The following are an assortment of tips for having better interactions and better meetings.
Don’t Be Frustrated
Don’t ever agree to the premise that you’re “frustrated” or “upset” at work.
People will often consciously or subconsciously say things like “I know you’re frustrated, but…”
If you’re in a meeting and this happens, cut them off. Say “to be clear I’m not frustrated I’m…”
- Just escalating an issue
- Just getting more information,
- Just making sure that X is accounted for
… or whatever
Once you allow the premise that you’re frustrated, everything that happens after is someone dealing with a frustrated person, which is never to your benefit.
Another benefit of this technique is that if you are frustrated, it acts as a mantra to remind yourself to stop acting that way ASAP.
Taking Notes
One of the simplest ways to be a better leader is to be the note taker in meetings.
Taking notes:
- Is important. You codify the discussion.
- Is humble. It shows everyone an act of service.
- Helps you shape the conversation. If you can’t write the logic, the logic isn’t happening.
- Gives people something to look at (present the notes).
- Gives you a chance to slow the meeting if things get emotional, and lets you create natural pauses to get things back on track.
- Shows people that their opinion is both heard but also is being recorded, by way of visibly creating a record. This acknowledges contributions and dissuades people from saying wildly stupid stuff (e.g. not wanting to be codified as the person that won’t let the new company-wide process happen because their it’ll harsh their vibe when they work from their Tahoe house).
Of all the ways I’ve tried to get people to run meetings better, having them take notes while facilitating is the only one that works reliably and well. I’ve seen people go from rambling rabbit hole-ing messes to focused meeting facilitators with just this one change.
Avoid Boundary Objections
So much of bad meeting feedback is “if you take this idea too far we’ll have problems.” This is one of the most useless pieces of feedback.
If someone says “we should let people choose lunch once a week,” and you respond with “if we let people choose everything around here the inmates will run the asylum!” - you’re being actively counter-productive.
Boundary objections are almost never realistic and are often disrespectful - they imply that the presenter is dumb, foolish, or would act with low integrity. No Alan, I’m not proposing we let employees choose executive comp just because I said once a week they should be able to choose pizza or burgers.
Boundary thinking has a place, namely in thinking about the behavior of engineered systems. Beyond that, it’s almost always a negative distraction.
Let People Be Wrong
Another way people often waste time in meetings is chasing the accuracy of details that don’t matter. The meeting is about whether we should code freeze on the 10th or the 11th, and your department head is debating a detail on slide 5 about how many customers we have in Italy. It doesn’t matter.
People do this all the time, because:
- Some people see it as their job to correct every mistake they see. ATTN: it’s not.
- Some people get itchy if they think something is wrong. Instead of living with the tension of an unimportant thing they don’t agree with, they need to resolve it.
- Some people are well intentioned but don’t realize they’re wasting time.
- Some people believe that not calling out something they think is false is implicit agreement with it.
Let unimportant things go even if you think they might be wrong. If you really need to do something about them, you can:
- Say “I don’t agree with all the details here, but it doesn’t matter, I think __”
- Send a follow up to a meeting or discussion with a note on the thing you think is false
Time Your Interactions
Important meetings shouldn’t be on Monday or Friday, and should never be the last meeting of the day, and shouldn’t be during lunch hour, and shouldn’t be changed by calendaring software, and nobody should be off camera (if remote).
Narrowly, avoid all of these in particular for 1:1s. Dynamic calendaring software that often moves 1:1s around to “optimize” your calendar does more harm than good. There’s value in having meetings at the same time every week. It allows for a rhythm of preparation and a consistency in environment (e.g. morning vs afternoon).
Prioritize Your Meeting Agenda and Don’t Force Yourself to Get To Everything
“We have to move on to get to the rest of the agenda” is a sign of a bad meeting.
Your meeting should have an agenda with topics in priority order. You move on from things when you’re done with them.
Bad meetings focus on moving on to the next item even when the current item is unresolved.
This is dumb.
Stop having meetings with 5 topics that get cut off and produce no value. Discuss 2 points well and find time for the rest or punt them.
Companies that can’t run good meetings almost always can’t prioritize well. An overbooked, under-prioritized meeting is a symptom of an overbooked and under-prioritized company.
Relatedly, don’t try to rush the end of a meeting to finish something. It’s always better to find a separate time. One of the most common unforced errors is rushing things. A great way to be wrong is to be right in a rush.