304: How to Make Meetings More Effective with Mamie Kanfer Stewart

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:01]:

How many meetings did you have last week and how many meetings do you have next week? How much of your time are they taking? And could they have been an email instead, or are they an effective use of your time? This is the Happier at Work podcast. I’m your host, Aoife o’, Brien, and my guest today is Mamie Kanfer Stewart, and she talks all things meetings and how to run effective meetings. She has a fantastic book called Momentum with practical strategies on how to run more effective meetings and. And I think we could all use with something like that. If you enjoy today’s episode, don’t forget to leave a comment or a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform. And do get involved in the conversation, whether it’s on LinkedIn or send me an email directly to podcastappieratwork, ie. Mamie, you’re so welcome to the Happier at Work podcast. Having read your book Momentum, I’m so excited to dive into this topic of meetings and how to have more effective meetings.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:01]:

And I know you’re going to have so many insights to share with us on that. Do you want to let me know, like, how did you get interested in this stuff and what kind of brought you to talking about meetings?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:01:12]:

Well, it is a pleasure to be with you, Aoife. Thank you so much for having me. And I love talking about meetings. So glad that’s what we’re diving into today. So my story is a little bit of an unusual one. I grew up in a family business, and that’s where I got my first exposure to meetings. And meetings there were so awesome. You would show up, everyone was prepared.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:01:35]:

We’d have these rich discussions. People would almost like heated debate sometimes, and everyone would come together and we would have clarity about what was happening, what decision was made, what the next steps were, and everyone would walk out so energized and ready to do the work. And I remember seeing one of the stories is when a kind of newcomer would come to the company, usually from a bigger company or somewhere kind of outside in the world, and they’d show up and they’d be like, oh my gosh, is that person get fired? They just disagreed with the CEO and someone else would say like, no, why would they get fired for disagreeing with the CEO? Like, everyone has the opportunity to disagree. I mean, you get fired if you don’t speak up. Like, that was the culture and it made meetings such a fun part of the way that work got done. And then I went out, when I say into the real world and discovered that that was not how meetings happen.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:29]:

Definitely not how meetings are done. Yeah.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:02:31]:

Oh, my gosh. I sat through some really awful meetings in my new job and I just could not believe. I was like, is this what most people experience with meetings? Or is what happened in my family business what most people experience? And so then I just started researching and I would ask everyone I could. If I met you at a networking event, if I met you at a social event, my friends, I mean, I would just say, tell me about your meetings. And inevitably, every single person would have a story about a terrible meeting that they were in either that day or that week. Oh, my gosh. I had to sit through this and people were talking over each other and there was no purpose. And we left and was like, why? Why did we just have that meeting? Could have been an email and all, all the things that you all know.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:03:20]:

And I thought, well, that’s kind of crappy. Like, work doesn’t need to be like that. So I set out on a mission to help organizations and help managers make meetings a place where great work gets done, where relationships get built, where people feel their voice is valued, and you can move work forward and not let meetings be this necessary evil that so many people think that they are.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:45]:

Yeah, and I think they do. You know, they get a bad rap, but I think maybe because most of the time they’re not being done very well, which I think is why we’re here today to talk about, well, how do we actually do things? Well, what are some of the examples that people have shared with you or that you’ve experienced yourself of kind of a crappy meeting?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:04:07]:

Well, the first is the universal. That could have been an email.

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:11]:

Oh, yeah.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:04:12]:

Way too many meetings are one way communication, one way, one way information sharing. And there are some circumstances where, yes, that information needs to be shared in a meeting, but the vast majority of time, information sharing is not a good reason to have a meeting. It’s actually one of the reasons we say in our book, don’t have a meeting. If the whole purpose is information sharing, unless it is highly sensitive information. And so you don’t want to put it in writing. It’s a sensitive subject. And so you want to show the person the respect of speaking with them in person to convey that information if it’s complex or complicated or nuanced, where you need to both have the opportunity to explain the details and putting it in writing just may not be able to articulate it as clearly, or you need to be checking for understanding as you’re going and making sure that this person really does understand the situation and you don’t get, get that opportunity for that check in if you’re sending it over the transom through an email or even a voice message. So those are the moments when it’s good to have an information sharing meeting, but the vast majority of time, put it in a memo, put an email, record a voice message, make a video, send it over.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:05:27]:

Do not waste people’s time in a meeting sharing information. So that’s the number one.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:31]:

I love the idea that there’s so many different alternatives. Like it doesn’t have to be an email, but it actually could be a voice memo or a video that you create or something to share information with people. One of the other things that I really liked in your book, and I have touched on this idea before on the podcast, is the perception of importance. Like, I’m invited to so many meetings, that means I am really important. And you know, when you’re at a more junior level, maybe you’re thinking, I wish I was invited to more meetings. And then you get to those meetings and you think you’re important. And then one of my previous podcast guest, Lisa Bodell, talked about doing anything legal or illegal to get out of going to meetings. You reach a certain level and you’re like, I don’t want to be part of any meetings anymore.

Aoife O’Brien [00:06:22]:

Can you talk to me a little bit about that? And, and how you’ve kind of like have. Is. Has that been your experience? Is that what people feel about meetings?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:06:30]:

Absolutely. That’s another one of those things of why am I in this meeting? Maybe this meeting is a meeting that should happen, but I don’t need to be in it. And so why am I here? It’s a waste of my time. So in those circumstances, yes, there is this need to be in meetings when that’s the only way to know what’s going on. We call it meeting fomo. Right? If you’re not in the meeting, you don’t know what the decisions are that’s being made. You don’t know what the next steps are. Maybe that’s the only opportunity you have to weigh in.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:07:01]:

So if even if 90% of the content is unrelated to you, there might be a little bit on the agenda that is. And so if you’re not in that meeting, you have no way of contributing to that little section. And so there’s a lot of reasons why people feel like they need to be in meetings. That has actually very little to do with the full scope of the meeting. And this is where it gets into the importance of meeting practices that allow people opportunities to contribute and be informed without having to be in the meeting. And so we call it the meeting cycle. And I’m happy to dive into that, but. But it creates opportunities for people to participate without actually being present during that meeting time.

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:43]:

Yeah, no, I’d love to, because I’m sure people can learn from this. Like, if you have that sense of FOMO that I feel like I have to be here to hear that little thing that might impact on me or the little bit of input that maybe is required in a tiny fraction of what the entire meeting agenda is about. But actually there’s a. There’s an alternative way of doing that. So tell us more.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:08:06]:

Yeah, so it starts with a meeting leader really understanding the cycle of meetings. So there’s a before phase, a during phase, and an after. So the before is the planning or the preparation. And this is where, as a meeting leader, you’re trying to figure out, what are we trying to accomplish in this meeting, what are we going to do and who needs to be there, as well as what should people do to prepare and making sure you have all of your materials prepared and all those kinds of things. But when it comes to the people, you have the choice now to say who needs to be in the conversation real time to achieve whatever our outcome is that we’re trying to achieve in this conversation, which means you have to know what is your desired outcome, what is the goal of this meeting? And the goal is never a discussion, it is never a review, it is never a check in. Those are not goals. Those are wonderful activities. The goal is a specific outcome that you are trying to accomplish that will move the work forward.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:09:01]:

It could be a decision, it could be a plan, it could be enriching a draft so that it’s ready to share with the client or move up the ladder for approval. But it has to be a tangible outcome. Then you can figure out who needs to be in the meeting to make that outcome happen and who might need to give input before the meeting in order for the meeting to be effective. So this is where if there’s only a little piece of the agenda, you’re like, you know what? It’d be great if someone from finance came to this meeting because we’re going to review the budget for the project. But that person from finance does not need to be in the entire meeting where you’re laying out the work plan and you’re talking through marketing strategies and all those other things. What you really need is someone from finance to look at the budget ahead of time and say, yes, this seems doable given the resources available for your team. Or here are some things that you should be discussing in your upcoming meeting to make sure that we can match the resource availability with the strategies that you’re working through. And so in that case, you don’t need someone from finance to be in the whole meeting.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:10:06]:

What you need is to engage them before the meeting to get specific information from them or have them review something or make a recommendation for something, or give you questions to consider so that you can circle back to them after the meeting. And that takes us to the after the meeting, people who just needs to be informed, who needs to know what’s going on, who needs to know the next steps, what decisions were made because their work is going to be impacted by that. Those people also don’t need to be in the meeting. They have other things to do with their time that are probably a higher priority than sitting through an hour long meeting and listening to a discussion. So for those folks, you need to make sure that you have your notes, which we can talk about, how to take good notes that you can then follow up and share with them after the meeting so that they can still be informed and they can adjust their work and their plans based on what the outcomes of the meetings are. So once you think about it as I have three opportunities to engage people, only one of those means inviting them to the meeting. I can now be more thoughtful as a meeting leader about how I’m engaging people. And the same is true if you’re invited to the meeting.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:11:10]:

If you’re invited to a meeting and you’re like looking at the agenda, well, first off, there’s no agenda or at least no desired outcome of what you’re trying to achieve. Yeah, you have to ask. You have to ask. Ask the meeting leader. Hey, saw this come through on the calendar. Invite, just wondering, what are you trying to achieve in this meeting? Or what do you expect me to bring to this meeting? I want to make sure I’m prepared, so just ask. But then you have the opportunity to say, hey, I could just, you know, share some thoughts ahead of time or I’d be happy to take on any next steps. Can you just keep me informed after the meeting? So there are ways that we can do that for ourselves if we’re willing to, you know, step out of our comfort zone a little bit.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:11:48]:

And always helps to say, I have some other priorities that I need to spend my time on. I’m not able to join in this meeting, are there other ways I can contribute so we can talk more about some of those strategies too, if you want?

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:00]:

Yeah. I mean, there’s so many different avenues that we could explore. I’d love to come back to this idea of notes in a second, if you don’t mind. But one of the things, the other things that I took from your book was this idea that we’ve never really been taught how to have a proper meeting. And I think if I. If I think of my own experience, I probably didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I was holding these meetings that weren’t really that effective. And I think you, you had a solid example in the book as well, of, like, why do you have this meeting? Oh, well, my predecessor had this meeting, so I’m just continuing doing it the same way that it’s always been done.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:38]:

And we kind of inherit in inherit these things without really questioning how valuable they are to our time. And we just assume that we have to keep doing them. So I think maybe it’s having the attitude of questioning, well, what do we actually have? What’s taking our time and what value is it, Is it adding?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:12:57]:

Absolutely. There are way too many meetings that exist simply because they’re recurring meetings. And no one’s ever stopped to say, do we still need this meeting? And if yes, is it designed in the way that’s actually helpful to us, or do we need to shift the design of the meeting to be more effective? So those are huge problems. The other things I noticed when I was first asking people about their bad meetings, it was fascinating that no one ever said, oh my gosh, I led the worst meeting. It’s always someone else’s meeting that is so terrible, such a waste of time, so frustrating. And I think it gets to this place of, yeah, no one was taught how to meeting, how to lead meetings. I was never really taught how to lead meetings. We do it by kind of seeing what other people do, doing what we think is best, kind of learning by osmosis.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:13:52]:

But the problem is that as a meeting leader, this meeting might actually be totally effective for you. You might be getting exactly what you need out of it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s effective for your participants. We often know in our brain what we’re driving towards in a conversation, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else knows what we’re driving towards. And so they’re trying to figure out, how should I be contributing what’s important here? Did we accomplish Something or not, I’m not totally sure. But you as the meeting leader walk out feeling like, this was great. I got everybody’s ideas. I. I feel really good.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:14:30]:

I can keep going now and everyone else is going. We didn’t make a decision, so where do things stand? Those kinds of nuances are really important. And we tend to think that meetings are like building a doghouse. I got this metaphor from somebody else where, you know, if somebody asked you to go outside and build a doghouse and gave you a pile of wood and some nails, you could probably do it. If someone said, hey, will you build a nuclear reactor? You would say, no way. Like, no one’s going to try and do that without proper training, without really understanding the complexity of it. We think meetings are like the doghouse. Anyone can do it.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:15:08]:

You just kind of go for it. When really they’re more like a nuclear reactor because they are such an important part of how work gets done. Yeah, they are.

Aoife O’Brien [00:15:16]:

Well, we spend so much time in meetings, don’t we? And so much time complaining. That meeting, you know, that was a waste of time or that could have been an email or whatever it might be.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:15:28]:

Yes. And they are a critical part of your culture. We think about culture and how do we change culture? We think a lot about values and behaviors and how we show up every day. And I take a little bit of a different twist on this. And I say meetings are a place where your culture is most alive. And if you change your meeting, you will see ripple effects in your culture that happened outside of the room. So when people feel safe to speak up in a meeting, they’re going to feel much safer speaking up outside of that meeting to share something by email or raise an issue that they’re noticing outside in their work. If people feel like their voice matters in a meeting, they’re going to feel like their work matters in their day to day.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:16:14]:

If people feel like they have an opportunity to build relationships in the meetings, get to know their colleagues, they are going to feel like they have those relationships outside of work too. Right. It all builds up. And so instead of trying to change culture in these big dramatic ways, if you start with your meetings, you see those ripple effects. So they are just such an important part, those meetings are such an important part not only of how work gets done, but of your employees experience of your team’s experience of you and your and their workplace.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:45]:

Yeah, I’d, I’d love to kind of take a step back on this. And so a client of mine has a culture where everything is a meeting and it’s kind of hard to get out of those meetings. How would you go about that? Like how. Where’s the first place to start? Where we’ve created this culture as an organization, large organization, we’ve created this culture of having meetings all the time. And you’re kind of expected to go to those meetings as well.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:17:14]:

Yeah. Okay, I want to answer this in a couple different, different ways. So the first is as an individual, right? You need to be asking good questions of your meeting leaders to help facilitate their thinking so that they might start to change some of their meeting behaviors. So asking what are you hoping to achieve in this meeting? And then they’re going to share back with you. Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish. Even that little shift for you gives you opportunity now to say, oh great, thank you for sharing. I’m happy to show up and contribute. Or that makes so much sense.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:17:48]:

I’m not sure I’m the right person to attend this meeting. Might I recommend a colleague or that sounds like a great outcome. I’m not able to attend because I have these three other things I need to work on. Can I give you some information ahead of time or I’m happy to do a five minute follow up with you after to make sure that I understand the decisions and can implement. So it gives you an opportunity to shift how you engage if you know what the meeting is driving towards. And for that meeting leader, they now may make different choices because they’ve had to articulate what the meeting goal is, whereas before it might have been a little bit of a mushy thing in their head and they might just recognize suddenly, oh, maybe I don’t need all these people in this meeting if this is what we’re trying to accomplish. So you can help shift them that way. The second thing is thinking about meetings as one of your tools and your communication toolbox so we can be over reliant on emails.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:18:38]:

I do not believe that meetings should completely disappear from an organization. I think that’s a swing too far in the wrong direction. Meetings are just part of your toolbox. So when you articulate this is what meetings are for, this is what Slack or our messaging app is for, this is what email is for. We can start to use different approaches for communication that are a better fit in mode for our need. So if you’re sending information again, that’s something that can be sent in a memo or in a voice message. Those are modes that are better suited to information sharing. If you are making a complex Decision and need a lot of buy in.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:19:22]:

Doing that by email is a disaster. That’s when a meeting is a good use of time. But until we understand the variety of tools that we have at our disposal and have agreements for how we’re using them, it’s really hard to shift out of something that’s become habitual. So if meetings are happening too often, that’s a moment to step back and say, hey, what are meetings really best for? And what are some of the other ways we could communicate that are better suited to some of those other needs?

Aoife O’Brien [00:19:52]:

Yeah, I love that. And I know in the book you talk about things like norms and like having these shared behaviors, and how can we build some of that into even challenging whether or not we have meetings?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:20:07]:

Yeah, I love norms so much because anytime you can take something that’s implicit and make it explicit, it just creates a level playing field and gives permission to talk about things or point things out that maybe felt a little uncomfortable before. So, for example, if you notice that meetings are going off on tangents and down rabbit holes and people are, you know, pontificating, and you’re like, what does this have to do with what we’re trying to do in this meeting? And why did I just waste 10 minutes listening to somebody go on? Right. That’s really frustrating. And it can feel really hard or risky to speak up and interrupt somebody and say, hey, is this really relevant to our conversation right now? But if you have two things. One is your meeting goal so you know what your meeting is trying to accomplish, and two norms that are agreed upon by the group that say things like, if you notice we’re going off topic, we are all empowered to speak up and ask the question, is this relevant for today’s conversation? Then when you notice a side conversation has become the main conversation, you’re like, I’m not sure this is relevant. You get to say something like, sorry to interrupt. I’m just thinking about what we’re trying to accomplish today, and I’m listening to this conversation and I’m wondering if this conversation needs to happen right now and how it’s contributing to our goal that we’re trying to achieve. It gives you permission to say the thing that otherwise would feel risky because you’re both grounding it in the goal you’re trying to achieve, and you have a norm, so people are expecting you to speak up and it’s totally fine.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:21:52]:

Then, as the meeting leader or as someone else to say, actually, this is super relevant because. And now we’re going to explain why we actually need to stay on this tangent or no, thank you for getting us back on track. I’m going to make a note of this side conversation so that we can follow up either at the end of the meeting if we have time, or I can schedule a separate follow up for us to dive deeper into that. And so then you can move the conversation forward and stay on track. But it only works if you have those agreed upon norms. And those norms can be on all kinds of things, from speaking up around, going on tangents, or if you’re getting off agenda, it can be norms for asking tough questions and pushing back on ideas and saying we need rigorous thinking. And the only way we get to rigorous thinking is if people are willing to speak up to share concerns and watch outs to ask tough questions. It can also be around preparation.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:22:42]:

When we start meetings, we expect everyone to come prepared. That means you know what’s on the agenda, what we’re trying to achieve. It means you’ve read any materials or listened to any audio messages that were shared ahead of time. It means you have whatever information that you were supposed to bring into this conversation, you’ve gathered it so you’re ready to share. But we’re going to start meetings and we are not going to do presentations. We’re going to jump right in and we expect you to be prepared. So there are many, many different kinds of norms that you can create and co create with your team so that everyone has those shared expectations.

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:14]:

I love that you mentioned something there that I think is kind of critical and you, I think it’s one of the first chapters in the book, the desired outcome and actually having articulating that, like to me that seems like the very first place that we should start. If we’re looking as an individual, we’re looking at like what meetings have I had in this last week or a couple of weeks? What meetings do I have upcoming and what is the desired outcome? Am I the leader and do I need to create that? Or maybe as an individual I need to question and figure out what is it that we’re trying to achieve here? Do you want to kind of share some ways that we can find out what the desired outcome or come up with the desired outcome ourselves?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:23:53]:

Yeah, this is the number one thing. If you’re listening to this podcast and you forget everything I say and the only thing you remember is one thing, remember this. You need a desired outcome or a goal for your meetings. So the easiest way to do that is to use a fill in the blank sentence at the End of this meeting, we will have fill in the blank. We will have a decision, we will have a plan, we will have alignment, we will have shared understanding, we will have learned something. There’s a million different endings to that sentence. But if you know what you’re trying to achieve at the end of the meeting, that’s your desired outcome. And again, it’s never a verb.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:24:37]:

It’s never, at the end of this meeting, we will have had a discussion. It’s always a noun, a tangible outcome. So if you’re the meeting leader, just fill in the blank. If you are invited to a meeting and you’re trying to figure it out, there’s kind of two basic approaches I recommend. So the first is just to ask, hey, what are you trying to achieve at the end of this meeting? The other is to say, it’s my understanding that this meeting is meant to achieve. And then you fill in the blank of what you think it’s about and then let the meeting leader come back to you and say, yes, that’s exactly right. Or no, actually this meeting is about X. And if they say no, this meeting is about reviewing the feedback from the client.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:25:18]:

You can say, great, are we trying to review the feedback so that we have a new plan? So that we have things just do that back and forth, little bit of a dance to facilitate their thinking until they get to a place where you have a clear goal and it can be done by email or it can be done over a five minute conversation where you just say, hey, you know, can we find five minutes to talk about this upcoming meeting? I want to make sure I’m prepared, right. If you position as I want to show up and be ready to engage. Most meeting leaders will take a couple of minutes to chat with you and that’s where you can kind of ask them these questions to get that nuanced, clear definition of your goal. So you gotta ask.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:59]:

Yeah, I love that because I think if I think about the meetings I have now, if I think about the meetings I had when I was in corporate, did we ever have a really clear outcome that we were trying to achieve? Maybe one or two. It was explicitly shared at the start, but for the most part, you show up, you have an hour allotted, you don’t see an agenda in advance, you don’t have any prep work to do, it’s a presentation start at the start, that could have been send in an email prior. Like there’s all of these things I think that happen. I’d love to bring it back to kind of Some practical examples and I’m thinking based on something that you had said earlier, but like let’s say, you know, a performance review meeting or I think you used check in. Like say if you’re having a regular check in with your manager with your direct reports, and how can we structure those better so that they have a really clear outcome? And it’s not just I’m coming and I’m sharing what I’m working on, which seems like it could be just in a shared folder or in like, you know, a shared document or something like that. How do we get the most from those meetings that we typically have? Whether it is a check in a performance review meeting, something like that that we’re having, but mostly are kind of an update or kind of a waste of time.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:27:24]:

Yeah, yeah. So there’s kind of two categories of meetings in a very, very generalized sense. One are those kind of ongoing project work meetings where there’s a very specific thing that you’re trying to accomplish that’s related to the specific work that you’re doing. And those are almost like one offs in a way. Right. We need to review something in order to make a decision or finish this draft or whatever it be. And then there’s the kind of repeated meetings that we have on a recurring basis where it’s not a specific thing you’re trying to accomplish. Like you’re not looking at this performance review meeting and saying, okay, I know exactly what this outcome is in this particular performance review.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:28:09]:

It’s more like we have a standing goal. And so for those kinds of meetings, for example, with check ins, I coach my clients to say, why are you having this check in? What are you trying to accomplish here? Is it simply that you are informed of all the things that this person’s working on right now? If that’s true, maybe a meeting is the best way to do it because you actually need that relational time with them. This is the only time that you get one on one. And so you do want to have them give you an update over the phone or on a zoom or in person. Because it’s not just about hearing the information, it’s also about building the relationship. That nuance is important to understand and that’s why you’re going to say, okay, the general standing outcome of this meeting is that one, I as the boss know what’s going on and two, my team member and I have a stronger relationship now. I need to make sure that at every one of our check ins it is not just information sharing because if it’s just information sharing. I’m only hitting one goal.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:29:12]:

I also need to incorporate questions and time for that personal relationship building. That is a great outcome. And then the content’s going to change every time, which is fine. But you know that you always need to be touching on both of those goals. Same thing for performance review. The goal might be to give feedback. It might be to have this person be continually growing and developing. It might be that you want to always have a goal part of it, that is you get feedback as the manager so that you can keep getting better as a support system to them.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:29:46]:

So if you know all of those pieces, again, you can design your agenda to hit all of those goals, even if the content is continuously changing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:54]:

I love that and I love the nuance of. It’s not just about the information. It’s actually deeper than that. And I think just having that in mind, like you say, when you’re preparing the agenda, when you’re thinking about what is it that we need to talk about. And again, you know, if I think back to my time and the lack of preparation I had for those meetings, whether I was going in for a meeting with my manager or with my direct reports didn’t really give it a huge amount of thought. It was just like it’s in the diary, let’s go and kind of make it up as we go along. But I think just investing a little bit of time upfront to prepare for those to think about, to really explicitly share with the other person what you hope to achieve by having this regular meeting so that it doesn’t feel for them. Like I’m just telling them something that they could have read in our, in our software about what tasks I’m working on, you know, maybe understanding what specific challenges they’re happening, you know, what’s getting in the way of them being able to do the work, what their aspirations are in their career.

Aoife O’Brien [00:30:57]:

Like all of these things that we kind of forget to touch on.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:31:03]:

Absolutely. And it actually reminds me of a client that I had who instituted an office hours in her team. And she was very clear, this is not just an hour where I’m going to be on Zoom and come and say hi. It had a very specific goal, which was to answer questions. She did not want people slacking her all day long with little questions. So she said, unless it’s urgent, save your questions and bring them to the office hours. This is a time for answering questions. Number two, to remove roadblocks.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:31:31]:

So unless it’s urgent, if you need adjustment on resources or you need me to make a call to somebody in a different department and try to move something forward again. If it’s urgent, reach out. If it’s not urgent, bring it to the office hours and we’ll problem solve and tackle it there. So it had very clear purpose for this meeting. Even though every week different people were showing up, every week different people were bringing things. But it goes back to that. You got to know what you’re trying to accomplish because that’s what allows people to. Allows you to prepare and allows everyone else to prepare.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:03]:

I love that. And presumably that cut out a lot of the like slacks during the middle of the day or emails she was getting and frees up her time, her thinking all of that so much.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:32:16]:

I think she said she saves like three hours a week by replacing all of those slack and email messages and the five minute. Can I talk with you into a one hour office hours. The other thing that was interesting that happened is people started being able to solve their problems on their own, of course, much more effectively. Because if it was Monday and her office hours was on Thursday, sometimes people feel like, oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do, I need to ask this question. But then when they give themselves time to think about it by Wednesday, they’re like, oh, actually I do know what to do. I don’t have that question anymore. And they’ve figured it out and it’s just by giving them that little bit of space that allows them to come to their own conclusions.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:57]:

Yeah. And I suppose it’s not to like diminish people asking questions or it’s not to stop people from doing that, but I suppose it’s to think more effectively of how are we using our time and how are we using other people’s time when we encroach on them and say, have you got five minutes? That turns into maybe a half an hour discussion.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:33:16]:

Exactly, exactly.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:18]:

I had kind of a build on that idea of another kind of common meeting, if you want to call it that is the town hall, which tends to be kind of one way blast of information. Any thoughts on how to make them a little bit more effective?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:33:35]:

Yeah, town halls are really interesting because there are very few times when organizations get all of their employees together, whether it’s in person or virtually. So I think there is a role for this type of meeting when you want everyone to hear the same information from the same person at the same time. So I think there’s good reasons to have them. I think there are opportunities to make them more fun, more Engaging. Right. Again, if it’s just one way information sharing that could have been read in a dashboard, I do sometimes wonder, should you just send out a dashboard? But if you’re going to have a town hall, right. Making it interactive, giving people an opportunity to ask questions, sharing stories. Right.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:34:17]:

Hearing from senior leadership about big wins or successes or acknowledgments and celebrations. Right. That everyone in the group can feel good about. Sometimes those kinds of things are just more fun when you’re hearing them with your colleagues. Right. When you’re hearing them from a senior leader who is acknowledging a team’s work. Right. Feels different than getting an email where it says, congratulations to X team who just launched this thing.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:34:42]:

Right. It’s not the same as seeing the boss. Right. The big person say, we want to acknowledge this person and bring all that energy to this.

Aoife O’Brien [00:34:50]:

Yeah.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:34:51]:

So it’s just again, about what are you trying to accomplish by having this town hall and how do we make it something that people want to show up to, feel like their time was valued and walk away feeling more energized and more engaged and more ready to do their work and, and keep on going.

Aoife O’Brien [00:35:09]:

One of the things that we touched on earlier that we said we come back to is this idea of like the post meeting and the notes, the note taking. And I would have to say in any meetings I’ve been in, it’s been the dreaded, like I don’t want to be the note taker or I’m not very good at it, or it’s the admin task. And I suppose for me, I’d love to know, is there a specific structure we should be using? But also in the day and age of AI, are there tools that we can use to facilitate that? Like, I know online, it makes it a bit easier. You can have a transcription, you can have AI on Zoom meetings in particular, I’m familiar with that. It will just summarize, here’s who’s doing what and here’s what was discussed. But in person. I know you can do those kinds of things as well, but any, any thoughts on how, how best to use that? So we don’t just have a meeting, we have a great discussion. We, we assign some tasks and then it just kind of nothing ever happens afterwards.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:36:06]:

Yeah. Okay. So I’m going to start with the old fashioned approach, which is I always hated this idea of a rotating note taker or that one person’s the designated note taker. Unless you’re in a huge organization and it’s someone’s job Literally to take notes. There’s a much better way to do it, which is having a norm, right, Being really explicit that everyone should be tracking different tidbits and ideas and action items and decisions in their own personal notes throughout the meeting. And then at the end of the meeting, we spend five minutes collectively constructing our notes. So if someone could be the meeting leader, could be someone else who’s volunteering to type them in real time. And we just ask a couple of key questions.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:36:49]:

What are our next steps? Who is doing what by when? And everyone has the opportunity to weigh in and say, well, I wrote down that I’m supposed to follow up with, you know, someone over in marketing to get the latest draft of such and such. So that goes into the notes. Now everyone has a chance to. To raise up next steps. And it’s a chance to also say, well, who’s going to do that? Or actually, we don’t really need to do that, given where we landed. So we don’t have to. We can take that off the list. It stops people from having tasks that they shouldn’t have.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:37:20]:

And it also stops the grand. Well, you know, we really should ask Mamie her opinion on this. Like, who’s the we that’s going to go off and do that task? Completely goes away when you build those notes together. So tasks, second thing are decisions. Recap the decision, write it out, and make sure that we’ve accurately captured the decision. And I really like it when teams also write, why. Why was this decision made? What’s the specific reason, the factors, the criteria that this decision method that the other options didn’t. And it makes it so much easier for people who are not in the meeting to understand not just the decision, but giving them the context so that they can apply that decision in their work.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:38:03]:

It also helps for memory when you go back, because I cannot tell you how many teams I’ve worked with where they make a decision, and then three weeks later, they’re revisiting that decision and they’re rehashing it. And it just feels like decisions can never get made. And when they started tracking why we’re making this decision, what were the factors that contributed to say this is the right decision? Then when they get new information in or something happens, they go back and they say, does this information fundamentally change our reason for making this decision? If the answer is no, the decision stands. If the answer is yes, okay, then we do need to revisit this decision. But it shut down the need to rehash decisions every single time they got New information or new feedback or somebody said I disagree with that decision. It just simplifies everything. So that’s second piece. So tasks, decisions and then the last part are highlights or key takeaways.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:38:57]:

These are the big ideas, the important dates or numbers or information that if you weren’t in the meeting it would be helpful for you to have or if you were going to look back a couple weeks later and try to remember what was talked about it. It’s the big things that we captured so we can remember what this meeting was really about. We do not need word for word transcripts. We do not even need multi page notes on transcripts of all the things that we talked about and who said what. We just need the big ideas. So if you’re doing it old fashioned, that’s my suggestion. Spend five minutes as a wrap up, put it on your agenda so the last five minutes get reserved and go through what are our next steps, what were our decisions and what are the big ideas and takeaways that we need people to know. If you’re using AI, which I think everyone should be using at this point, it can simplify that process significantly by taking your transcript.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:39:51]:

Whether you’ve recorded the meeting and you can export your transcript into something else or many tools now will automatically generate summaries and notes. That’s a great starting place. Do not take it at face value. You have got to go through and review them and tidy them up. Now I’ve seen a lot of folks put that on their to do list and then not actually ever go review those notes and then never send them out to anyone because it does take more time. So I think it’s actually a little bit of a dance between do we spend five minutes at the end doing this ourselves in real time and then I can immediately hit send on that email and everyone who needs to be informed is informed. Or do I take the AI generated and I spend a couple minutes after the meeting and clean them up, make sure that you know, 40 and 4 came across or 80 and 18 making sure that all the tasks that capture we actually want to do. I actually think that’s less helpful in some ways it’s more time consuming and you end up with a lot more notes you have to go through and you don’t get the group’s buy in for this is what we actually are going to do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:00]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:41:01]:

So my preferred method is the hybrid which is spend five minutes at the end of the meeting, do your wrap up, capture that and then take the AI summary and Attach it, because there is going to be a lot more detail in the AI summary.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:15]:

Ah, yeah, okay.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:41:16]:

And you might want to reference it at some point. It can be helpful for someone who missed the meeting to be able to go back and skim the longer notes. So if you do a both, and it really doesn’t take you any more time to export and upload those AI notes, you don’t have to waste your time cleaning them up, but you do have the most important information captured that you know, the whole group from the meeting agreed to and that’s really what’s going to move the work forward.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:42]:

I love that. I think it’s just, it’s so practical, I think, isn’t it? And being able to use those kinds of tools. Building on that. Do you have a recommended way of how notes are distributed or shared so that people can access them, you know, months and years later?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:41:58]:

Yeah, it’s really whatever works for your team. Meaning if you’re an email heavy team, having a naming convention is great. Meeting notes, X date, meeting topic. Right. And then send them to everyone who is in the meeting and send them to everyone who needs to be informed after the meeting. If that is the way that your company functions, then that can be the way that meeting notes get stored because everyone can search their inboxes. If you have a strong file structure, then keeping meeting notes in a single folder for that project, for that team, for that person, that’s a great way to store them. And again send them out by email.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:42:37]:

Share the link to the online document, make sure that people have access to it. If you have a calendar heavy organization, you can attach meeting notes to calendars to calendar events. So a lot of teams really like doing that because then they can just go back, click on the calendar invite and see the meeting notes right there. So it really depends on how your team functions as to what the best way is to store them. The one little addition I’ll add on this is if you use a project management tool or a task management tool for yourself or with your team, you have to get those tasks out of the notes and into your work management system. You cannot rely on having tasks multiple systems where tasks for meetings live in the notes and die in notes.

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:23]:

Yeah, I get you. Yeah, yeah. So tasks that need to be completed, they need to be exported somehow into your project management system. Your task management system.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:43:33]:

Exactly. So make sure they get in there whether you’re manually transferring them. Some of the new task management project management systems have meetings built into them and have meeting notes built in where you can take the notes and tag people if you’re using something like notion, and it can do that. Whatever your way you’re working, just make sure that your meetings, any tasks that come out of meetings don’t die there. They need to become part of your regular workflow process.

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:59]:

That was going to be another one of my questions was like, what if people are not doing the tasks that come out of meetings? And. And I think one of the big things is if we’re spending so much time in meetings and all we get out of the meetings is more work to do that we don’t have time to do because we spend all of our time in meetings. But I think if we can implement some of what you’re talking about today and have better meeting hygiene. So I love how you said you sent the notes to people who weren’t in attendance because they need to be informed and not actually attend the meeting, but they just need to know what’s going on. I think that in itself is like, wow, what a novel concept. Because normally I’d be attending this meeting, I’d be taking 45 minutes, an hour, two hours, whatever it might be, when actually now I have that time back, I can read through the notes, the AI detailed notes, if I prefer more detail, but I don’t actually need to be there.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:44:54]:

Exactly. And you might find that it’s super uncomfortable to not invite people to your meeting. And so you need to keep inviting them in the beginning, but tell them they’re optional. Tell them I’m going to send meeting notes within 24 hours after this meeting to keep you informed and then do it. Whether they come to the meeting or not, do it. Prove to them that they don’t need to be in the meeting and that you’re gonna send the notes. And over time, as you’re making people optional, they will start to opt out themselves. And then eventually you can have that conversation and say, hey, do you need to be here? Or you can have that conversation now.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:45:29]:

Hey, I’m rethinking our meetings. I’m wondering if you really think it’s important to keep coming to this meeting. I want you to be informed. I’ll send you notes. And if you wanna be in this meeting, of course I want you there. But do you really feel like this is the best use of your time or how can we make this meeting a better of your time? Have those conversations and people will start to opt out.

Aoife O’Brien [00:45:48]:

Yeah.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:45:48]:

And that makes a huge difference in their productivity.

Aoife O’Brien [00:45:51]:

Yeah. I think there’s a couple of mindset shifts with this, isn’t it? It’s like, it’s okay to not be invited to a meeting. It doesn’t mean that you’re any less important. In fact, maybe it means that you’re more important, that you don’t need to be in this meeting anymore. You’re too senior to be here, whatever it might be. So there’s that mindset shift of it’s okay for me not to be invited, but also it’s okay for me to say no or to question or to decline going to those meetings. I know there was something that we haven’t touched on yet, but this idea of if I have more free time because I’m going to fewer meetings, what will I do with all of that time? And who am I anymore if I’m not attending these meetings?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:46:37]:

Yeah, it’s a funny thing that I heard from managers with this idea that the manager’s job is to go to meetings, that that’s how we spend 30 hours of our week, sometimes between inbox and meetings. That is your entire day as a manager. And so if you’re suddenly not in meetings or you’re redesigning them so that you have fewer meetings, what else are you supposed to do? Now the reality is that we also all have these extended to do lists that are crazy long. And so I think some of this phenomenon has shifted a bit since I wrote my book. And more and more people are feeling like I have so much work to do that getting out of a meeting, there’s no question what I’d work on. But if you are struggling with that, like, well, what do I have to do? One of the best things you can do is invest in your team. And your team will be generally excited if what you’re doing with some of your extra time is supporting them. So finding out, what can I take off your plate because you’re burning out? What can I do to better support you? You know, is it having that office hours? Is it adding in a check in with each person to help them prioritize each week? Or is it something else? Professional development for yourself and continuing to grow your own skills.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:47:55]:

There are great things that you can do to fill some of your time. You can also go to your boss and say, hey, I have a couple of extra hours a week. I have freed up some of my capacity. What new responsibilities can I take on? What can I take off your plate? So there’s many ways we can fill our time if that’s what we need to do. But I’m looking Forward to the day where I get. I can need more to do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:48:16]:

This is it. And I think for me, there’s again, a big mindset shift here to not focus on the busy work and the to do list. But, like, what impact, going back to your desired outcome, what impact is it that I’m trying to have with the work that I’m doing? And maybe a topic for an entirely different conversation on the podcast, but looking at the tasks that you have and deciding, is that bringing me towards the impact that I want to have and the outcome I want to achieve, or is it just busy work? And it’s there because it’s always been there and that’s what my, you know, my colleagues have done, or that’s what my boss told me to do, whatever it might be, be. And just questioning that.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:48:57]:

Yeah, absolutely. And even with AI now, it’s making some of our tasks so much faster. It’s automating things that we could never do before. So our capacity is going up in terms of our time that we have to allocate. So the more that you know what you’re trying to accomplish, just like in a meeting, you got to know what you’re trying to accomplish. If you know what you’re trying to accomplish in your work, you can then make choices about what you work on and how you spend your time.

Aoife O’Brien [00:49:21]:

Yeah, this is it. This has been such an interesting conversation, Mamie. I really, really appreciate it. And the question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what does being happier at work mean to you?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:49:32]:

So I feel like a little silly about saying this, because the first thing that came to my mind is the tagline for my podcast, which is helping managers be their best selves and do their best work, and creating an environment where their team members get to be their best selves and do their best work. And so I think when work is a place where you get to be your best self, you get to show up with your full energy, your talents, you feel valued and seen, and have opportunity to grow and learn. And when you get to do your best work, you get to make a meaningful contribution. You get to feel satisfied by the value that you’re contributing. That, to me, is the best kind of place to work and makes you happier at work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:50:12]:

Love that. And it’s not corny. I think it’s really a really nice thing to aspire to. So thank you. And if people want to reach out, if they want to connect with you, if they want to find out more about what it is you do, what’s the best way they can do that.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:50:26]:

Well you can find my podcast the Modern Manager where I had the gift of having you on my show as well so people can listen to that episode. So the Modern Manager wherever you listen to podcasts you can also find me on Instagram Leadership with Mamie. You can find me on LinkedIn Mamie Stewart Stewart and my website Mamie KS and my name Mamie is M a

Aoife O’Brien [00:50:48]:

M I E. Brilliant. Thank you so much. I really really enjoy this conversation and I know that listeners are going to take so many practical things away from it. So appreciate your time today. Thank you.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart [00:51:00]:

Thank you.

Aoife O’Brien [00:51:01]:

That was Mamie Kanfer Stewart talking all things Effective meetings and I hope you found that episode as practical and useful as I did. Don’t forget to get involved in the conversation. You can email me directly on podcast@happieratwork ie. I’m most active over on LinkedIn if you want to connect with me there.