Leadership Today - Practical Tips For Leaders

Feedback is tricky at the best of times, but particularly challenging in virtual teams. Research demonstrates some ways to improve that situation.

Hello and welcome to episode 98 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore ways of improving feedback in virtual teams.

There are many challenges associated with leading and working in virtual teams. Not having everyone in the same place at the same time is tricky. Things we take for granted, like giving and receiving feedback, can fall away completely.

We have covered feedback quite a bit on this podcast because it really matters to performance and development. We know that as we progress in an organisation, we receive less feedback. We also know that as our performance moves further away from expectations, we also receive less feedback. It seems at the moments when we really need to know how we're doing, the feedback we need is missing.

Virtual teams provide further challenges when it comes to feedback. When we're not working together face-to-face, we're less likely to 'see' each other in action. There are likely fewer opportunities to provide feedback, and fewer things to provide feedback about.

So what can we do about this?

Research by McLarnon and others specifically looked at Global Virtual Teams. Not only did these teams not have the opportunity to work together face-to-face, they had additional challenges of navigating multiple time zones and cultures. The research involved trials of different ways in which virtual team members could provide feedback to each other.

What they found worked best in virtual teams was structured, regular feedback. Setting up a structured way to request and distribute feedback made a big difference, as did building in opportunities for feedback on a weekly basis. This meant that feedback was given in a timely manner. It allowed people to modify their approach, and also helped the team to better coordinate their efforts.

Other research by Kingsley Westerman and colleagues found that verbal feedback works better than written. People value the effort a leader takes in making a phone or video call rather than just sending an email or text. In addition, the researchers found that leaders who provide verbal feedback are seen as more competent and trustworthy.

All of this goes to show that feedback in virtual teams is just as, if not more, important than in traditional face-to-face settings, but there are unique challenges to overcome.

Here are some thoughts you can take into your week if you are leading or working as part of a virtual team:

1. Recognise that people still need feedback - independent of the way the team works, individuals still need to receive feedback to perform and develop.

2. Identify opportunities for feedback - you may need to orchestrate opportunities to gather feedback. That might include sitting in on a video conference, or working through some written work with an individual directly.

3. It helps to structure the feedback process - explore systems where individuals are prompted to provide feedback to their colleagues during the week, rather than waiting for longer-term milestones or formal reviews.

4. Say it rather than write it - as we explored three episodes ago, just pick up the phone and provide the feedback verbally.

5. Make it real time when you can - work on your ability to provide feedback in the moment using simple methods such as Situation, Behaviour and Impact, which we covered all the way back in episode 5 of this podcast.

6. Incorporate team performance and individual contribution - whether the team is performing well or not-so-well, explore further to uncover the contribution of individuals.

A big shout out to our brilliant research assistant Lauren Staveley who tracked down the research for today's episode, which you can find in the show notes. Also, if virtual teams are of interest, then you are going love our brand new Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership course - complete with a workbook and two hours worth of research-based practical advice to lead teams more effectively while also looking after yourself. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial of our Leadership Today On-Demand service, which gives you enough time to complete the course, watch a few recorded webinars, and even check out some quick hits on topics like feedback, influencing and assertiveness. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link.

Have a great week.

Kingsley Westerman, C., Reno, K. And Heuett, K. (2018) Delivering Feedback: Supervisors' Source Credibility and Communication Competence. International Journal of Business Communication, Vol 55(4) 526-546.

McLarnon, M., O'Neill, T., Taras, V., Law, D., Donia, M. And Steel, P. (2019) Global Virtual Team Communication, Coordination, and Performance Across Three Peer Feedback Strategies. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. 2019, Vol. 51, No. 4, 207–218

As human beings we often act out of self-interest, but is that the best way to lead others? Recent research sheds a light on whether we make better decisions when considering others.

Hello and welcome to episode 97 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore whether we make better decisions when considering others.

I define leadership as achieving results through people for good. The 'for good' element is a values statement on my part - it's how I would hope leaders would act. I'm sure you would also hope that leaders are aiming for collective benefit more than just self-interest.

However, it seems when it comes to learning and decision making we are wired to think primarily of ourselves first. Take, for example, experiments where people are asked to learn a new game in return for a cash payout. Participants learn faster and make better decisions when earning money for themselves than when they are earning money for someone else. Self-interest leads them to put more effort and attention into the learning process.

But what about when there's a downside? What if, instead of earning money, we are trying to avoid a penalty or harm? Are we still primarily self-interested?

Recent research using an electric shock game provides an insight into these questions. Now, let's be honest here - psychologists have had a long and occasionally dodgy love affair with passing electricity through people in the name of science. Remember the time we found out that most people would electrocute others to the point of them pleading for help and becoming unconscious rather than disobey someone wearing a lab coat? Thankfully, we do have some ethics and no one in that famous Milgram experiment was actually delivered an electrical shock - it was all actors. In the case of this recent research, the shocks were very much real, but weren't harmful. The experiment involved two versions of a task where participants would choose between two abstract symbols, one of which would lead to a lower chance of delivering an electrical shock. In one version of the experiment the shock would be delivered to the participant making the decisions. In a second version, the shock would be delivered to someone else. Participants performed better on the task when their choices would result in a shock for someone else, than they did if they were the ones receiving the shock. A level of empathy meant that people worked harder to optimise their decisions to reduce harm to others.

fMRI scans during the experiment revealed different brain regions being activated in the two different versions of the electric shock game. If the shock is being delivered to the participant making the choices, regions associated with evaluating decisions light up. If the shock is going to be delivered to someone else, areas associated with evaluating the emotional state of others also light up.

So that's great news - when we are aware of a downside for others, we tend to demonstrate greater care in our decision making. What's really interesting it that greater care leads to more effective decisions being made. Our decisions improve when we consider others.

So what does this mean for the way we lead? Hopefully you're not in a workplace that has a penchant for delivering electrical shocks. But, as leaders, our decisions often have potential upside benefits and downside impacts on others. The standard business mantra is that decisions should be focused on data - just stick to the facts. While there's some truth to that, we need to broaden what we include as data. We need to extend our definition of 'data' to include the potential impact on others. The research suggests that isn't just good for others, but ultimately leads us to make better decisions.

I trust you found the podcast helpful. And remember to check out Leadership Today On-Demand. It includes all of our video content, including our brand new Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership course - complete with a workbook and two hours worth of research-based practical advice to lead teams more effectively while also looking after yourself. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial, which gives you enough time to complete the course, watch a few recorded webinars, and even check out some quick hits on topics like feedback, influencing and assertiveness. Cancel your subscription at any point during the first 30 days and you won't pay a cent. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link.

Lukas L. Lengersdorff, Isabella C. Wagner, Patricia L. Lockwood, Claus Lamm. When implicit prosociality trumps selfishness: the neural valuation system underpins more optimal choices when learning to avoid harm to others than to oneself. The Journal of Neuroscience, 2020; JN-RM-0842-20 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0842-20.2020

As reported in Science Daily - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200824131811.htm

There's a popular mythology in business that being self-centred and cold towards others helps you to get ahead. But does being a jerk get you ahead at work? Research released this month addresses this question.

Hello and welcome to episode 96 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore whether being a selfish jerk helps you to get ahead at work.

There's a popular mythology in business that being self-centred and cold towards others can help you to get ahead. That if I act like an intimidating jerk, it will help me to get ahead at work. The thinking being that operating in this way will help me to amass power and influence.

American baseball player, coach and manager Leo Durocher exemplified this approach well, perhaps not surprisingly given his nickname of Leo the Lip. Some of his more entertaining quotes include "nice guys finish last" and "show me a good loser and I'll show you an idiot". His winning ratio was 54%, so I guess he was a self-proclaimed idiot 46% of the time.

In the business world, people like Steve Jobs are held up as examples of how being aggressive and intimidating helps you to get things done. That being a jerk helps you to push through the constraints that hold others back. In fact, his close friend and former Apple designer Jony Ive described it like this: "I think honestly, when he's very frustrated, … his way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And I think he feels he has a liberty and licence to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don't apply to him. Because of how very sensitive he is, he knows exactly how to efficiently and effectively hurt someone. And he does do that."

Disagreeable people are driven by self-interest and a lack of consideration for others. So how would this help them to progress more quickly up the corporate ladder? The popular thinking is that the time nice people spend looking out for others might hold them back, giving disagreeable people an advantage. Their intimidation then allows the disagreeable person to amass power and influence.

But are disagreeable people actually more likely to get ahead? Research by Anderson, Sharps, Soto and John published just this month explored precisely this question. They identified disagreeable people and then tracked their careers over the next 14 years.

Now, I know the question you're asking - How do you identify a disagreeable person? The researchers used personality patterns associated with the likelihood to be hostile towards others, deceive and manipulate for their own gain, and ignore others' welfare as indicators for disagreeableness.

So what did they find? Their key finding is that disagreeableness does not predict attainment of power. Disagreeable people are not more likely, but just as likely, to reach positions of power and influence. It didn't help their career, but it didn't get in the way either.

The researchers described four main ways people can attain power:

1. Dominant-aggressive behaviour - fear and intimidation

2. Political behaviour - building alliances with influential people

3. Communal behaviour - helping others

4. Competent behaviour - being good at your job

The key to understanding why jerks don't get ahead is in the trade-off the disagreeable person makes. The researchers suggested that any assistance being intimidating gave in seeking out power was counteracted by poor relationships with others. Their results suggest that a lack of communal behaviour counteracts any benefits of dominant-aggressive behaviour and self-interest.

So being disagreeable doesn't work. But can the opposite also be true? Can we be overly agreeable? While the researchers didn't explore this, it's easy to see how being overly nice might also get in the way - that always focusing on helping others without placing any emphasis on our own needs and interests could also be a problem.

I think the key to striking the right balance is through true assertiveness - having a genuine interest in others' needs and interests, while also confidently presenting our own needs and interests. If you want to explore that further, then check out episode 6 from way back in August 2018 where we pick apart what true assertiveness looks like.

And if you want to go even deeper, check out our Boost Your Assertiveness course at Leadership Today On-Demand. Our On-Demand service is an annual subscription that brings together all of our video content, including online courses, recorded webinars, and quick hits on a broad range of leadership topics. You can sign up today for a free 30 day trial which gives you plenty of time to complete the course and take a look around. Just go to the Leadership.Today website and follow the On-Demand link. Have a great week.

Cameron Anderson, Daron L. Sharps, Christopher J. Soto, and Oliver P. John People with disagreeable personalities (selfish, combative, and manipulative) do not have an advantage in pursuing power at work. PNAS, 2020 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2005088117

Picture this scenario. You need to make contact with someone that you haven't spoken to in quite a while. Do you call or just send them a text or email instead? It turns out that our chosen communication method is often driven more by fear than effectiveness.

Hello and welcome to episode 95 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. Picture this scenario. You need to make contact with someone that you haven't spoken to in quite a while. Do you call or just send them a text or email instead? It turns out that our chosen communication method is often driven more by fear than effectiveness.

To explore this, researchers asked 200 people what they thought it would be like to reconnect with an old friend via email and phone.

Even though people thought a phone call would lead to great connection, they feared a call would be more awkward. People were far more inclined to use email than pick up the phone. In that moment they performed a quick cost-benefit equation. Is the better connection worth the awkwardness? Apparently not.

They then divided the group randomly into an email group and a phone call group and had them actually contact that old friend using that method.

So was the preferred choice of email the right one? Those who were forced to use the phone found their calls actually went far better than they predicted. The phone call led to an even deeper connection, and was far less awkward than anticipated. So using the phone is the better option.

"But wait a second" I hear you say - "Doesn't a phone call take longer?" That's a fair question to ask. If a phone call takes longer than an email, then maybe the email is better after all.

Indeed, researchers found that participants also thought an email would be faster than a phone call. However, it turns out that the phone calls took around the same amount of time as reading and responding to email.

Does this actually happen at work? Absolutely. It's likely that people are choosing communication methods that don't maximise connection because they think the alternative will be awkward and inefficient.

We communicate a lot through our voice, and not just through the words that we say. Our tone, pace, pitch and volume all come together to communicate a richer message. The research is pretty clear - if the goal is to build trust and connection, look for opportunities to be face-to-face and, if that's not possible, then pick up the phone and give the person a call. It's likely to be far less awkward and far more effective than you expect.

As I encouraged a few episodes ago, it may even be worth replacing a video conference using Zoom or similar with a phone call. You can find out more about that in episode 92. All our past episodes are available via the Leadership.Today website or wherever you get your podcasts. And, while you're thinking about what to listen to next, why not provide a quick rating or review? It really makes a difference.

Have a great week.

Kumar, A., & Epley, N. (2020). It's surprisingly nice to hear you: Misunderstanding the impact of communication media can lead to suboptimal choices of how to connect with others. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000962

Have you had an 'aha' moment lately? New research provides clues into why some of us find insights so addictive.

Hello and welcome to episode 94 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the power of insights, including what's going on in our brain when we have them, and some practical ways to have even more insights.

There are few things in life better than an 'aha' moment - that point where you've been grappling with a problem and the solution just suddenly pops into your head. It can feel quite different to solving something by working away at it methodically. Ideas can come as a slow steady slog, but sometimes there are leaps.

Researches earlier this year discovered that these sudden insights can, for some people, trigger the brain's reward system. That an insight can activate the same areas that highly pleasurable activities and even addictive drugs work on.

To explore this, the researchers presented each person with a series of anagrams while using a high resolution EEG to monitor brain activity. Let's say, for example, that you were presented with the letters ABSIS. Those letters could also make up the word BASIS. But how did you solve that? The participant would press a button to confirm whether it was an insight or more of an analytical process. So the word BASIS might just pop into your head, or you might mentally start shifting the letters around in a more analytical way.

Researchers can actually see the moment when the insight occurs as it is accompanied by a burst of gamma-band brainwaves right before the person indicates that they have had an insight solution. So what did they discover? Not surprisingly, they found that insight solutions were faster than analytical solutions. Insights pop into our head much faster than our ability to consciously think through potential solutions. What is really interesting is that many people also showed a second burst in the orbitofrontal cortex - a region of the brain just above the orbits of your eyes, thus the name, which is associated with reward and pleasure. This reward burst occurs just a tenth of a second after the insight, so it is too quick to be the result of conscious thought. It turns out that for many people the insight itself is inherently pleasurable, rather than something that we decide should be pleasurable.

The researchers wanted to understand who is more likely to have this reward response, given that not everyone experiences it. To do this they had participants complete a questionnaire on reward sensitivity - the extent to which people were driven more by gaining rewards than the fear of loss. They found that those more focused on gain rather than loss were also more likely to experience a natural reward response when they had an insight. It's easy to see how that might lead people to spend more time chasing that reward, therefore investing more effort into creativity and insight generation.

So what does this mean for me as a leader? Well, let's assume you don't have a high resolution EEG lying around the house. Although I will point out that EEG units that hook up to your phone are becoming far more accurate and affordable if you did want to strap one onto the old melon to take a look under the hood. If that's not an option, here are some other suggestions:

1. Pose yourself problems to solve. This sounds kind of obvious, but if you don't present your brain with a problem to solve in the first place, you're not going to have an insight.

2. Keep positive. Researchers found those in a positive mood solved more problems via insight than those with lower mood. There are lots of benefits to having a positive mood.

3. Focus on what you have to gain rather than lose. That will encourage a more insight-based approach to problem solving.

4. Aim for low attention moments. As we have discussed before, people never come up with their best ideas while sitting at their desk. Make the most of those low stress, relaxed moments. Sometimes I pose myself a problem before I go to bed or just before I go for a run. I then don't try to actively solve the problem - I just let it sit. It's amazing how many times I have an insight when I wake up, or when I'm cooling down after that run.

5. Celebrate solving something hard. Even if it doesn't get your reward circuit going in the moment, maybe that piece of chocolate a little later will.

If you did want to delve into the research further, I've provided a link in the episode notes although, full disclosure, it is a pretty dense bit of reading.

And let me know your insight stories - what works for you? You can make contact via the leadership.today website. Have a great week.

Yongtaek Oh, Christine Chesebrough, Brian Erickson, Fengqing Zhang, John Kounios. An insight-related neural reward signal. NeuroImage, 2020; 214: 116757 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116757

People will bring complaints about colleagues to you as their leader. How do you figure out if an issue is worth tackling? There is a simple question that can help.

Hello and welcome to episode 93 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore how to figure out if a potential issue between staff is worth tackling. This week's podcast is going to be even shorter than usual, but I can assure you it will save you countless hours.

I'm sure you've had this experience as a leader before - if you haven't, it's only a matter of time before you do. Someone in your team, let's call them Jan, comes to you to discuss an "issue" they're having with a colleague - let's call the colleague Steve. Jan wants you to do something about this problem with Steve. Maybe Jan thinks Steve is talking too loudly on the phone, or heating something obnoxious in the microwave for lunch, or there's some kind of vague personality clash about Steve smiling too much, or Jan just thinks Steve isn't pulling his weight. You ask Jan whether she has discussed the issue with Steve directly. "No". You then ask Jan whether she would be comfortable to have that conversation with Steve directly. "No". And now we're stuck.

What is our role as leader at this point? The general principle is simple - we should encourage the person with the issue to talk directly to the person they are having an issue with. But what if they don't feel comfortable doing that, and still want you to do something about the perceived problem. And what if the perceived problem sits right on the fence. It can be challenging to know when to intervene and when to just let things slide.

There is a question to ask at this point that can save everyone a lot of time and confusion. It's simply this - "What's the business issue?"

Steve's loud talking on the phone might be distracting and frustrating other people. The business issue is lost productivity and engagement. That's worth tackling directly.

Steve's smelly microwaved lunch is wafting into the reception area, and several clients have complained about the smell. The business issue is the impact on our reputation with clients. That's worth tackling.

Steve is smiling too much. Well, I'm struggling to find the business issue there. It's not worth tackling.

Jan thinks Steve isn't pulling his weight, but you have the results to suggest that he is. Again, there's no business issue there.

Using the business issue test with the individual raising the complaint can be really helpful. That will help Jan to work out what things are worth her worrying about versus those things worth letting slide.

I've found the business issue test really helpful in highlighting what are real problems worth tackling, and what are interpersonal issues that might need to be navigated in a different way.

Well I hope you found that helpful. I received a couple of really encouraging emails from listeners to the podcast this week. You can always get in contact via the Leadership.Today website (he says, clearly fishing for a few more). And, if you do have time, a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this makes a huge difference.

Just a quick reminder about our online workshops and webinars. Go to the Live page on our website to find out more about the seven different workshops we offer, and also to register for an upcoming free monthly webinar. I would love to have you along.

Have a great week.

Video conferencing has rapidly increased in popularity, but the cognitive and attentional load can make it exhausting. In this week's Leadership Today podcast we look at five ways to stop Zoom killing your focus.

Hello and welcome to episode 92 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at five ways to stop Zoom killing your focus.

Zoom and other video conferencing services have seen a rapid rise in popularity. People have flocked to video conferencing as the next best thing to a face-to-face meeting, particularly when trying to build social connection. During a global pandemic, video conferencing has proven to be a lifesaver for many people forced to work from home. It's a testament to the quality of Zoom that the brand name is now synonymous with web-based video conferencing. We are becoming increasingly dependent on access to Zoom, as evidenced by a recent outage that disrupted millions of people including online schooling and businesses.

And Zoom isn't just a back up for when we can't be face-to-face. Research conducted last year showed Zoom was rated positively for qualitative data collection in health care interviews, coming in ahead of face-to-face, phone and other video conferencing options when they factored efficiency into the equation.

Amidst all of that success and celebration there are recurring and largely anecdotal concerns emerging about the impact of video conferencing on our attention and energy levels. People report feeling drained and exhausted at the end of a full day of Zoom calls. It's too early for there to be specific research about why this might be the case, but the field of attention research gives us some clues to why Zoom is killing our ability to focus.

Let's face it, weird things happen on Zoom calls that would never happen in a 'real' meeting. We see people fixing their hair as they stare at themselves. People keep looking away from the camera to a second screen so you end up having a conversation with their ear. People eating anything looks disgusting - seriously, stop eating while using Zoom. We see people talking but no words are coming out - you're on mute! Surprise people and their pets appear out of nowhere. People keep trying to talk at the same time which leads to a flurry of "no, no, you go first". As we look behind people it feels like we are in a dozen different rooms at once. And, while we're talking backgrounds, why not include an even more distracting virtual background? Sure, you're on a beach, or drifting through space. In a sign of just how confused we are, we even feel the need to wave goodbye at the end of a Zoom call. It's exhausting.

What are the challenges of Zoom calls, or indeed most other video conferencing tools? There are three main issues:

1. Visual distractions. We are not used to seeing ourselves in action, and it's easy to become fixated, or at least distracted, by how we look. It's easy for the meeting to then feel like a performance. Simultaneously seeing multiple faces is also strange. We wouldn't normally have people lined up in a grid like the start of the Brady Bunch, but rather be attending to one or two faces at any point in time. Reseach has repeatedly demonstrated that visual distractions significantly decrease our ability to focus and increase stress.

2. Auditory distractions. The inability for everyone to speak at once is a real issue. The small delays and "loudest person wins" nature of Zoom make auditory processing a challenge. The audio itself is of a higher quality than a typical phone call, but it still feels more draining than a landline phone call due to these artefacts.

3. You can't look into someone's eyes. I might try to fake eye contact by staring at the camera, but then I can't see you. Thankfully, research demonstrates that people are lousy at figuring out if we're making eye contact in real life anyway. In fact researchers found that we can't pick the difference between someone looking into our eyes versus looking predominantly at our mouth. But on Zoom, the distance between the camera and the person's face is larger than a real human face - the effect of not making eye contact is more pronounced.

All of this leads to an increased cognitive and attentional load. We end up suffering from what researchers call continuous partial attention.

So Zoom - is it worth it? That largely depends on the work and what you're trying to achieve. If you're after interaction, trust and engagement, it's hard to beat face-to-face. If face-to-face is not possible, Zoom is a great backup. We just need to recognise and manage the risks.

In particularly we need to minimise visual distractions - research has show that this leads to a 16% boost in performance for time-sensitive, high focus work, while also reducing stress by 18%. Reducing auditory distractions will also help.

So how do we reduce distractions and the cognitive and attentional load of Zoom calls and meetings. Here are five suggestions:

1. Hide the self view. Check that your video feed looks okay at the start of the call, then use the menu on your own image so you can no longer see yourself. Just keep in mind that others can still see you - there's a reason webcams have little lights on them to show when you're on. Search Zoom call fails on YouTube for some great examples.

2. Use the speaker view. Rather than having everyone on screen at once in equal size boxes, shift to just being able to see the speaker. I've found this really helps me to focus on one person at a time, rather than trying to attend to a sea of faces.

3. Mute when not speaking. Muting yourself reduces the audio distractions for others. We need to treat a Zoom call like it's not fully duplex, particularly as group sizes increase. Despite any claims to the contrary, the experience of multiple people trying to speak at once is far more painful on Zoom than in real life.

4. Make it interactive. In the field of online learning there's a popular myth that people can't attend to any video that's longer than 6 minutes. There doesn't seem to be much concrete evidence to back that up and, in fact, research shows that you can increase beyond that easily by making the video more interactive. The same principle applies to Zoom calls. Use polls, chat, breakout rooms, annotations, reactions - anything to spice things up and make it less of a presentation.

5. Reduce the length of your meetings. Recognise the cognitive and attentional load by making meetings shorter. As a rule of thumb I reduce the length of Zoom calls by a third to what I would expect people to engage in face-to-face.

And if none of that works, hey, here's a crazy idea - why not try a phone conference call instead? Use a bit of variety and gain ideas and input from your team about how to improve things.

Now I'm sure a lot of these technical issues will become smoothed out over time. Someone will figure out how to mount a camera behind a screen to mimic face-to-face, and I'm sure the audio challenges will reduced. Perhaps people will listen back at this episode in 5 years and think - well, how quaint! However, keep in mind the broader principle that focus and distractions are enemies. Anything we can do to reduce visual and auditory distractions at work are going to make a difference, whether it's online or in an office.

What have been your Zoom experiences? Make contact via the Leadership.Today website and let me know. I love a good story. Have a great week.

Archibald, M. M., Ambagtsheer, R. C., Casey, M. G., & Lawless, M. (2019). Using Zoom Videoconferencing for Qualitative Data Collection: Perceptions and Experiences of Researchers and Participants. International Journal of Qualitative Methods.

Haworth Human Performance Lab. Visual Distraction Effects on Deliberate Focus Work. 2017 http://media.haworth.com/asset/96533/VisualDistractions.ResearchReport.201708.Johnson.pdf

Kathy Roper and Parminder Juneja Distractions in the workplace revisited. May 2008 Journal of Facilities Management 6(2):91-109

Nitza Geri, Amir Winer, Beni Zaks. Challenging the six-minute myth of online video lectures: Can interactivity expand the attention span of learners? Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management Volume 5, Issue 1, 2017

Shane L. Rogers, Oliver Guidetti, Craig P. Speelman, Melissa Longmuir, Ruben Phillips. Contact Is in the Eye of the Beholder: The Eye Contact Illusion. Perception, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/24/zoom-apologises-after-being-hit-by-partial-global-outage

Summary

In this week's Leadership Today podcast we look at a structure for team meetings to bring out the best in your people.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 91 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at how to structure team meetings to bring out the best in your people.

A study released in July 2020 looked at the impact of pandemic-related lockdowns on over three million people across North America, Europe and the Middle East. Scouring through de-identified data from a technology firm, they found the number of meetings per person increased 13%, as did the number of attendees per meetings (14%). However the average length of meetings decreased by 20%, with an overall impact of people spending 12% less time per day in meetings. So more, shorter meetings with more people, but less time per day in meetings overall. But how effective are all those meetings?

In episode 89 we looked at ways to make meetings better. Last week in episode 90 I shared a monthly one-on-one meeting structure. This week we round out our focus on meetings by walking through a team meeting structure I have been using for years.

You will find the structure in the show notes. It includes:

Positives

What's going well?

Negatives

What's not going well? What's getting in the way at work?

Priorities

What are the current priorities as a team?

Support

How can we best support each other?

Interesting

What is on the horizon that we are noticing?

Anything else to discuss?

Action Items

Review action items from previous month

Add any new action items

It's important to start off with the positives and a reflection on what is going well. Depending on the size of the team this might involve some time for people to share the positives in twos and threes before summarising them back to the broader team. It's really easy to skate right past the positives. We have a tendency to underplay our successes as we shift our focus to the next big thing. However celebrations are important. Use the positives part of the meeting to recognise these accomplishments.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the discussion of positives is followed by negatives. We can sometimes be scared of talking about the negatives and what's getting in the way at work. As I've shared before, frustrations have a disastrous impact on well-being and productivity. We need to air the negatives, but also bring a focus on improvement and action.

Next we cover priorities. To be clear, this isn't about having each individual share their own priorities, but rather looking at priorities at a team-level. This discussion helps everyone to have a shared understanding of what really matters.

That leads naturally to a discussion around support. Given the priorities and challenges we have discussed, how can we best support each other? That includes supporting each other by sharing around the work load, but could also include other ways of offering support.

I always include a section in team meetings focused on interesting things. This could include things that people are noticing in the organisation, observations about clients, customers or competitors - really anything that might be of interest that doesn't neatly fit into the positive or negative categories.

The final section of the meeting is focused on action items. We take this time to review any action items from the previous month, and add any new action items.

As per the monthly one-on-one meetings I discussed last week, I share this agenda with the team, and then circulate a bullet point summary of what we discussed afterwards, just in a Word document, with the most recent meeting at the top of the document. That document helps new team members to quickly come up to speed by reviewing the main points from the last few team meetings.

If you are running your team meetings exclusively online, I would add some time at the start of the meeting as a quick check in to see how people are doing. This is particularly important for new team members who may not have met others face-to-face. You might also profile a different team member each month, having them share something about themselves like a favourite holiday destination including a photo. Building trust and connection is very difficult online, so it's worth building that into your meetings if they are exclusively online.

And you may be wondering about the monthly timing for these meetings. By all means you can meet with your team more often than monthly, however I believe it makes a big difference to have a more formal meeting once a month.

As always I love receiving feedback on episodes. You can make contact via the website at Leadership.Today. That's where you'll find today's show notes, complete with the meeting structure that you're welcome to adapt for your team. Have a great week.

Reference

Collaborating During Coronavirus: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nature of Work

Evan DeFilippis, Stephen Michael Impink, Madison Singell, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Raffaella Sadun

NBER Working Paper No. 27612 Issued in July 2020

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27612

Monthly one-on-one meetings - we all know we should have them, but we might be less clear about what to discuss. This week we revisit a structure for monthly one-on-one meetings that will take your leadership to the next level.

Hello and welcome to episode 90 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we revisit a structure for monthly one-on-one meetings that will take your leadership to the next level.

For those playing the long game with the Leadership Today podcast, you might recall that we discussed monthly one-on-one meetings way back in August 2018 with episode 4 in the context of performance reviews. I think it's a topic worth revisiting all on its own, because so few leaders have structured one-on-one meetings with their people.

Over the past month I've been running quite a few of our online workshop, The Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership. Towards the end of the one hour workshop I typically mention that I have examples of one-on-one and team meeting structures, and participants are always keen to take a look. I think as leaders we often want to do the right thing, but we're not sure what the right thing is. The theory is great, but it's even better to look at what all that research ends up looking like in practice. So this week's podcast is extremely practical, and you will want to review the show notes at the Leadership Today website where you can highlight and copy the one-on-one meeting structure. Next week I'll share my monthly team meeting structure.

Now I'm not saying that these structures are perfect for everyone in every situation, but I have road tested them with hundreds of leaders, and also applied them with the people and teams that I lead. They have really helped me to lead effectively, and I'm sure they will do the same for you as well. You are welcome to adapt them to your needs.

I suggest you have a more structured one-on-one meeting each month. You may already be meeting with individuals more often than that, but this structure will help you to make that a little more formal and interactive. Here's an overview of the structure and topics.

What are you currently doing well?

What do you need to work on?

What are your current priorities?

What goals need to be added, removed or updated?

What's getting in the way at work?

How might we address this?

How is your development plan progressing?

What training and development experiences might be beneficial?

Anything else to discuss?

Review action items from previous month

Add any new action items

I share this agenda with people, then ask them to come prepared to our meeting with bullet points under each topic. I also come prepared with my own bullet point thoughts. I'm clear about my intent for the meeting - this is as much about helping them as it is about helping me. It's not a performance review - it's a structured update to help us to work together more effectively.

Let's start with performance. We don't talk about performance enough and, as a result, people are often uncomfortable with performance discussions. Discussing performance each month helps to normalise it. People are expected to come to the meeting prepared with a list of what they think they are currently doing well, and also what they need to work on. When we as their leader do the same, it's an opportunity to build a more comprehensive picture of their performance. Some people are overly hard on themselves and just focus on their development needs. As a leader you can build them up by pointing out what they're doing well. Others might overestimate their performance or understate their need for development. Including discussion about what they need to work on helps highlight that we all have things to work on. The moment we think we're perfect is the same moment we confirm that we're not perfect.

Next up is priorities. There may be priorities for your people that you're not aware of. Discussing priorities helps you to establish and clarify what the priorities are from your perspective. This additional clarity is like oxygen for your people. If you've ever worked in a role that lacked clarity around priorities, you know just how debilitating that can be. Here we also talk about goals. This isn't just to track how the person is going against their goals, but also an opportunity to add new goals, remove goals that are completed or no longer relevant, and to update other goals. In that way we're not treating goals as "set and forget" - it's helping to recognise that circumstances change, and a monthly revisit of goals is extremely useful.

Next is manager support. People face frustrations that they may not otherwise share with you unless you ask. They may not think a frustration or obstacle is worth raising with you. So we need to ask the question directly - what's getting in the way at work? Now, just because we ask the question doesn't mean that, as a leader, we take sole responsibility for fixing the issue. It's far better to work with the person to help them to remove the obstacle wherever that is possible. But there will be occasions where something needs to be addressed at your level, to either remove the frustration or reduce the impact on your people.

It's easy to let training and development plans slip, so it's great to explore progress on a monthly basis. With staff who are at earlier points in their career I spend time in this section building their resume. We discuss what they can now do that they couldn't do a month ago. This is a great way of highlighting the progress they are making, as it's very easy to not reflect on what development has been achieved. You can also use this section of the meeting to explore other development opportunities. Keep in mind that this isn't just training courses - it could be shadowing someone from another team, working on a new project, or presenting at a team meeting. Help expand the possibilities for development even further.

The section called other is a chance to discuss anything else that doesn't fit into the headings we've covered so far. We want to give our people every opportunity to share with us whatever is on their mind.

At the end of the meeting there is time to cover any action items that were committed to the previous month, and also an opportunity for the leader and their direct report to add any actions for the coming month. This helps both you and those you lead to be accountable for actions to which you have agreed.

I find these meetings take around 45 minutes to an hour with new staff, gradually settling in to around 30 to 45 minutes over time. It's not a great deal of time and effort to invest in your people.

I encourage you to give this one-on-one meeting structure a go. You might even share this episode with your team to introduce the approach. The feedback I've had from people who have implemented it has been very positive, and I would love to hear how it goes for you as well.

Have a great week and I look forward to sharing a team meeting structure with you next week.

The amount of time leaders spend in meetings has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. But so too, thankfully, has our understanding of what makes a meeting effective. It's time to have better (and fewer) meetings now!

Hello and welcome to episode 89 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at ways to have better (and fewer) meetings now!

Over the past 50 years, the average amount of time leaders spend in meetings has steadily increased from below 10 hours per week in the 1960s to now approaching 23 hours per week. And the recent proliferation of video conferencing has removed the travel time between meetings altogether. We can now move from meeting to meeting without even leaving our desk. As a result, many of the clients I am working with describe an increase in meetings with remote working, and the associated demands that places on their time.

Research into the attitudes of senior managers towards meetings identifies 65% of people who see meetings getting in the way of completing work. A similar percentage, 64%, see meetings being at the expense of deep concentration work. It's hard to get into the flow if you have meetings scheduled every other hour.

Other research by Desmond Leach and colleagues looked into the factors that lead meetings to be rated as effective by participants. They examined a range of factors including the use of an agenda, keeping minutes, punctuality, the appropriateness and comfort of the room facilities, the number of attendees, the length of the meetings and the use of a chairperson. Of all of these, they found the three most important factors were:

1. Agenda use - distributing an agenda ahead of time, sticking to it during the meeting and completing all the items on the agenda

2. Punctuality - both starting and finishing the meeting on time

3. Facilities - having an appropriate room that is setup well, and that is comfortable and quiet

The researchers noted that these three factors are important independent of the type of meeting. So whether the meeting is for routine issues, information sharing, or emerging problems the three key factors are agenda, punctuality and facilities.

Of course with so many meetings now occurring online, it's easy to translate the meeting room facilities finding across to the technology platforms we are using. When we are meeting online, the technology is the setting. Video conferencing software continues to improve dramatically, but does call for a different skill set to be used effectively. If you have used a particularly clunky platform, you know how detrimental that can be to the meeting, independent of the agenda and punctuality. What I call 'mixed mode meetings' are particularly challenging - where you have some people individually online, and others sitting together in a room or across several rooms. It's extremely difficult to maintain a balance between the two types of meeting attendees. It's for that reason that I recommend either having everyone in the same room, or having everyone individually online, but don't mix the two unless you have the high end technology to pull that off.

Bringing all of that together, here are five ways to have better (and fewer) meetings now:

1. Begin by asking "Does this need to be a meeting?" Meetings are most effective when you need real time interaction, where people are Interdependent and generating new ideas. Being in the same place at the same time allows people to build on others ideas in real time. It's also appropriate to call people together for celebrations, milestones and recognition. However, if it is one-way information sharing or updates without discussion, switch it to another format using video, email or collaboration software. There's no need to have everyone together at the same time for information sharing.

2. Set some shared expectations for those scheduling and facilitating meetings. Some organisations require a meeting to have a clear purpose and agenda before it can be scheduled. In addition I would look carefully at the attendee list in terms of the role each person is expected to play in the meeting. If you can't identify why someone is required, then save them the bother and don't invite them. The excuse of inviting people 'just in case something comes up' is not a good enough reason to eat into their time. It's a lazy way to lead.

3. Make meetings shorter. Parkinson's law states that work will expand to fill the time available, and the same is true of meetings. Yet suspiciously few meetings are scheduled for less than an hour in length. Why not give a 20 or 30 minute meeting a go. And make sure you complete the agenda. Desmond Leach's research demonstrates that people become particularly frustrated when a long meeting doesn't complete the agenda.

4. Start and finish on time. Punctuality really matters to people. I've seen some organisations that are brilliant at this, with everyone ready to go at the appointed time. Unfortunately, for every one of those organisations, there are others where people routinely arrive 5, 10 or 15 minutes late - with the person chairing the meeting simply waiting for everyone to arrive. That's a great way to encourage people to arrive even later next time.

5. Look for improvements. It's important to leave time at the end of the agenda to reflect on the effectiveness of the meeting. That might include discussing what we did well and what we need to improve.

We all need connection and collaboration. Following these research-based tips will help ensure you're only having the meetings that really matter, and that we're making the most of the investment of people's time and energy.

While I have your attention can I please ask you a favour. If you haven't already, please provide a rating or review wherever you download your podcasts. There's a reason why every podcast host asks you to do it, as it really does help others to find the podcast. Have a great week, and I look forward to sharing some more practical leadership research with you next week.

References

Stop the Meeting Madness. Leslie A. Perlow , Constance Noonan Hadley and Eunice Eun, Harvard Business Review July–August 2017

Perceived Meeting Effectiveness: The Role of Design Characteristics. Desmond J. Leach, Steven G. Rogelberg, Peter B. Warr, Jennifer L. Burnfield, Journal of Business Psychology, 2009 24:65–76.