Knowing what you want gives you all the power you need to avoid unproductive meetings.

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“Discipline is knowing what you want.”

–Steve Chandler

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Word Count: 700

Reading Time: Under two minutes

A consulting firm I work with asked me to join a 2-hour discussion on issues of culture and coaching at a client site.  I was relieved to have conflicts on both of the dates they offered.  I’ve never been able to talk about culture for more than 90 seconds before my mind drifts away.

“Go ahead without me,” I breezily suggested, and thought I was well out of it.

Nope.  The next email offered three more dates.  I was free for all of them.

Oh, (Expletive deleted.)

I switched to plan B, but my “May I please see an agenda with outcomes for the meeting?” yielded “ The client wants us to come and discuss culture and blah, blah.”  This was going to be harder than I thought.

I got two things from their response:  The sense that I was being difficult and would be blamed if we lost that client, and new information I could act on –  It was the client that wanted the meeting.

I sent the next email directly to the client and laid out my dilemma:  My time is at a premium right now because of – ironically – a program I’m writing about running productive virtual meetings.  While I didn’t want to appear uncooperative or unhelpful, I would need to see an agenda and outcomes for what would be a 4-hour time commitment.

That’s the nicest way I know to say “Prove this is a valuable use of my time.”

Then I offered to help with that agenda.

The client responded immediately with “That makes total sense.  I’d feel the same way.  And I’d love the agenda help.”  She went on to explain more about what she wanted out of the meeting.

“Great!  I think we can cut the meeting in half if we survey people ahead of time.  I’ll draft both today.”

You might be thinking “Liz, you got stuck with the meeting and the agenda – where is the good part?”  For me, this is a good trade-off.  Here’s my thinking:  I want to help my harried, hyper-busy client get what she needs.  She was about to eat up 4 hours of my time, not to mention the time I’d spend irritated about it before and after the meeting, so let’s say 6 hours.  I want to avoid that.

My “win” in this situation is to get to a better outcome in half the time.  In addition, I’ll have strengthened our relationship, my boundaries and my self-respect.

As of this writing, I’ve drafted a brief survey and suggested that surveying was a better next step than a meeting.  It took ten minutes to do and if she agrees it will save me most of a day.  Sending out this survey and tabulating the results beforehand will make the meeting much stronger.  It’s a win either way.

It’s Your Turn: Say No to Bad Meetings

Know what you want and need.   I want to be of service.  I want to protect my time and energy.  Therefore I need an agenda with outcomes.  I need clarity.  H.B. Karp defines power as “the ability to get all of what you want from the environment, given what’s available.”  Knowing what you want happens inside you.  Getting all of what you want is in your power

Say what you want without blame or judgment.  You don’t know what’s available, so why not ask?

Don’t settle for resentful compliance.  A friend recently told me about research that says resentment takes more of a toll on the body than guilt.  It’s always better to feel guilty or vulnerable than it is to simmer in resentment.  Take the chance to explore what is available.

Offer to help.  Decrease the distance between you with an offer.  I’ve turned nightmare meetings into fun founts of productivity this way.  Trading time for more energy is a win in my book.

Unless you are both leaving the conversation strengthened, it isn’t feedback.

Word Count: 575

Reading Time:  About 1 minute

“Your swearing is offending people.  It’s got to stop.”

My boss seems kinda mad.  His face is red and he’s spitting a little as he talks.  We’ve just gotten out of a meeting where I apparently offended people without noticing, which I find horrifying.  I want to make it right.

I get two names and dash off to talk to offendee #1. She has a funny expression on her face as I apologize and blurts: “Liz, what the f— are you talking about?”

Offendee #2 looks perplexed, then says “Oh, sh–!  Are you telling me we can’t swear in meetings anymore? “

I’m confused.

Two days later, I hear about offendee #3.  “You swore in front of Kathy.  You probably don’t know that she’s a devout Christian and a church-goer, but she is.  I know for a fact that she hates swearing.”  Here’s a fact my boss doesn’t know:  Kathy and I talk on the phone most evenings and Kathy swears like a sailor.  So I tell him.  And then I invite him to come clean with me:

“Jerry, none of the people you identified are offended by my language, but I wonder if you are.   Is that it?  Do you find it offensive?  Because that would be enough for me to stop it.  You don’t have to make a case against me. Just tell me.”

He couldn’t do it.  In fact he, er, swore up and down that it didn’t bother him at all.

The key to effective feedback is admitting you are affected by someone else’s behavior.

Feedback connects people.  When it goes well, you both learn something. Giving feedback makes you vulnerable, even when you are the boss.

I think that’s why we avoid it.  We either avoid giving any feedback or we do what Jerry did, and armor ourselves with “proof” that what we are saying is “true,” as if there were some objective standard for behavior of which we are the lone guardian.

Which misses the point.  Giving feedback isn’t about holding someone to an objective standard of behavior,  because there isn’t one.  It’s not about fixing someone or remodeling their personality, because they are perfect just as they are.

Feedback is helping someone find a way of being that’s a better fit for their situation.

Feedback knits together a fabric that has become torn and improves everybody in the bargain.

How to give connective  feedback:

1. Paint yourself into the picture.  Either say how you’re affected, or how you’ve contribution to the problem.   It’s always true, and it will open your heart.

2. Watch out for the shame and manipulation of the “royal we.”  It’s common to want to sound more powerful, just like the Wizard of Oz.   You don’t need to be perfect or to be right or to be joined by a group of imaginary friends.  Just be you.

3. Invite the person receiving feedback to paint themselves more fully into the picture.  Feedback first connects a person to themselves.  This will make them your partner.

4. Remember that there is no such thing as abnormal behavior, there is only situation-inappropriate or age-inappropriate behavior.  Every behavior has its appropriate situation or chronological age.   This will help you let go of judgment.

5.  Say clearly what is appropriate behavior for the situation.

6.  Listen for ways to help them connect and align themselves and for ways you can stretch your perceptions.

I still wonder what would have happened if Jerry’s feedback could have been connective rather than corrective.

Screen-sharing is to productivity like kryptonite is to Superman.  Here’s how to beat it.

Word Count:  693

Reading Time:  1.6 minutes

It’s my first meeting with screen-sharing and I don’t know what to expect.

I’m watching someone mouse around a powerpoint deck as a colleague talks me through the day-long training we will soon be leading.  My colleague interrupts himself frequently to redirect the person handling the mouse.  My attention switches from watching the torturous progress of the cursor across the screen, listening to my colleague talk, and my own internal dialog, which sounds like this:  “There must be very few slides if he’s going into this much detail now.  This is just a prelude to the meeting, right?  Just some tiny adjustments before we get into what we said we’d do.”

Nope.  By the time I see there are 96 slides, the meeting is almost over and we haven’t accomplished any of our stated outcomes.

Meanwhile, the meeting slows to the speed of one person editing while another types.  I am being driven mad by the movements of mouse and cursor. I can feel my brain begin to stutter; hear my sentences becoming fragmented.   My interest in the meeting has turned into a fierce need to do something, anything else.  My mind runs for cover.

“What do you think, Liz, are there any slides we should eliminate?”

I try to answer, but my brain cannot come up with a sentence.  My mouth opens and no sound comes out.  Part of me thinks this is funny.  Part of me is worried about disappointing my colleague.  Another part of me wonders if this is what it’s like to have a stroke.   Which snaps me out of my torpor.

“My brain just locked up and I can’t answer that question.

“Oh.  Er…”  Silence.

“Jimbob, I can’t form an opinion about goes or stays without seeing an agenda with times.  And I’ll need to be able to page through the deck myself so I can match it to the times in the agenda.  Then I can answer your question.”

There is an ocean of silence on the phone.  When it ends, I’ve been promised both documents.  We schedule another screen-sharing session which scares me, because screen-sharing seems to affect my brain the way kryptonite affects Superman.

The screen-sharing meeting minus the kryptonite effect

This next meeting starts like the last one.  The horrible melting sensation in my brain kicks in the minute the mouse begins to meander across the screen, but this time I’m ready.  I announce that I’ll be using my own copy of the deck; could everyone please call out page numbers so we can stay in synch?

Which brings me to the first law of screen-sharing:  Get all documents ahead of time.

There is silence, which I interrupt by confirming our meeting outcomes and starting to drive through the agenda, eliciting feedback and getting agreement as we go.  I am going at the speed of thought, which is light-years faster than the speed of watching someone type.  With only 3 days before I am to deliver this material, I do not have time for the speed of typing.

The second law of screen-sharing is this:  Move at the speed of agreement, not the speed of typing.

That’s when Jimbo says to his assistant: “Maybe you should take notes and correct the slides later.”

Well, yes.

The third law of screen-sharing is:  Do not write in groups.   Ever. 

Group writing is not improved by technology.  It will always be a travesty to waste        expensive, high-leverage group time that way.   Instead, capture group feedback and assign someone to wordsmith the document later.

Back at the screen-sharing meeting, we accomplish our meeting outcomes and I close the meeting early.

The fourth rule of screen-sharing undergirds all the others:  Commit to meeting outcomes rather than meeting activities. 

When you’ve gotten the result you were after, stop.  Most meetings drag on because groups get bogged down in finishing an activity long after the flavor has gone out of the gum.   I’ve been in meetings where everyone was so focused on finishing the activity, they didn’t notice they’d already achieved their outcome!  Define the end point and drive to it.

Have a different experience of screen-sharing?  Tell me about it in the comments.

Think doing great work isn’t enough?  You’re right.

 Word Count: 695

Reading time:  1.5 minutes

When chemists at Proctor and Gamble created Febreze, they were thrilled.  Their invention eliminated even the most noxious odors which they’d proved by testing it on a Park Service Ranger.  Before Febreze, the ranger’s skin, clothes and car all reeked of skunk and her entire social life had to be conducted over the phone.  After Febreze, her friends came over in droves.  To the Ranger, Febreze was a miracle. Febreze was expected to be a runaway success.  But Febreze did not sell.

Focus groups confirmed that the product worked perfectly:  Before Febreze, maximum stinkiness; after Febreze, nothing.  Everyone agreed it worked as advertised.

And that was the problem.  One participant said, “After I’ve done all that work to clean the house, I want to know that I’ve done something.  I want the house to smell clean.”

It wasn’t enough to have a clean house. It wasn’t enough to make the stale, bad smells go away.  It never is.

It’s never enough to complete the task, even when you knock it out of the park.

It’s not really finished until it’s celebrated, acknowledged, noticed.  And that means noticing people and what they contributed.

The scientists went back to the lab and added scent to Febreze, and the product sold briskly.  The scent didn’t make the product work any better.  The scent let people know that they’d made a difference.

How important is acknowledgement?

In Mexican culture, there are 3 levels of death:   When your body quits is the first death.  When your body is buried or cremated is the second death.  The third death is when people stop remembering and telling stories about you.

Death isn’t final until your contribution goes unacknowledged.

In meetings, at work, all day, long we kill people’s spirits by refusing to offer simple, gracious acknowledgement of what they contribute.  We injure our own natural kindness by not looking for those stories to tell, by being driven by the clock, the calendar, by urgency that is nothing more than an invention, by the terror that comes with trying and failing and trying again.

Let’s stop that.

In Mexican culture, they set aside a day a year to remember the dead and tell their stories.  All I’m asking of you is 3-5 minutes at the end of every meeting.

What this isn’t

This is not 3-5 minutes of “Kum-ba-yah.”  It’s not a speed bump on the road to accomplishing a task.  And it is most certainly not a way to make a public, uneasy peace with people who are not performing in their jobs, nor is it a consensus activity where we all agree.  It’s an acknowledgement activity disguised as a list.

How the “Plus-Delta” evaluation works

1. Make two lists on a flipchart or whiteboard.  On the first list write what worked well about the meeting or interaction.  This is the “plus” list.  Ask the group for suggestions before adding your own.  List fast using partial sentences or single words, clarify only, don’t argue and let the accomplishments register in your body.

2. The “Delta” list  is a list of what your group wants to change for next time. (A delta is the mathematical symbol for change) Asking for changes rather than complaints (or “minuses”) is how you get away from listening to people complain about something in the past that you can’t change, which is as exhausting as it is pointless.  You want to know what to change so you can all change it, not get saddled with someone’s orphaned discontent.

3.  Review each list, then promise to make the changes you can and acknowledge those you can’t.  Bring the list to the next meeting and review it when you open the meeting.

In my experience, when people can see how they’ve contributed, many icky behaviors simply disappear. It’s not necessary to gamify the workplace, to up the stakes continually, to bribe people to bring their best to a task.

We all want to be part of a story that never ends.  Acknowledgement does that.