from broadcast to consumption, so I can
Speaker 2: see the people, but also then my job to go, hey,
Speaker 2: the teacher I love that question, Becky. I'd love to
Speaker 2: hear your view on that, because I've worked with you
Speaker 2: on this thing before, Like, what's your view? So actually,
Speaker 2: I reckon half the answers came from other people on
Speaker 2: the call, right, which again is just I think facilitation
Speaker 2: one on one. But one of the things that I
Speaker 2: believe to be true in this distributed world is that
Speaker 2: the things in leadership that we used to call soft skills,
Speaker 2: and I know me and you share a view on this,
Speaker 2: they're not soft, They're really hard. But those soft skills
Speaker 2: are becoming even more powerful. Meaningful communication, you know, genuine empathy,
Speaker 2: the ability to deliver a vulnerable, open, honest, authentic message,
Speaker 2: to be oneself and to be true to oneself, those
Speaker 2: things are even more valuable than ever before. And so
Speaker 2: I think what we're going to see is the people
Speaker 2: that do that not seamlessly, but the people that do
Speaker 2: that naturally are going to become way stronger and better
Speaker 2: leaders as they evolve. And I think that's a skill
Speaker 2: set that it's not something that we're born with, right,
Speaker 2: I think it's something that and ethers can go and
Speaker 2: learn by getting to understand communication or storytelling even more
Speaker 2: that is.
Speaker 1: It for today's show. If you want to listen to
Speaker 1: the full episode, I link to that in the show notes,
Speaker 1: so you might want to check that out. And if
Speaker 1: you are enjoying how I work, I would be so
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Speaker 1: and it also brings a huge smile to my face.
Speaker 1: So thank you to the hundreds of people that have
Speaker 1: left reviews. It is so deeply appreciated. So that is
Speaker 1: it for today's show, and I will see you next time.