Meetings Done Right

Claire Lew: CEO of Know Your Team.

In this final episode of Meetings Done Right, Noel and Ashley talk to Claire Lew of Know Your Team about creating a safe space for conflict and feedback within your company. Claire talks about how not to be a bad boss, and offers some specific tips on what it takes to be a good meeting facilitator, and suggests how much a good facilitator should speak. Claire also shares her worst and best meeting stories.

01:08 - The Reason for Creating Know Your Team

04:37 - Bad Bosses: Are We Someone Else’s Worst Boss?!

09:08 - Being a Good Meeting Facilitator

17:56 - Remote vs In-Person Meetings

20:32 - Worst Meeting: Letting Someone Go

22:01 - Best Meeting: When Things Get Done

23:20 - Meeting Tip: Defining a Purpose + Ask For Advice Rather Than Asking for Feedback

Special Guest: Claire Lew.

Nancy Pautsch: Chief Evangelist of Stakeholder Value (aka President) at Envision IT.

Ashley and Noel talk to Nancy Pautsch about conscious capitalism and also about how to have an intentional culture and communicate uncomfortable topics in meetings. We talk about how self-awareness can help build other awareness and improve communication. Nancy also tells us what makes for a great meeting.

00:45 - Building an Intentional Communication Culture

01:55 - Conscious Capitalism

03:32 - Conscious Communication

06:12 - Envision IT as a Conscious Capitalism Company

09:04 - Operationalization and Optimization

10:47 - Fostering Good Communication

15:00 - Being Present

16:02 - Good Meetings: Having a Purpose For the Meeting to Foster Innovation

Special Guest: Nancy Pautsch.

Elise Zelechowski: Director of Social Impact for ThoughtWorks.

Noel and Ashley are joined by Elise Zelechowski, Director of Social Impact from ThoughtWorks do discuss inclusivity. We'll talk about why it's valuable to have an inclusive culture, how to prepare new hires for an inclusive environment, and how to use these principles to run more effective meetings. Also, Elise shares her best and worst meeting stories (hint: close your laptops in meetings...).

00:55 - Having an Inclusive Culture

01:24 - Benefits of Having an Inclusive Culture

02:36 - Preparing New Hires for an Inclusive Culture Environment

03:35 - How an “Officer of Social Impact” Came to be Within ThoughtWorks

05:47 - Facilitating Effective and Smooth Meetings

09:05 - Relationship Building

10:01 - Remote Meetings

13:47 - Worst Meetings: Open Laptops

15:44 - Best Meetings: Being Comfortable and Feeling Safe Challenging Opinions

16:40 - Meeting Tip: Taking Clear Notes + Recording Meetings

Special Guest: Elise Zelechowski.

Ava Butler: Organizational Development Consultant, Coach, and Author of Mission Critical Meetings: 81 Practical Facilitation Techniques

Noel and Ashley are joined by Ava Butler, author of Mission Critical Meetings: 81 Practical Facilitation Techniques to talk about the Parking Lot card in the Inclusion Deck. Using this card stores an idea for later and tells everybody that the discussion is important but off-topic, and we can come back to it later. Ava explains how having a parking lot helps meetings stay on topic -- assuming you've set a topic in the first place. Ava also shares her worst and best meeting stories.

01:44 - The Genesis of the Parking Lot Technique

03:17 - Judging Whether Things Should Go Into the Parking Lot

05:13 - Laying Meeting Ground Rules Re: the Parking Lot

06:34 - Using the Parking Lot

09:08 - Building For Inclusion

11:01 - Running Remote Meetings

12:52 - Bad Meetings: When You’re Not Supposed To Be There!

14:10 - Best Meetings: Breakthrough Thinking

Special Guest: Ava Butler.

Michael Donnelly: Founder and CEO of FWD Collective.

Today Ashley and Noel are joined by Michael Donnelly of the FWD collective to discuss the Opinion card, which limits the number of times a leader in the meeting can express an opinion, as opposed to facilitating or asking questions. Michael talks about how a facilitator can manage a meeting and shares her best and worst meeting stories (the best story involves politeness).

02:58 - Problems with Offering Opinions as You Have Them

06:29 - Controlling Meetings From a Facilitator Standpoint

10:00 - The Purpose of Opinion Cards

12:03 - Worst Meeting Story: When You Can’t Get a Word in Edgewise

13:23 - Best Meeting Story: Diverse and Polite Meeting Attendees

14:55 - Being a Scribe

18:00 - Meeting Tip: Set Expectations (PBC: Purpose Benefit Check)

Special Guest: Michael Donnelly.

Annette Jensen:: Director of Global Strategy and Organization Development at Widen Enterprises.

In this episode, Ashley and Noel talk to Annette Jensen about the Side Chatter card, which is played when people are having side conversations that not everyone in the meeting can hear. Annette talks about how much time her company spends in meetings, how leaving on time can help a meeting to have better focus, turning video on in remote meetings, making meetings interesting and shares her worst meeting story (it involves a real wastepaper basket and fake paper).

02:44 - Being a “Freedom-Centered Workplace”

04:43 - Problems With and the Cost of Side Chatter

07:06 - Encouraging Focus During Meetings

14:37 - Avoiding Boring Meetings

15:49 - Bringing Widen’s Culture to the European Headquarters

18:36 - Meeting Trick: Stop Talking + Create An Agenda

21:17 - Worst Meeting Story: Be Honest About the Topic!

Special Guest: Annette Jensen.

Joe McCormack: Host of the a podcast series "Just Saying". Author of BRIEF: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less. Founder/Managing Director of The Brief Lab.

In this episode, Ashley and Noel discuss the Beating A Dead Horse inclusion card with Joe McCormack, founder of The Brief Lab, and host of the podcast series "Just Saying". We talk about the importance of making your point briefly.

02:00 - Facilitating Brief Meetings

03:13 - The Importance of Creating a Meeting Agenda

04:52 - Organizing Effective Meetings

09:14 - Discussion vs Brainstorming Meetings

10:39 - Joe’s Podcast: "Just Saying"

12:21 - Recognizing Good vs Bad Meetings

13:16 - Communicating Remotely

15:41 - Good Meeting Story: Superb Agenda and Tracking Time

Special Guest: Joe McCormack.

Jessie Shternshus: Founder and Owner of the Improv Effect.

In the Inclusion Meeting Card deck, the Angel's Advocate card is a role that is given to a person who uses it to encourage other ideas in the meeting. In the spirit of "Yes, And", we have Jessie Shternshus of The Improv Effect to talk to us about how to encourage brainstorming in your meetings and how to build a group that's comfortable together. Jessie also shares her worst meeting story, which involves a chair.

00:45 - How to Use The Angel’s Advocate Card (Yes, And?)

Special Guest: Jessie Shternshus.

Rachael O'Meara: Transformation leadership and executive coach who empowers professionals to learn and build the emotional intelligence skills to thrive at work and beyond. Author of Pause: Harnessing the Life Changing Power of Giving Yourself a Break. More from Rachael at rachaelomeara.com.

In the Inclusion Meeting Cards, the Devil's Advocate is a role potentially given to a more junior member of the team in the hopes of giving them permission to voice their critiques. For a discussion of why that's useful, we have Rachael O'Meara, author of the book Pause: Harnessing the Life Changing Power of Giving Yourself a Break. Rachel suggests we see this role as the critic with immense ability to change the course of the decision process. Without being a meanie. And Rachael shares her best and worst meeting stories.

02:22 - What the Devil’s Advocate Card Means

03:38 - Encouraging People Who Don’t Feel Empowered to Speak Up

06:00 - The Role of a Critic

10:11 - Building Cultures of Feedback

13:25 - Advice for Remote Meetings

16:12 - Taking a Pause

19:47 - Good Meeting Story: Speaking Freely

21:23 - Bad Meeting Story: Discussing Burnout

Special Guest: Rachael O'Meara.

Audrey Boyle: Comedian: Mom Funnies and college professor who teaches “Personal Branding and Social Media Marketing” at Forbes Business School.

In this episode of Meetings Done Right, Audrey Boyle helps us discuss tangents. Sometimes tangents are helpful, because they help teams form connections, but often they prevent important topics from being discusses. How can you tell the difference? We'll talk about techniques for managing tangents both with and without the Inclusion Meeting Cards, and Audrey tells a somewhat cringe-inducing worst meeting story.

02:13 - How to Tell Whether Someone is on a Good or Bad Tangent

05:16 - Brainstorming and Retrospectives

09:39 - Tangents and Remote Meetings

13:47 - Meeting Tip: Ask Open-Ended Questions and Setting the Foundation for “No Bad Answers”

14:49 - Good Meetings: Walking Meetings

15:24 - Bad Meetings: Not Setting an Agenda

Special Guest: Audrey Boyle.