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Susan 00:01
Be very clear about the purpose of the meeting in your own mind, and then make sure you’re sharing it with others. And then you really do, at the end of the meeting, you need to do a kind of a fact check. Did we achieve what our purpose was here today?

Susan 00:18
Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we help HR and business leaders embrace joy in the workplace. I’m Susan White, owner of Susan Tinder White Consulting, an HR consulting practice. Joining me is my co-host and dear friend, JoDee Curtis, owner of Purple Ink, a large-scale HR firm that I’m an executive collaborator with.

Susan 00:39
There was an article dated September 20, 2024 posted on HRdive.com entitled, “Managers may be responsible for over 260 meetings a year–and they are burned out.” They cited a Top Workplaces study that reports the average manager who leads a team of 10 people will have, assuming that they have individual meetings with each of those 10 people each week, they could end up having over 26 one-on-one meetings every year. And then – isn’t that just crazy?

JoDee 01:14
And that’s just that kind of meeting. Right?

Susan 01:16
Exactly. Right? There’s so many other types. There’s the cross functional meetings, group meetings, internal or external client meetings, new product meetings, operational meetings, many other kinds of meetings. So we think about that, on top of 260, let’s just double that, maybe over 500 meetings a year.

JoDee 01:34
Right, right.

Susan 01:36
No wonder we as managers sometimes feel like we’ve hit the wall on our energy and creativity on facilitating meetings. The last time we devoted a podcast to the topic of meetings was back in 2018. Seems like forever ago, doesn’t it, JoDee?

JoDee 01:52
Sure does.

Susan 01:53
Oh. That episode, in case you wanted to go back and take a listen, is called “Meeting Skills,” and it launched February 26, 2018. You can find it at getjoypowered.com. We think it’s time really to revisit the important communication forum that affects the lives of business leaders, HR professionals, and our team members. So we’ve researched the best ways to lead meetings, and we found one particular article that JoDee and I are going to talk about that we think it’s important to share, because it helps all of us, no matter how many meetings we facilitate a year, I think really deliver quality meetings. This article was in Digital Marketing Institute, and it was published on April 25, 2023. The title of it, and we’ll have this in our show notes, is “9 Tips for Effective Meetings.” It’s written by Bill Phillips, and it includes simple but I think really good recommendations for all of us as we prepare to facilitate worthwhile meetings. JoDee, let’s take each one of these nine. I don’t know if you’d like to start us off.

JoDee 03:01
Okay. Yeah, so number one is set a clear agenda. I just personally think this is so important, and I’m glad the article listed it as number one. Send it out in advance, give introverts or people with the Deliberation or Intellection strengths a chance to process and ideate before arriving in the meeting room. Keep the agenda up on the screen if you’re online or visible in the room somewhere to keep everyone on track. Personally, I like approximate time allocation and who is responsible for each agenda item. I do think it’s important not — to have some flexibility, right? The priorities might change, or it might bring up some issues that need more or less time, or even deferring the topic, but try to give an idea of approximate times, and then when something off target comes up, put it on the parking lot list. Right? We don’t have to forget about it, but we may not want to interrupt the meeting to address it right in the moment.

Susan 04:20
You know, two things you said, JoDee, that really resonates with me. I can remember when I first started collaborating with you, and you invited me to a strategic planning meeting. And you were so smart, is that you had different people handle different parts of the agenda. So, you know, first of all, we all knew what was going to happen. You had approximate times on it. And also it kept everybody really vested, I think, because everybody knew they had a part of that agenda. So it kept everybody sharp and respectful and interacting with, with each other. And then the second thing you said is about making sure that you do have a parking lot available somewhere in case something comes up off topic. I’ve had people say to me, “Oh, Susan, don’t put it on the parking lot list. You know, everything goes there to die. That idea is just going to go over there and go away.” We gotta be really careful if we put something in the parking lot. We, as a facilitator, have to make sure that it doesn’t die there. We’ve got to follow up with that individual. We gotta put it on a future agenda, call a different meeting, do something with it.

JoDee 05:15
Right, agree.

Susan 05:16
Thanks for those ideas. So number two by Bill Phillips was know your desired outcomes. So if you’re going to run a meeting of any kind, a one-on-one, cross functional meeting, any kind, you really want to make sure you know what is the purpose of that meeting, what do I need to get out of it, or what does we, we as an organization need to get out of it. So if it’s, are you there just to socialize an idea? Fine, let people know, I’m just here to bring you up to date or up to speed on something we’re thinking about. If it’s that you’re trying to find new ideas, let people know that. And as JoDee says, do it in advance, right, with your agenda, but be very clear about the purpose of the meeting in your own mind, and then make sure you’re sharing it with others. And then you really do, at the end of the meeting, you need to do kind of a fact check. Did we achieve what our purpose was here today? If it was creating next steps, what are those next steps? But you want to, don’t keep that to yourself. You want to be really transparent about it. What is it we need to achieve? And then at the end of the meeting, did we achieve it?

JoDee 06:14
Yeah, I love that. It’s like, I always think of, if some people are coming to the meeting thinking a decision will be made on this topic, and the meeting was really just about brainstorming the topic or getting more ideas around the topic, people can leave frustrated because they felt it didn’t achieve what they thought was the goal. So.

Susan 06:40
Good point.

JoDee 06:42
Number three is to find the right environment. Strategic direction meetings, for example, are focused on reflection, new ideas, and brainstorming. So that is likely a better one to have in person. Give plenty of advance notice of meetings, especially for in person meetings, and especially, especially if out of town travel is required. Of course, online meetings are — can work well too, and can certainly save a lot of time, but try and leave those for operational tasks, the check-ins, or other topics where an online meeting is respectful of everyone’s time and can create a lot of efficiencies as well.

Susan 07:34
Number four, as a facilitator, be sure you prepare your talking points. We want to bring our A game to every meeting. And honestly, everybody in that meeting, you’re trying to be a good steward of their time and of their energy, and so if there’s things you want to make sure you’re communicating, put together your, your bullet points. Don’t go in and ramble. Don’t think, you know what, I’m going to fly by the seat of my pants. That’s not respectful or fair to those in the meeting. There may be those odd meetings where you need to pull people together because it’s something very, very loose. Those should be the exception. A meeting should be, I think, structured, and you should come prepared.

JoDee 08:13
Yeah, and you know, we think a lot about that preparation being on the facilitator, but it really is important for the participants, as well. Like, how many times do we leave meetings as a participant and think, you know, like, “Oh, that was a waste of my time.” Well, did all the participants prepare and come with ideas or do their homework or read the reading, or whatever it might be, right?

Susan 08:43
I think that’s a great point.

JoDee 08:45
Yeah. Number five, give everyone a chance to speak. Beware of Adam Grant’s HiPPO effect. He describes the HiPPO as being the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion counts most. Or one of my favorite book authors and books, Susan Cain, wrote the book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” right? So be sure you’re allowing space for those introverts, and we’ll talk in a minute about how the individuals can create chances to speak as well. But overall, thinking about knowing your audience, some people may need to be prompted to speak up. Others will be mortified if you prompt them. Some cultures, some cultures have you going around the table before you close out a meeting to see if anyone wants to add one more thought, right? So give people — or, you know, I like to say too, ask for the devil’s advocate, so someone might disagree with the direction you’re going. Give them approval, per se, to say, you know, what are reasons why we might not do this, or why is this not a good idea? And give people space to feel comfortable speaking up.

Susan 10:18
I like that a lot.

JoDee 10:20
I think I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before, but when I — my second company that I worked for, a CPA firm, our managing partner was really an introvert, and he loved to be in meetings and stay quiet for most of them. And early on, when I started working with him, I was so frustrated with that. Like, I kept thinking I wanted to hear his opinion or his ideas. And he thought the opposite of the HiPPO effect, and that is that he knew if he spoke up too soon, other people might not share any more ideas, or they might not want to disagree with his ideas, so he tried to stay quiet as much as he could and just let the conversation grow. So.

Susan 11:16
I really admire that.

JoDee 11:17
Yeah, yeah.

Susan 11:19
So number six, encourage ideas and solutions. So as a facilitator, you do often ask for ideas, right? You’re asking for input. I would recommend you think about changing up your brainstorming techniques. If you do traditional, okay, here’s the problem, everybody shout out ideas, we’re going to capture the ideas, and then we’ll go back to critique them, and that works for you, I think it’s great. But I wouldn’t do that every single time, because over time, you start to see the same people bring out, bringing ideas, other people kind of checking out. It doesn’t have the same energy. So there’s things you can do to change that up. You can certainly do brain writing, which is having everybody write down their ideas, passing around the ideas that people have so people can build on them, all quietly, all individually. You can use post-it notes, where people, everybody has the same color post-it notes, people print so you don’t know who says what, have them post ideas up so there’s no ownership to it. Certainly online meetings using whiteboarding so that all the ideas are in front of everybody and then people can start piggybacking on them. So think about, how do I encourage ideas and new solutions in a way that keeps things fresh?

JoDee 12:32
Great point. And one that I’m a little bit psycho about is being mindful of the time. Right? Start on time and end on time. Do not wait for late comers, or you, you may be just setting the tone for future meetings that people can come when it’s convenient for them. Now, when I’ve talked about that before, I’ve heard a lot of people say, well, you know, what if it’s the leader of the meeting, or what if it’s a key person, or what if the first thing on the agenda was that person talking? Well, you may — first of all, ongoing, I would set the tone with them specifically that it will start on time, but maybe there is an agenda item that can be moved up or switched somehow so that the meeting still can start on time, but you’re not waiting on other people.

Susan 13:37
I just thought that I used to work for a CEO, JoDee, that he had an incredibly busy calendar, incredibly busy, but he always insisted you be there on time, because — and he was. And if you weren’t, I mean, it was, it just felt really uncomfortable if you arrived late. I think that’s, I think it’s respectful and a great tone to start. I do the same thing with the classes that I teach now. On the first day, if people have to find me because there’s, you know, I’m at a huge hotel complex, they can’t find me, I get it, but a virtual training session — I get it, life happens and you can’t make it on time, that’s okay. You can go back and watch the recorded part that you missed, but I truly believe that you start on time, you end on time, and then that’s just part of your credibility with anybody who’s a participant in the meeting,

JoDee 14:22
Right. Totally agree. If the meeting is a long one, do periodic breaks and start exactly when you say you will. Otherwise, again, people will just drift in when they want something. I do, every single time, if I’m leading a meeting and we take a break, for example, I’ll, instead of saying, “be back in 10 minutes,” I’ll say, “please return to the meeting at 10:12,” because they say more people are likely to remember the time if you make it very specific. Like, if you say 10 minutes, people don’t typically look, they don’t always look at their watch or note the time immediately to even know when 10 minutes is up. So.

Susan 15:12
Thank you for that. I love that.

JoDee 15:14
Yeah. And then in this article we’re referencing, they mentioned a survey by Dialpad that found that Mondays are the most popular date to schedule meetings. Now, that really surprised me. And the longest meetings are scheduled for Wednesdays. Why not poll your participants to ascertain what are some of the best meeting dates and times for recurring meetings? So I just would have thought, you know, not to have a lot of meetings on Fridays, but didn’t ever think — I wouldn’t have thought Mondays would have been the most popular day.

Susan 15:55
I think worriers are going to do things on Monday, because they figure out we gotta attack this. So maybe the meeting leaders are Mondays. It makes me kind of think that if you’re going to take a vacation day, take a Wednesday so you can miss those long meetings. So number eight in this article was define clear next steps and actions. And I kind of mentioned this when we talked about know what you want out of the meeting. You know, you want to make sure as that meeting ends, hopefully you’ve done a recheck to see, did we really accomplish what we needed? But let’s be really clear about when we leave this room, who’s going to do what, who’s going to be assigned, who’s got accountability for some of the action items, when are they due. Don’t leave any vagueness to it. You know, “when we meet next week, Mary, Ralph and Jerry, you’re going to come back with X, Y and Z,” or “within the next 24 hours, you’re going to be getting a list from Rita.” Who’s going to do what? And make sure that not only does everybody hear it from you, but that’s where you want to make sure it’s in writing. Capture, even if you don’t take notes during the meeting or use Fathom or some other AI platform to record it, you want to make sure that the action items are encapsulated in writing and shared with the group. Now, you as a facilitator, you can certainly take that on, but usually you’re pretty darn busy managing the dynamics of the room. I would encourage you to rotate who it is who captures and scribes for you, or use the AI software when possible and when available.

JoDee 17:25
Yeah, love it. And number nine, ask for feedback. Seek input. What went well that we should continue to do, or what could we have differently — could have done differently that would have yielded better results, right? Ask for that input and then respond based on the input as to what people are wanting or thinking would work better.

Susan 17:53
It takes some vulnerability to do that, but I think that’s a really wonderful managerial courage action. You know, tell me about how you think our meetings are going. What can I do better? So. Great, great end. So I love Bill Phillips’s nine suggestions, and honestly, I really do want to kind of refresh myself on a few of those to make sure that I’m running as effective meetings as I can. So JoDee, we have gotten, not only before 2018, but certainly since the 2018 episode on meeting skills, a lot of questions from listeners. And what we thought we’d do is really just take the specific questions relative to, related to meetings and share our thoughts, our answers for our listeners’ questions. So why don’t we take these one at a time? I’ll ask you the first one, and then we’ll just go back and forth. So this question came from a listener, and it was, “What does a successful meeting agenda look like?”

JoDee 18:49
Yeah, well, it, again, as the article suggested, to have each topic and who is responsible and how much time do they have or, you know, maybe you ask them, how much time do they need for this. But things like a welcome, stating those meeting objectives, establish some of those meeting norms if not naturally understood, right? Some people say it’s a no technology meeting, so you don’t bring cell phones or laptops to the meeting. Do any context sharing necessary. Think about participant sharing and/or brainstorming as warranted, decision making or just decision sharing, and then always include the next steps needed and assignments given. Susan, number two, “How do you approach running a meeting about topics that participants might have strong feelings or emotions around?”

Susan 19:58
Yeah, you know, and sometimes you can’t predict it. You’ll be in a meeting, all of a sudden you see somebody’s emotions erupt. But often, once you know the topic of a meeting, you kind of have a sense who has really strong feelings, so you can go into meetings sometimes prepared for emotional reactions. So some ideas that I have, you know, first of all, if you know that there’s some people who have particularly strong emotions about something, perhaps you do a pre-meeting with them to share what that meeting is going to consist of, the ideas that you expect to be presented, and try to help them have a chance to vent what they’re thinking. See if there isn’t some resources you can bring into bear, maybe some more due diligence that needs to be done on a topic, maybe some more exploration, who knows, but I would think about a pre-meeting. Second thing, maybe at the beginning of that meeting which you expect to be highly emotional, is be sure, when you do your context sharing, that we’re going to talk about XYZ topic, be transparent and say, “I know that there’s varying feelings about this and at times this can get emotional.” So I would call it out, and I’d say, group, we’re going to need to wrestle with this. We’re the right players at the right time, but we have to deal with it. I want to ask everybody, take a deep breath. I want you to think about the end game. What’s our objective? So you do your own kind of pre-coaching of how to deal with the emotion, and sometimes that can be very effective. People will then start checking themselves, saying, hey, I know I’m getting a little emotional about this, and as Susan mentioned, this is really because it has touched me so personally, it’s why I feel this way. Let me set that aside for a moment. You get everybody kind of aligned with the fact that we know it’s emotional and we’re going to try to deal with it. And then I guess my third thought is, you may very well decide, you’re in the middle of a meeting, things are getting very emotional. You should feel free pull the plug at any point. You might say, hey, we’re going to call a quick audible. I can tell emotions are running high here, or the temperature in the room is getting a lot hotter. Let’s, let’s call a break. And that break could be till tomorrow, could be till later today, could be till next week. You decide if you think a 10-minute break would work, where you get a chance to kind of let people, you know, walk around the building real quick or get a drink, do that. But I think you have to make that call in the moment, and as the meeting facilitator you do own that experience, I believe, so you very well may need to, to call an audible.

JoDee 22:26
Yep, yep, love it.

Susan 22:29
So third question from a listener, JoDee, was, “What ideas do you have for building engagement with meeting participants?”

JoDee 22:38
Yes, well, my first thought, of course, is to listen to our July 1, 2019 JoyPowered® Podcast episode entitled “Team Building,” and in that we talked, we talked about a lot of things, like icebreakers at the front end of meetings to break down walls and help participants start building trust with each other. People are way less likely to participate if they don’t trust the others in the room, that they’re in a safe space and can share ideas or have different conversations. Another one, use individuals’ names a lot. That’s something I’ve really been focusing on lately. I think it helps keep people present in the meeting, just to say, Susan, what do you think about that, as opposed to maybe saying, does anyone have a thought. Right?

Susan 23:38
Yes.

JoDee 23:39
But even just in general conversation, using their name. The third one, make time and space for people who haven’t spoken up. Right? Now, that’s — you don’t want to necessarily say, hey, Susan, you haven’t said anything the whole time, what would you like to share. That could…

Susan 23:59
Kinda hurts.

JoDee 23:59
…make people, yes, very uncomfortable. So be careful with that. But maybe if there’s a topic where you know someone is an expert on it, or you know someone has an effective way to deal with something or a person, and you know, even say, hey, Susan, I know you’ve dealt with this before, can you tell the group how, how you handled this situation, can make them feel more comfortable. And then intervene respectfully when someone is, quote, “holding the mic,” right, or someone keeps talking. And maybe even — I like to just say the words, “do we have any thoughts from anyone else on this topic,” or “thank you for your input, let’s hear what others have to say.” Another one is use the — what we do a lot in training is breaking people up into groups, or pair people with others to ideate and come back to the larger group. That can be way more comfortable for many people to have those smaller group conversations. And then finally, thank people who contributed, right? If you just say a general thank you to everyone, where you know they have — they didn’t come prepared, or they didn’t add input, or they didn’t ask any questions, but the people who really helped the meeting go better or came prepared, thank them for being there, and note that you, you saw them and you valued your their participation.

Susan 24:00
I like that.

JoDee 24:10
Next question, Susan, how can you deal with a colleague that never wants to participate in meeting dialogue? I bet you’ve had some of those.

Susan 26:03
Yeah, I think we all have, right? They come in and, and they don’t say anything. You can’t, you can’t get a read on it, right? I, I believe if you see a pattern of that, if you have somebody who’s coming to your meetings that just never speaks up, I do think you need to meet with them privately and mention that you’ve noticed it, and then, you know, ask why. I think you need to probe a little bit and very respectfully, but then you might want to brace yourself, because you might get some feedback about how you’re running the meeting that is causing them not to feel comfortable or safe. Maybe they don’t have trust in you or trust in others. You know, you need to be prepared and open to what they say and figure out, okay, what changes do I need to make to react to that? If it’s about them, that it’s not the colleagues, it’s not you, then maybe it’s something that you could do to help make it a safer space and pull it out for them. Maybe they’ve had some baggage about speaking up in past meetings that that really causes them some PTSD about offering up an idea. So once we understand it, I think you are going to be better equipped to figure out how to address it. If it’s that they don’t care. You know, you know there’s always that thing about will or skill. If they don’t care, they don’t want to be at that meeting, maybe you need to stop inviting them to that meeting. Maybe if they don’t think it’s a good return on their investment of time, but they feel forced to come based on where they sit in the organization, maybe there’s somebody else from that area that needs to attend, or maybe there’s a different way to get them the information that they need. So I do think it’s going to be very tailored to the why behind that person’s not participating.

JoDee 27:35
Yeah, you know, Susan, when you mentioned about creating a safe space for them, it reminded me of a story — really, it’s not to do with meetings, but of the context of where you may think you’re creating a safe space, but not, in that I have three sisters, and we’re all big readers, and we frequently text in our textbook about book ideas. And one time, and this has probably been 18 months ago, I recommended a book and boom, they all jumped on me about a particular book. Now these are my sisters, people I’m not afraid to disagree with, obviously, they’re not afraid to disagree with me, but I was so taken aback by my book suggestion that I have not shared a book with them since. Now, if they ask me my opinion on a book, or if they suggest one, and I respond, you know, I’ll respond about reading it or not, or my thoughts, but I have not recommended a book, and that just simple story, sounds like it’s getting off track, but it just makes me think of people in a meeting who…

Susan 28:58
Yes.

JoDee 28:59
…a comment was made about something, and they just decided “I’m not going to share anymore in this meeting.” So.

Susan 29:07
I can relate to that. I can absolutely relate to that. And I, my guess is there’s people who have to attend meetings that they have been slapped down in some way, shape, or form, at least how they viewed it, right? Maybe not the intent at all of that facilitator. You kind of sit down and kind of try to unpack that with people, right? Thank you for sharing that.

JoDee 29:24
Yeah.

Susan 29:24
So our next listener question is, JoDee, “How can I have more impact and have less meetings?”

JoDee 29:32
Yeah, good one. We all want to know the answer to this question, right? So, a few ideas on this. Number one, really challenge yourself to look at all of your regularly scheduled meetings. Think about, are they all really necessary? Can you drop one or replace some by just sending emails or using other communication vehicles? Do — Maybe you don’t even, maybe you have a weekly meeting, and it really could be every other week, right? So it doesn’t mean maybe you don’t have the meeting, but you just don’t have it as frequently. And think, spend a few minutes at the end of each meeting, over the next month at least, and ask participants what is working and what didn’t in the meetings, and how would they suggest future meetings be structured to help improve the outcomes. And number three, the next time you start to call a meeting, stop and consider is a meeting the very best way to engage others. In other words, do you really need a meeting? So.

Susan 30:48
Great.

JoDee 30:49
Yeah. Susan, our next question from our listeners, “How can I feel more empowered and speak up more in meetings?”

Susan 30:58
You know, I think that’s great the person is trying to reflect on, how could I be more of a force in meetings? I do think sometimes you have to do some self-confidence coaching. Certainly, many of us get invited to meetings where we think the subject, subject that they’re discussing is over our heads, or it’s not as pertinent, especially if you’re an HR professional that, like me, and you’re in a business meeting that I want to understand the business, but they go to such infinite detail that it’s easy to start checking out. I think it’s important not to check out. I think it’s important to flex your muscles, share your opinion, ask questions to get deeper understanding. And you kind of have to force yourself, I mean, you’re self-coaching as you’re in that meeting. I think another idea is to ask somebody who’s also in this meeting with you to be an accountability partner to you, to say, hey, I’m working on speaking up more in meetings, I’d love for you to give me feedback after each one of our senior leadership meetings, or whatever meetings, tell me how did I do, did what I offer, what I when I when I added or to the conversation, what I offered up, is there anything I could have done to strengthen that? Was it useful and just get their ideas, because they’re in there too, and most people are honored to be somebody else’s accountability partner, and then they may ask you to help them with something. So think that’s a really good idea. And then maybe another idea, if you attend the meeting, and you walk away thinking, I just don’t think I spoke up enough, I just don’t think that I added any value. Think about maybe, what else do I wish I had said? What could I have said? And then reach out to that meeting later and say, “Hey, thank you so much for yesterday’s meeting. I had a few other ideas, and I had not brought them up yesterday because I needed some time to think it through. Here’s some other ideas that I have,” and get some input from that person, and I think that’s going to help you build confidence and hopefully that courage to get better and better. And who knows, maybe that meeting leader will want to be a mentor to you. You don’t — you never know.

JoDee 33:00
Right. Love it. Love it.

Susan 33:03
Our next question from a listener, JoDee, is, “What ideas do you have on digital meeting management?”

JoDee 33:10
Yeah, a lot of our meetings are held digitally nowadays, and it might be necessary for a lot of your meetings where you have participants who are, you know, don’t live in the same area or getting together live doesn’t always make sense. The first one, I would say, is always set the expectation that cameras are on unless someone, you know, specifically requests or says, I, you know, I need to be off camera for a bit, or I need to even excuse myself from the meeting. I think it’s important that we have cameras on. Now, I don’t think that every single time you’re on Zoom or Teams that your cameras have to be on, but in a meeting, I do. Number two, amp up your engagement activities with icebreakers. Call people by name, right? Some things where you’re getting more people involved in the meeting. Some of the things you might have done live, think about how could you do the same activity on electronically. Follow all the same normal meeting best practices that we’ve talked about, just as if you were in person, and lean into some of the enhancements that are available to us now, right? Like you mentioned whiteboard earlier or Fathom, which we use. There are other tools available to people, as well, artificial intelligence tools that will record the meetings and then send a summary to the participants. Those can be edited, deleted, reworded, all those things too. You don’t have to just use the summary that they spit out. And record for those who are missing the meeting to go back and watch it later. And use polling, as an example. I like that, that people like to participate in polls, right? So giving them some different ways to, again, engage in the meetings and even think about sharing a video that make the point you, you want made, as well. Susan, I briefly addressed this earlier, but would love to have more conversation or hear your thoughts, and a particular listener wanted to know this, too. “How do we cut someone off in a meeting who is just speaking too much or taking too long to share their thoughts?”

Susan 35:59
Some people are a legend in their own minds, and when they have the microphone, or they have the speaking turn, they just go on and on and on. I get it. So some of the ways that I try to stop it, snip it in the bud, is when the person takes a breath, I will jump in and say, “Thank you, Fred. I appreciate the all the points you’ve made. Let’s get others’ reactions.”

JoDee 36:19
Yeah.

Susan 36:19
I know that sounds rude, but I will, if they, if they don’t even take a breath — which they are really, some people are really good at this with very long run on sentences — I will start talking over them. And I know that sounds horrible, but sometimes you have to, you’ve got to get control back. So if they’re not taking a breath, I might just say, “Wow, I love your enthusiasm, Fred. I’m going to stop you,” so it’s really clear, I am stopping you, “so we can get some other opinions on the table.”

JoDee 36:45
Yeah.

Susan 36:46
And then I guess another idea is you could always say, “Fred, you have been so generous in your in your sharing lots of ideas. I want to pause you here because I want to make sure others get a chance to give their input.” So you’ll see, I will try all different methods, and usually one of them will work. If not, you might have to call an audible, call a break and talk to Fred on the side. Say, “Fred, we gotta let other people get their words in.”

JoDee 37:12
Love it.

Susan 37:13
And then our last question from a listener on this topic is, JoDee, “What is some meeting etiquette, like active listening, that we should encourage everyone to practice?”

JoDee 37:25
Well, you know, I mentioned earlier about technology, one meeting norm might be that all mobile devices are muted for the duration of the meeting.

Susan 37:36
Yeah. I like active listening that the, our listener mentioned. You know, talk about active listening with the group, saying we’re going to stay present physically with each other, mentally with each other, and emotionally with each other. Let’s listen to what people say. Listen to understand, as opposed to listen to respond.

JoDee 37:53
Right. And then ask participants to strive to communicate in a clear, specific, and neutral way, right? We all know those people who get off on a tangent or a story, and we’re trying to make the connection to what we’re talking about, so make it clear and specific.

Susan 38:14
Yeah. I think another etiquette idea is to really share with the group that I’m going to ask you all to talk about, use “I” messages — here’s how I feel, here’s what I think — as opposed to finger pointing or you, “you” messages can sometimes make people defensive, and that’s not what I want when I’m in meetings.

JoDee 38:31
Totally agree. Also, as participants, to avoid the words “always” and “never” statements. They’re rarely true if we try and put everyone into the same bucket, or “our people always do this,” or “our people never do this,” so just avoid it.

Susan 38:50
Agreed. I do make sure that part of the meeting norms are this conversation will be stopped if anybody here starts becoming repetitive or nonproductive conversation surfaces or if there’s any type of lack of civility that emerges. I let them know that I’m going to stop you. And so I very rarely have to do it, but when I have to do it, people have been forewarned what my expectation is.

JoDee 39:18
Yeah. Welcome everyone to take notes throughout the meetings, especially when someone agrees to take on a to-do list or a next step item. It actually makes me very nervous, and I’ve said to people in meetings before, like, “I — thank you for taking this on, but I’m not seeing you write this down.” Make sure they’ve got it written somewhere. So. And again, we talked about Fathom can be our note taker, so tap into some of that AI ability to have them take notes for you, but then assign a note taker editor to make sure that the AI captured things correctly, worded them, prioritized them well, those types of things, and then to distribute those notes afterwards.

Susan 40:17
I really think being a AI note taker editor or scribe editor is so much easier than writing. I could do that — I can edit so much quicker than I can from building from scratch. So, nice. So JoDee, as we close this out, I appreciate all the listeners who asked us questions. Please send more questions, or if you have different opinions than we do on any of these questions, we would love to hear from you. Before we close this out, I just wanted to see, JoDee, where do you find joy in running meetings?

JoDee 40:45
Well, you know, it’s something I’ve just been thinking about recently. I’m not a real structured person, but I am on two boards right now that are, due to regulatory meetings really need to follow Robert’s Rules and making a motion and seconding a motion and all that type of stuff, and I don’t think that’s important to be that formal in all meetings, but when I joined the second board and they did it too, it really did make me appreciate the structure of a meeting, right? By — and again, it doesn’t have to be Robert’s Rules, but having that set agenda, having people focused on the topic in the moment, too.

Susan 41:40
That is great. Well, what I find joyful about meetings, when it’s well run meetings and meetings that need to happen, I love learning, and I truly believe when I go to a meeting, I hear other opinions, I always come out of that meeting usually a little smarter than when I walked in. I may not agree with everything, but my thinking has been broadened. So I do find meetings joyful.

JoDee 42:03
I do too. Susan, we have a listener question today that our listener said, “How has AI played a role in HR, and do you think it will take over our HR jobs?”

Susan 42:17
I think everyone in the world today is a little nervous that AI is going to be their replacement. In HR, I think there’s so many things that we are tasked with doing that is repetitive and non — or maybe they’re even kind of brain numbing things that we have to make sure it happens and it’s like, tasks that involve rule following, process following things, like that, I do believe AI can help get those things done and potentially replace us on those types of things. For example, being a second chair in a meeting and note taking, for example, for lots of parts of payroll processing that we have a lot of human intervention in. There’s no reason for it to have to be that way long term. Some benefit administration things that we spend time checking, rechecking, analyzing, big, using big data, all that, I really do think AI is going to be a better long-term solution than humans. Where we add value as HR professionals, I truly believe, is in our consultative actions. We are able to meet one-on-one and build relationships. We’re able to give advice. We’re able to help problem solve. That is never going to get replaced. Certainly, AI comes up with multiple solutions, but it takes human intervention to really fit, fit needs. So I feel very bullish on, yes, we need more AI in HR, but we’re never going to get rid of the HR person who thinks strategically, that is a good partner and is a good relationship builder. Now…

JoDee 43:55
Totally agree, by the way

Susan 43:57
Oh, good. I’m so glad. Yeah. I know that I challenge myself to figure out, how do we use AI, even today, with as unbridled as it is and all the new platforms that are out there. I think all of us need to be examining, testing, reading, figuring out what we can experiment with, because we don’t want to be left behind. So there’s many courses out there. There’s even, SHRM now has a new certification, AI + HI, I think artificial intelligence plus human intelligence. Let’s, let’s make sure that we’re staying as cutting edge as we can on this topic.

JoDee 44:32
Yeah. Agree.

Susan 44:34
So JoDee, it’s time for in the news. My alma mater employer of 35 years is JP Morgan Chase. As I mentioned before, I was surprised and pleased to read an article in HRdive on September 19, 2024 entitled “JP Morgan creates role to oversee junior bankers’ well-being.” I love that this, there’s, they have created a job that is in reaction to the Bank of America’s 35-year-old banker who died in May of 2024 having after having worked 100 hour weeks consecutively. To most of our listeners, the idea of working 100 hours in one week sounds impossible, but I want to tell you, in investment banking, it is real, and it has been real my my entire lifetime. JPMC’s new global investment banking associate position — oh, I’m sorry, banking associate and analyst leader position is tasked with overseeing the care of junior bankers. Hopefully one of the major directives that this position has is to reduce work weeks for those junior bankers to get closer to 80 hours per week. JoDee, I want to still say eeks. Eighty hours, if you think about the normal US employee works 40 hours, this is double that. But that would be a huge improvement for these bankers. And this role, not only looking for the care and feeding and nurturing of these junior bankers, but also ensuring that high expectations demanded of these new career bank investment bankers is toned down to a more realistic and reasonable level. The person they hired is named Ryland McClendon, and she is the first incumbent in this new role. I really wish her all the best and much success in it. I hope that this isn’t something that comes and goes, that it’s really sustainable. I hope that all other many center banks and investment banks follow JP Morgan Chase’s lead on this. When there is an investment banking deal bubbling, it’s going to take some heroic action to relax, to relax the historic all hands on deck, around the clock mentality. Deal making should not be a life and death endeavor. So I wish JPMC well, and I hope others follow.

JoDee 46:56
Yeah, totally agree. I’m glad someone’s doing something about that. So. It takes really an industry leader to make that change, and I’m sure others would love to jump on board with that same approach. So. Well, thanks for listening today and tune in next time to the next JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast and make it a JoyPowered® day.

Susan 47:24
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