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If you’re over 40 you have probably been in about 10,000 meetings by now - and according to Malcolm Gladwell - you should be an expert in them by now! But sadly we are not. 

According to Dr. Carrie Goucher, studies have shown that meetings have not improved in the last 50 years, despite everyone being aware of basic techniques of how to run an effective meeting.

In this episode, we are talking about the root of meetings and how we can be an effective leader and participant in meetings that will make tangible progress, strengthen relationships, and achieve important strategic milestones. 

[00:00] Introduction: The Role of Meetings in Organizations

[01:11] The Root of Meeting Frustrations

[02:11] Understanding Tribal Behavior in Meetings

[03:26] Practical Tips for Leading Effective Meetings

[06:05] Participant Strategies for Productive Meetings

[08:11] Success Stories and Results

[10:13] Additional Resources

Constant interruptions.

Overtalking.

Undertalking.

Ego stroking.

Passive aggression.

Defensiveness.

Disengage.

Slumping.

Ego plays.

Status gains.

You thought you were in your regular Monday morning meeting,

but oh no, according to Dr.

Carrie Goucher, you were actually in a pop up tribal gathering.

Carrie helps companies stop getting bogged down by the dysfunctional

behavior that plagues so many meetings.

I became such a fangirl of her research and her methods that I unashamedly hunted

her down until she agreed to join me on this episode of the Joy at Work podcast.

It's my opinion that every company I've ever consulted with or worked

within needs to know Carrie.

She shares fresh ways to both think about meetings and do meetings so that we can

get to the heart of what matters sooner and still have time left to focus on doing

the work that's going to shift the needle.

Let's dive in.

Carrie, almost every single professional I interact with at the moment are

absolutely frustrated to the core by how much precious life time they are

spending, not, and wasting in meetings.

What on earth is going on there?

Dr. Carrie Goucher: If you're 40, you have probably been to about 10, 000

meetings by now, and surely after doing something 10, 000 times, or even 1, 000

times, we should be really good at it.

And anyway, everyone knows how to run a good meeting, so start and

finish on time, use an agenda, circulate actions, and meetings are

really not that hard to nail, right?

Wrong.

So studies actually show that meetings have not improved in the last 50 years,

despite almost everyone at work being fully aware of these basic techniques.

And the story doesn't start.

I know the story doesn't start 50 years ago in the seventies, when we started

measuring them, it starts 50,000 years ago when in the stone age when our

brains were shaped by the only source of security at the time, which was the tribe.

So today in office age, staying safe in the tribe is less about avoiding tigers

and being able to participate in resources and find mates, but it's more about

Keeping our jobs, keeping our identity and, maintaining and building our status.

And we are subtly thrashing out tribe status on the hour, every

hour, in every meeting we go to.

And that's why nice people end up in meetings being defensive, interrupting,

talking a lot, or more subtly, getting too many people to every meeting so that

everyone's had a chance to be included and to agree, not leaving anybody out.

or maybe staying silent when really it's important to speak up.

wow.

Oh my God, this is crazy good.

So I've got about a billion questions, but we're limited on time.

So I'm going to ask you to bring that into a more practical.

So let's say I am leading a meeting.

Yeah.

And I really want that meeting to be.

A good investment of everyone in the room's life moments.

Where do I start?

What do I do?

What don't I do?

Dr. Carrie Goucher: So how can we make good use of those heartbeats?

And that is to understand this Stone Age tribal behavior that

we're all doing and to diffuse it and handle it and channel it.

The way we defuse office age tribal behavior is through

really good scaffolding.

So you're making a pop up team for the duration of the meeting.

And that is a lot of egos, agendas, concerns swirling around.

So scaffold them.

If you let them run around and swirl around, they will take over your meeting

in disruptive ways or silent ways.

And I'm not sure which one of those is worse.

So How do we scaffold them?

We can use the invitation and the way we open the meeting.

So two prime real estates to set up that social contract

and to make it crystal clear.

What job are we trying to do here today?

How do I want you to contribute?

Why are you here?

So for example, if you want people to speak honestly and to listen carefully

to others, you can say this, in the invitation, and you can say it at

the beginning of the meeting as well.

So you can directly set up the tone and the behaviors that you're

looking for, and also scope the exact piece of work you're doing.

You can explain to people the specific roles you'd like them to

play, to free up their talent and attention, or you can create an agenda

together at the start of the meeting.

So you can ask people on the fly what is it crucial that we talk

about today to achieve that job?

Write it down.

That's your agenda.

And you can use a bit more scaffolding within the session to

help people contribute effectively.

So for example, if you're wanting thoughts from everybody, but you

know that two people are going to dominate and everybody else is going

to be quiet, then use scaffolding to equalize people's contributions.

For example you might ask people to write something down in silence for one

minute and then to share it in the chat or to share it out loud in a round.

So by adding a bit of structure, not formality, but structure and

scaffolding, that's how we equalize voices and contain ego agenda concerns.

Wow.

I've never heard that idea before and I know it's only a simple idea,

but I can see that would balance the styles, personalities in the room.

Okay, so let's take it from a slightly different angle.

Let's say I'm not leading the meeting, but I'm participating in the meeting.

What can I do, practically, to ensure that meeting is, again, a good use of

the heartbeats in the room, without taking over control of the meeting?

Dr. Carrie Goucher: So taking over control of a meeting is a tribal behavior.

It's an assertion of control and it's an unhelpful way to

establish status and identity.

So instead, what we can do is ask good questions that probe the social contract.

So we can ask questions of the group, which encourage the group to

develop the missing social contract.

So you might ask, what's the best use of our time together today?

Or how would you like us to contribute?

So if the meeting leader throws a question out, and it's unclear what

they want, or you feel I think I ought to be contributing this, but

I don't feel quite safe to do that.

And then you could say, how would you love us to contribute today?

How do you want us to answer that question?

Or you could ask the group, how can we best hear from everyone today?

So get the group to, to start to self moderate or what kind of feedback

are we open to in this session?

So ask questions, which expose the social contract, and you

can also make suggestions.

So these are ways to encourage healthy group behavior without taking it over.

So would it help to go around and hear from everybody in turn?

Or would it help if we took a moment and wrote down our perspective in the chat?

Or would it help to spend 15 minutes discussing this?

Cause it feels like that's really important.

And then take a vote and see where people's heads are at.

So you can use questions and suggestions to probe the social

contract and encourage the group to co moderate without taking over.

Fabulous.

I wish I'd known you years ago, Carrie.

So my final question is, you've been working with companies for quite a

long time now in helping them improve the effectiveness of their meetings.

Can you share some of your favourite results?

Dr. Carrie Goucher: I'll give you two classic examples.

So there will always be the organizations who want to save time.

So there's somebody really senior who's looking around and saying, what are

all these people doing in meetings?

And it's my job to get them out of those meetings.

I worked with one.

large technology company who found that in the division we worked in, because

this kind of work happens in large pockets, not in whole organizations.

That's not where it starts.

It starts as a movement, not as a kind of comms project and they found they reduced

meeting time by about 30 percent simply by really using one of my key principles,

which is consult wide and meet small.

Yes, reducing time in meetings is a useful indicator, but

meetings are always about quality.

So baseline, get people out of wasted time and meetings, but really the value

comes from making progress, building stronger relationships and achieving those

crucial, important strategic milestones that the organization has set itself.

So I worked with UK parliament a while back, and one of the things they reported

to me was that what they developed with my work was a shared language.

So nothing more complicated than that, that allowed them to say no to

a meeting without ruffling feathers.

invite people to play specific, much more powerful roles than they previously did,

and to give their own thoughts in much more direct ways without offending people.

So to get to what matters at 5 past 11, not at 10 to 12, when

it's too late to discuss it.

And they explained that changed everything.

So not just the meeting, because a meeting is just a reflection of what

else is going on in the organization.

But it shifted relationships, it built trust between functions and

areas that had mistrusted each other and that created a container

in which great work could be done.

And now that is what I'm talking about.

Milestones, progress, relationships.

That is what the work of meetings is all about.

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my

Life Satisfaction Assessment.

It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas

of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down.

I call it D Railed.

It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.