How to Cope with Meeting Madness

[Music]

when you think about your past

work week and all the meetings that you

had

what was the thing that you found most

frustrating

as a meetings trainer and coach clients

call me

because they want to get engagement and

focus

in their meetings it’s always the same

people who do all the talking they tell

me

and they’re the ones that take us off

track and make us run over time

and it’s always the same people who stay

quiet

and we’re worried we’re not getting the

engagement we need for really good team

commitments

so what can you do to solve these

problems

well i’d like to give you a strategy to

cope

but like all coping strategies they

won’t remove the problem

completely meetings are a fact of life

and in meetings we have people

and the moment you have people i like to

say

you actually got two meetings you’ve got

the meeting

that you’re in and you’ve got the second

meeting that’s going on inside your head

and that’s the reason we sometimes don’t

step in

and save our meetings when they’re going

off track and we’re going to talk about

that

in the second half of the talk so first

of all

what are the coping strategies that you

can do

well cope stands for captain

outcome process and equity

let’s look at the captain every ship

needs a captain

to get it safely to its destination on

time

and meeting science tells us that the

meeting leader

makes or breaks the meeting

the wonderful thing is that meeting

skills is something that you can learn

and get better and better at every time

you lead a meeting

because there’s no right way to do it

and you can find your own

unique leadership style

o stands for outcome

if we don’t know where we’re going we’re

likely to get lost at sea

and it’s very important to articulate

the outcome

that you want so if you’re the meeting

organizer

write down the outcome you want in the

meeting invitation

so that your participants can see what

to expect

and what’s expected of them and they can

even make an informed choice as to

whether to catch this ship

or to stay behind this time and get on

with work that they think

would be more productive the p

stands for process like any destination

we need to know how we’re going to get

there

and that also takes planning

so when you’re thinking about your

meeting and you’re planning the process

you have to ask yourself some questions

for example

if the outcome you want is a decision

when you’re planning your process you’d

be asking yourself questions like

well how are we going to reach that

decision is it going to be a vote

is it going to be by consensus or is it

going to be the loudest voice

wins and it’s extremely important

that the captain shares that process at

the start

of the meeting meeting science tells us

that when we have a clear outcome and a

clear process of how we’re going to get

there

our stress levels go down and we can

release our higher cognitive functions

to really collaborate together think

creatively

and get the best outcomes for our

meetings

and the e stands for equity or equal

opportunity

to speak it’s no good having a few

people

who do all the talking while everybody

else stays silent

but how do you encourage that in your

meetings

well there are three steps listen

validate redirect

so imagine you’re in a meeting

everything’s going well

and all of a sudden a couple of

colleagues start having a side

conversation that’s when you can bring

in

your listen validate redirect and it

looks something like this

you listen and you wait for an opening

eventually your colleagues are going to

have to come up for air

and have a natural pause and that’s when

you step in

with your validate piece to do that

you ask a question to break the momentum

of their conversation

and the question can be as simple as can

i ask you a question

that stops them in their tracks and you

can step in with the validation piece

which is

that sounds really interesting

and now you step into the redirect piece

which is

can you help me understand how what

you’re saying relates to the topic we’re

on in our agenda right now

and you’re bringing them back to the

objective

of the meeting without alienating them

and everybody else sighs a big sigh of

relief

because now you’ve saved their meeting

now when i give these tools to

people they feel very comfortable using

them

with their peers with a little bit of

practice

but what about if the people that are

having the side conversation

are your superiors what would you do

then

and if you were the boss how would you

feel if your team member

actually interrupted you and brought you

back

on track well these

are the kinds of questions that cause

all of us to stop in our tracks because

we’re dealing

now with the meeting inside our head

and i like to use this quote from

football coach

mike dicker he said in life you get

what you tolerate and i’ve changed that

quote

to say in meetings we get

what we tolerate so why

are we tolerating these kinds of

meetings

well it’s because of the meeting in our

head we don’t

feel that we can interrupt our

colleagues

and especially not our superiors because

we’re worried

that we might look rude

but i think we’re actually worried that

we might be rejected

our biggest fear in life is to be

rejected

from our tribe or our group

and so we’ll do anything we can to stay

in the good books

so i like to get inspiration from elon

musk

ceo of tesla he wrote an email to his

staff

showing them how important it is for him

to have a great

meeting culture in his organization

and he said walk out of a meeting or

drop off a call

as soon as it’s obvious you aren’t

adding value

it’s not rude to leave

it’s rude to make someone stay and waste

their time

the reason i like that quote is that it

recalibrates

what we mean by being rude how would it

be

if it was okay not to accept a meeting

invitation

that didn’t have a clear objective

how would it be if it was okay to cancel

a meeting that was already set in time

because there wasn’t any need for it

as we recalibrate our future and we

think about

how we want to do our best work together

wouldn’t it be great if we could have

these kinds of conversations

inside our organizations so next time

you’re in a meeting whether you’re the

ceo of an organization

whether you’re the meeting leader or

just a meeting participant

think about how you can step in to save

your meeting

with the coping strategies that i’ve

shared with you today

[Music]

you