July 2, 2025 • 33 mins
We've all been there—staring at a calendar invite with a cryptic title and no context, then spending the meeting trying to figure out why you're even there. In this episode, Indra and Amanda tackle the all-too-familiar plague of purposeless meetings.
From weekly leadership check-ins to post-meeting debriefs about the next meeting, they unpack the hidden cost of unclear gatherings: time, energy, morale, and productivity. They also offer practical tips for spotting meetings that should never happen—and tools to make the ones that do more effective and engaging.
Whether you love a good working session or loathe yet another calendar clog, this one's for you. Let’s stop gathering without a goal.
Useful Links:
- Meeting Design (book): https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/meeting-design/
- Fixable Episode featuring Priya Parker from May 12, 2025 (podcast episode): https://podcasts.apple.com/zw/podcast/how-to-fix-meetings-w-master-fixer-priya-parker/id1677016372?i=1000708057390
- The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker: https://www.priyaparker.com/book-art-of-gathering
- Lean Coffee (a methodology for meetings that do not have a structure): https://agilecoffee.com/leancoffee/
- The Messy Middle Matters Merch: shop.themessymiddlematters.com
- The Messy Middle Matters Glossary: http://bit.ly/448qQxm
- Feedback for The Messy Middle Matters: http://bit.ly/3ZVuFn7
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:06):
Indra. I'm Indra,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:08):
and I'm Amanda,
Indra Klavins (00:10):
and we'd like to welcome you to the messy middle
matters. Hey, Amanda, how areyou today? I'm good. How are you
Indra? I'm good. I'm good today,we're talking about one of the
more frustrating things that youand I get to experience at work
or our listeners, probably tooyou know, the all too familiar
experience when you walk into ameeting that you didn't
(00:33):
organize, you get there and noone in the meeting knows why
you're meeting, including theperson who set that meeting. And
I'm not talking about the timewhen the person is like, running
back to backs and they've got,like, they're spinning all the
place, and they're trying to geteverything done, and they need a
second to, like, be like, holdon. Which meeting is this? Like,
they literally don't know whythat meeting was scheduled.
(00:54):
Probably because someone said,Hey, we need to meet. So pull
these people together again. Andthis is the subject line, but
nobody knows why it's there,right? Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (01:03):
nobody knows why it's there. My favorite ones
are the ones that just say, youknow, like, Team sync the
meeting, and it's like, what arewe thinking about? Like, who?
What's the agenda, who's leadingthis meeting? Like, why?
Indra Klavins (01:19):
100% and I, you and I both love a good meeting,
like we love a good meeting,like I really, really love
working with humans and workingthrough things with humans. But
when none of us knows why it'shappening, it's kind of, it kind
of feels the worst. It kind offeels the worst. So let's talk
about some of the most commonmeeting. Example, types you gave
a wonderful subject line, like,but my personal favorite, that
(01:44):
I've lived a few differenttimes, I'm sure we're going to
dig into as we as we dig in alittle bit further is like
weekly leadership meetings thatthat's a meeting that you know,
for me, is, can be the best andcan be the worst. Can be the
best, can be the worst. It youknow? Yeah, it's one of those
meetings where it just feelslike someone told you that you
(02:07):
have to have a weeklyleadership, leadership meeting
so you do, even if you havenothing to discuss. Well, and
you do, and like you know it, bythe nature of my role, I've been
the person who, when I joined anorganization winds up taking
over that meeting, owning thecalendar, invite, owning the
agenda, owning the everything.But it's so hard because it is
(02:28):
our meeting. We are a leadershipteam. It's not just mine. Indra
is not the CEO of theorganization. She is a member of
that leadership team. I'mtalking about myself in third
person, which drives me crazy.But anyway, I'm a member of that
team, and we all need to bringthings. We're all responsible
for different parts of thebusiness, and we all need to
(02:51):
contribute to something. I candivine things from the sky that
are really important all thetime, like that is just one of
my superpowers. But that may notbe the most important stuff.
It's and everyone just sitsthere and stares at me, like,
what are we talking about today?I'm like, I don't know. You're
leading this team too.
Amanda Jane Lee (03:09):
Yeah, everything you just said could
also apply to the weekly teammeeting. Same, same, right? It
doesn't have to be a leadershipmeeting. It can be a weekly team
meeting, the weekly meeting, or,however, whatever the cadence
is, right, the the team meeting,where your whole team gets
together and you talk about, youknow, whatever you need to talk
about are, like, is the teamworking? Well, like, what,
(03:32):
what's, let's celebrate. Let's,let's talk about some issues.
Let's work through some of thisstuff. But it isn't up to the
manager or the team lead to cometo the table with the full list
of topics,
Indra Klavins (03:46):
100% and you know, some of the you know, we
love to give tools and tips. Andthis is by no means the only
meeting type we're going to betalking about just but just to
give people a sense of how Ihandle those types of meetings,
I love to hear how you handlethem. So for me, I've always got
a running document. Like, thereis the me, the leadership
meeting document, and it's inreverse chronological order, so
(04:09):
the most recent meeting is atthe top, and then I drop in
topics, and I've got even aplaceholder for future topics,
right? And what we'll do is, Iwill, I will send out reminders
before the meeting, like, Heyfolks, I drafted an agenda. I
chose what the most importantthings are for today. Feel free
to look at the document and seehow it goes. Or, you know, at
(04:31):
the top of the conversation,let's, let's assume that
nobody's had a chance to look atthat. And also, you'll see
people live editing as they getinto the room, talking, because
usually a Google Doc or a sharedoc, and they'll start adding
stuff. And then what we do is, Iapply a methodology. It's I riff
on it. It's not the purestversion of it, called Lean
(04:52):
Coffee, but like Lean Coffee,the concept is, at the very
highest level, is that, youknow, you brainstorm your topics
for the. Meeting at the top ofthe meeting, and then everybody
votes on what the highestpriorities are, right? And so by
by having everyone add things,and by using a shared document,
I organically over the course oftime, as I know the as I know
(05:14):
the leadership team, usually myagenda is accurate, unless
something sneaks in. And then wejust reprioritize. But then we
decide, like, Hey, we're goingto spend 10 minutes on this. At
the end of 10 minutes, we'relike, do we need more time, or
is it? Do we need to move to thenext topic? And we do this time
checking throughout the wholething. And that's my really by
(05:35):
making it everyone'sresponsibility, by having
everybody prioritize the topicsat the top of the meeting, and
by time checking along the wayand helping everyone mark time
and understand how much timeyou're spending on each topic.
That's my like the meetingwithout the meeting that I'm
sort that I am in charge of, butI cannot myself define the
purpose of it. That's myfavorite approach. How do you
(05:56):
handle like, those leadership orthose team meetings that are the
weekly recurrings that are just
Amanda Jane Lee (06:01):
Yeah, yeah. The whole time you were talking, I
was just nodding, because that'sexactly, that's exactly how I
handle it, right? Like it'spractice just the most
collaborative way, right? YouYou have a shared agenda doc
that you attach to the meeting,and then you remind people
before the meeting, yep, to fillin topics, and then you just
(06:22):
kind of organically figure itout. And the more you do it, the
more you find your rhythm, youfind like, what the dynamic of
the team is, and it becomes amore seamless process, I think,
yeah, and it
Indra Klavins (06:36):
builds culture. It builds culture. And like, I
love it, I love the method, orthe methodology, or the
approach, or whatever, whateveryou want to call it, because it
makes everyone have skin in thegame. Because if they just show
up and like, I'm a leader, I'm ateam member, I'm a this and
like, and they're like, Okay, sotell me what to do. Like, no,
(06:57):
we're all adults. Let's adulttogether, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (07:01):
And then, like, setting that expectation is
important too, because then, youknow, if it's on the whole
audience, yeah, to bring topicsto the meeting, they're not
allowed to leave the meetinglike, Well, that was a waste of
time.
Indra Klavins (07:18):
Well, right? And I, what I also do is just for
anyone who is looking to applythis, make sure I document who
added that item to that list. Sowhen it shows up, they lead that
conversation, or they at leastkick start it. Right? They're
like, Hey, this is what thosewords mean. Back to words
matter, episode right? EpisodeTwo. This is what those words
(07:38):
mean, because usually they'lluse some sort of shorthand, let
me and this is what my ask of,why I'm bringing it to you guys.
Let's talk about it and makethem take a version of the lead
during that part of theconversation. Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (07:53):
all right, so we talked about the the weekly
team meeting, yeah? Leadershipmeeting, a team meeting, a stand
up like the weekly or thewhatever cadence meeting, the
regular
Indra Klavins (08:06):
standing meeting, the standing meetings to discuss
things on a regular basis,right? A bunch of people? Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (08:13):
another meeting that I you know a common meeting
is a status meeting, a projectstatus meeting or a program
status status meeting, or a, youknow, a portfolio status
meeting, like the executivestatus meeting.
Indra Klavins (08:28):
Let's talk about it. You know, there,
Amanda Jane Lee (08:33):
there are. We've all been in those meetings
where it just feels likesomeone's just reading off a
document and it's like, thismeeting could have been an
email.
Indra Klavins (08:43):
This meeting could have been an email, and I
think it depends on yourorganization as to whether or
not you can make it an email.That's the interesting part
well, and that's
Amanda Jane Lee (08:51):
the thing, right? Like, I've definitely
worked at organizations whereit's like, yes, it could have
been an email, but is anyonegoing to read that email? 100%
Indra Klavins (09:01):
100% and like in those this is more art than than
science, but in those meetings,like the challenge that you
face, because in the most let'ssay, robust versions of that
meeting, you have to have slidesprepared for each and every
single status update, whichrequires a number of people to
(09:22):
contribute to those slides, toprovide the red, amber, green,
red, yellow, green status forthis particular thing, the
latest updates, the upcomingmilestones, the whatever. So the
creation of slides, which I amsure is going to be a future
episode, slides and decks,right? But then so, like, that's
one lift you have to do for it,then it's the actual meeting and
(09:44):
the facilitation and all ofthat, and reading stuff off the
slides here, folks and you know,in the best version of that most
robust meeting, where you'redoing all of that prep and
everything, it is a place toanswer questions, right? So,
like, I'm thinking back to mytime. At TD Ameritrade, where we
would have the weekly meetingbetween technology and product.
(10:06):
And I was a, I was a, I was acontributor. I was not leading
the meeting in any sort of way.There was, it was a really
active meeting, because they'rereally trying to our product
managers were trying tounderstand, like, what does the
roadmap look like? What'sshifting? Why is it shifting? So
they can communicate out totheir stakeholders? This was on
(10:28):
the institutional side of thehouse, so there were really deep
relationships with our clients,right, our users, and so, like,
it was a very active meetingaround a lot of different
things. So yes, there was alarge lift. Yes, people actually
read the deck before themeeting, which was really
amazing, and they actually useit to answer questions. So you
(10:49):
have to know your organization,as to what the lift is worth and
why, right? Yeah, and it, it's agood call out the lift part,
right? The the preparation, theslides, the gathering
information, the there's all ofthis
Amanda Jane Lee (11:06):
pre meeting stuff, right, that you spend
time on in addition to theactual meeting. And so, you
know, at many organizations thatI've worked at, I've I've always
been the one to either organizeor lead the the status meeting,
the weekly status meeting, ofeverything in flight, and
sometimes even like the thingsthat are on deck. Yep, and it is
(11:32):
an art. It's hard to figure outlike who the right audience is,
because you want, you want toinclude the people who need to
know this information, but youalso want to include people who
can answer and questions andthen and then, and then, and
then, and then, and then andthen. It becomes like a
department wide meeting, andit's like, well, is this the
(11:53):
right is this the right way tospend an hour of everybody's
time?
Indra Klavins (12:00):
I feel like that's yet another episode, like
figuring out who should be inthe meeting, because it's these
meetings can become veryexpensive. And like for folks
who are not familiar with likewhen somebody says this meeting
is expensive, you mentallyquickly calculate what is the
salary of all of the people thatare there, and how much an hour
(12:23):
of time of 16 executives isworth. If something productive
doesn't come out of it, it's notreally useful, you know. And how
do you make that better? Andlike knowing who to invite and
how to keep the right people outof that meeting, because there's
a lot of FOMO. But like I said,that's a different conversation,
right?
Amanda Jane Lee (12:41):
That's a different conversation. And what
I've what I have found works forme is, you know, you do all the
prep, you do as much you makethe format as lightweight as
possible, right? The prep partsometimes, and depends on the
organization, because sometimesexecutives are like, Nope, I
(13:02):
need this in slide format, yeah,if you can get away with it, if
you can get away with it, youpull up, you know, just like the
the actual real time doc of likeyour Project Tracker with the
status, and you just pull thatup, and you just go through it.
And what I found useful forthose types of meetings is, I
make it very clear in the agendathat for anything that's going
(13:26):
well, that for anything that'sgreen, yeah, we just say green.
Move on. Let's focus. Let's usethis time to talk about the
things that are at risk or offtrack, yeah, and like, what we
can do to mitigate that risk, orwhat we are doing to maybe get
this thing back on track. Like,let's discuss, because that is
how we make the best use of ourtime together.
Indra Klavins (13:49):
Yeah, and I'd say the last thing that I would add
maybe to, or the from my side,that comes to mind for status
meetings is playing withcadence. How often are you
meeting? Like, you know, I haveplayed with, like, letting a
meeting disappear off ofpeople's calendars and seeing if
they notice or don't let do andthen when it came here, is like,
(14:10):
let's do it monthly. See ifthat's enough. Let's do it every
other week. Let's I was like,sometimes there is this desire,
or at the moment of time whenthat series was set up, it made
sense to me twice a week becausea project was at risk, or there
was a major release deadline,everybody needed to know
everything, because there wasjust so much going on. But that
might not be the appropriatecadence at this moment in time.
(14:32):
So play with that like it mightbe more frequent, less frequent
you just did along the way, andyou let it flex as it needs to
flex, right or the duration ofthe meeting. Ah, that one too.
Yeah, that's actually a reallygood one too. I mess with that
stuff all the time,
Amanda Jane Lee (14:47):
right? Yeah, you either expand or contract
that meeting as needed as youknow it is an art, right? You
pay attention to what's goingon, what's discussed, like you.
You make a mental note. Of, oh,you know, we needed more time to
discuss things like three weeksin a row. Maybe we should. We
should expand this meeting alittle bit, 100% 100%
Indra Klavins (15:11):
so let's go on to the namesake of this episode,
the meeting for the meeting forthe meeting for the meeting. I
could keep on going on. Thatcould be recursive, over and
over and over and over again.That's the infinite like, what
like prepping, and there's somany different sub flavors of
that. Like, it's, it's kind of,it can be kind of insane. And
(15:31):
like, sometimes it's worthwhile.And I know that we'll have a
future episode on like, whendoes it make sense to have the
meeting for the medium? Why doyou want to have the meeting for
the meeting. But a lot of timesit's just like, my, my favorite
one is, or it can actuallyhappen afterwards, too.
Sometimes the after meeting,like, what meeting did we just
have? Like, what did y'all hear?Like, I got no idea. It's to
(15:53):
understand. Like, what did, whatdoes leadership want, want? Or,
what did leadership say? Like,what are we doing here? It's
this, like, nebulous, like, WTF,
Amanda Jane Lee (16:04):
right? And when I've seen this meeting for a
meeting for a meeting for ameeting be a thing is when there
is like this, it's usually likean executive leadership meeting,
or a meeting like for executiveleadership, right? Like we the
team is presenting something toexecs, yes, oh yes, yeah, the
(16:29):
team is is expected to presentsomething, whether that's a
project status, whether that's alike, Why did, why did this
project go so wrong, or, like,just something, yeah, to the
executive team, or, like, toleaders, right? Not, not, not
only executives, sure. Andeveryone is stressed out about
it. They're like, what, what dowe present? How do we do it? Do
(16:52):
we do it in, in slide format?Like, what? What is, what does
our agenda look like? Who'sspeaking when, who's talking
about what, who's taking thelead and like, that's when this
meeting for a meeting for ameeting for a meeting usually
happens, in my experience,
Indra Klavins (17:09):
that's a good example. And I think that
there's that could be, as I'msitting here listening to you,
I'm imagining that could eitherbe a really effective, good
working session, or it could beor it could spiral. Trend is up
that it can really spiral. Andif there isn't somebody skillful
(17:29):
who can grab the reins of thatconversation with the right
authority or gravitas orwhatever, depending on their
level or their role. It can belike a bunch of peers trying to
be polite with each other, yettrying to get stuff done, yet
not trying to out themselves fornot knowing what's going on.
(17:51):
Like, oh my gosh, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (17:54):
yeah. I've seen the spiral many times. And the
first, the first example thatcomes to mind is the nitpicking
the deck. It's like, are thesethe right fonts? Should we use
these words? Should this be inbullet form? Like, how many
slides should this be? Should weinclude images? And it's just
Indra Klavins (18:17):
like you're obsessed about talking here.
Yeah, oh my god, I as you weresaying it, I was like, I was
fine. Font was the first wordthat came to mind. Because,
like, they love obsessing withthe font and the layouts of the
fonts, like, you know, and forme, sometimes when I see that
happen, I'm like, I'm grabbing ablank deck because i i whether I
(18:39):
do or I don't, it could be afit. But I'm like, I don't know
where the template is. I'm justgoing to grab a blank deck with
the default Arial font. Let'sfigure out the content. Yep,
let's figure out the content.And sometimes I will just and I
will make sure that isdeliberately ugly so that
everyone doesn't get obsessed.Well, is that the right shade?
Wait, that's our old logo. Like,can we just worry about the
(19:02):
content, and I will hit it withthe pretty stick later. And, you
know, like, make it look pretty,and I will do you a solid. I
just need to worry aboutcontent, right? Like, I we're
not
Amanda Jane Lee (19:12):
here to talk about font colors, font choices,
font size, just the esthetics ofthe deck. What are we trying to
achieve? Right? I'm here to toask you what's important to talk
about in this deck, two of thesepeople at this moment in time,
right? Right? Yeah, I've, I'vebeen in meetings, the pre
(19:36):
meetings, for the pre meetings,the prep meetings, where we are
going through the deck, and likethe deck has been done, and
someone, someone who's been withus this whole time, questions
everything on it, and it's like,Where have you been? I know
you've been here and like youwere the one who said. Okay,
(20:00):
that looks good, but you woke uptoday and all of a sudden, these
are not the right words. This isnot the right thing. This image
does not depict the rightinformation. And yeah, and that,
that's the spiral,
Indra Klavins (20:15):
yeah. And the way that I and I think I've walked
around in my career with moreauthority than I've had, which
has served me well. I've knownwhen I'm stepping above and
just, you know, I'll monitor thesituation, but like, I will
usually step in with a bit ofauthority, say, hey, we
discussed that in the last threemeetings. What's done is done.
(20:35):
We're moving forward. We can dothat the next time. Is this
going to be the deal breaker, oris this something that, like, if
we could do it again, we do itdifferently, like, I need to
know, is this going to tank thewhole thing or not? Like, it
needs to be extreme. If it's notextreme, we're moving forward
from where we are. You've beenhere all along, and unless, I
mean, there is the scenariowhere it could be an executive
and whatever, like you gotta,you gotta use your skills, but,
(20:58):
and just, it's, it's movingforward. The train left the
station. We have our plan. We'removing forward. And so sorry, so
sad. I'll talk to you laterafter this, if we really need to
regroup it for this meeting.We're staying on the course, and
we're doing this.
Amanda Jane Lee (21:14):
Yeah, and I think the the guidance that you
gave of you know there needs tobe somebody who has that
authority or influence who canjust take the reins and control
this meeting. Otherwise, you'regoing to have more meetings
about this meeting. And the bestis when, like, you're obsessed
over, you know, these littledetails, and then you go to the
(21:36):
actual meeting with a capital M,and everything's fine.
Indra Klavins (21:41):
Everything is, and that's where you're just
like, Okay, fine, and that, butthat's when it's important to
have the meeting after themeeting and say to everyone,
hey, this is what it took for usto get here today. It went
really well. Let's rememberthis, and let's not repeat the
same spiral the next time,because I'm going to literally
(22:02):
take this deck that they loved,or it's a template spreadsheet
or whatever, and we're going toliterally just replace content
next time, and we're going toassign slides, and this is how
we're going to run the show. Andthey'll look at you, and I'm
like, okay, and then the nexttime the meeting comes up,
you're like the next type flavorof that meeting, you know, you
(22:25):
remind them the same thing yousaid in that post. Me, they
think that that's where the moreyou can lather, rinse, repeat,
the better off you're going tobe in making sure that your
meetings are purposeful andeffective.
Amanda Jane Lee (22:39):
Yeah, the lather, rinse and repeat is good
and like, ensure everybodyunderstands what we're
lathering, rinsing andrepeating, right? Like, have a
clear agenda. Have a clear youknow, if you, if you do need the
pre meeting for the meeting,which sometimes, oftentimes, you
do at least one, make it veryclear that this is, these are
(23:03):
the things that you want toachieve in the meeting, 100%
Indra Klavins (23:08):
100% and you know, I do, we do like to keep
our episodes tight. And I we,this could be its own. This own
topic is the bigger the bigforums, like your off sites,
your summits, your town halls. Ifeel like, I feel like that
could be a rabbit hole that wecould get stuck in. But no, just
(23:29):
no listeners, we are going tomake sure that we have a topic
on organizing large forums,because that is its own. It's
got its own spirals. It's gotits own spirals. It's got its
own churn that goes to it. So,you know, we've talked a little
bit about, like, the cost of thepurpose, purposeless meetings,
like we've talked about timewasted, like, or, or the cost of
(23:49):
the meetings themselves, right?There is that. You know, there's
the frustration and thedisengagement that can happen if
you talk about things for fartoo long and aren't doing, you
know, productivity, there's adrain that happens with people.
Like, there's there. There are alot of hidden costs. Yeah, the
the
Amanda Jane Lee (24:09):
drain, the mental and emotional drain
Indra Klavins (24:12):
of a truly purposeless meeting, or one of
those spiral meetings is soreal, like I I've been in so
many of those meetings, whereafter the meeting, I'm, like, I
just need to, like, take a breakand lie down, because, like,
what, what just happened? Whatjust happened? I walk a lot
after meetings and, like, theother thing is, I think that the
(24:35):
other thing that came to mind isalso we need to acknowledge the
fact, like a lot of ourcolleagues, might not be
neurotypical, right? You've got,like, ADHD, you've got people on
on the spectrum. We got a lot ofdifferent potential neuro
divergences that can behappening, and you need to
factor that in. So if you're inthis feeling of a purposeless
(24:56):
meeting, that's just likechurning on stuff, and
sometimes. That churn isabsolutely necessary. Like, you
really need to futz about, like,particular numbers for figuring
out your budget for next year,and you need to really debate,
like, decimal points. Like,there can be a need for it, but
often it's not. And when you arewhen you're turning on something
that's really not high value,the people with things like
(25:19):
ADHD, they've checked out.They've checked out, they're on
chat. They're doing the workthat they would be doing if they
weren't in the meeting. Like,figure out how to consider that.
Consider that as your as you'renavigating your meeting. So
that's a different version.Yeah, yeah. I think
Amanda Jane Lee (25:36):
just what it comes down to is define what the
purpose is of the meeting and,like, that's how you figure out
whether or not it's going to bea purposeful or purposeless
meeting.
Indra Klavins (25:51):
What's a goal? Who's owning things? What's your
agenda? Like, we've talked aboutthose a fair bit throughout this
conversation,
Amanda Jane Lee (25:58):
right? What's the agenda? What are we trying
to accomplish in this meetingwith this, with this set of
people on this day, at thistime, 100%
Indra Klavins (26:09):
100% because that's that's so much of it, and
stating that agenda, statingthat purpose, like we meet every
week, to discuss this for thesereasons and these business
outcomes, a reminder, when thetop of the meeting is so
important, it sets the stage. Itsets the stage.
Amanda Jane Lee (26:29):
Yeah, and, you know, I think I annoy people
with this, but I I've often whenI when I'm invited to a meeting
that does not have an agendalike it has. Even if the meeting
name is really clear, if itdoesn't have an agenda, I'll be
like, what's the agenda? Whatare we what are we trying to
accomplish? What? What are thedecisions that need to be made?
(26:51):
Are these the right people?Like, I just ask so many
questions about this meetingbecause I, I don't like to waste
time.
Indra Klavins (26:58):
No. And you know, every you want everyone to be
able to show up prepared,because if you haven't done
that, and it requires them topull data from data sources, and
that requires three hours ofprep time, and they only figure
out that they needed that data.Like, when they enter the
meeting, you're like, it'spurposeless. And everyone's
everyone's like, they're like,Oh, now we can need to
(27:19):
reschedule the meeting, and thenyou put it the next week, right,
right? Oh, we need
Amanda Jane Lee (27:23):
to reschedule the meeting. And, like, sorry,
so sorry that you could havebeen doing something, something
else.
Indra Klavins (27:29):
Yeah, I like your approach. I've seen some
colleagues take the if themeeting doesn't have an agenda,
I refuse to attend. Like, that'sa little aggressive for most
workplaces. Like, like, it's alittle aggressive for most
workplaces. I prefer the Hey.Can you add an agenda, please,
and even sending that out toeveryone on like, you need to be
skillful in your language. Youdon't want to make anyone feel
(27:53):
you don't want to make anyonefeel terrible about themselves.
You don't want to shame them anysort of way. Shame is not used
as a, not a useful tool ingetting things done. But say,
hey, you know, there might besome sort of glitch with my
calendar. You know, can you, canyou forward me the in the
agenda? Because it seems to bemissing for me, because that
literally can happen. I mean,I've calendar diagnosis is a
(28:16):
whole nother conversation. Whythat? Why this is breaking and
why things aren't showing forcertain people, but, like,
that's a lovely way blame thetechnology. Say, Hey, it's not
showing up for me. Do you mindresending me the agenda?
Amanda Jane Lee (28:29):
Yeah, what I like to do, especially for a
large meeting, for a meetingthat includes a lot of people,
if I don't see an agenda, I'llbe like, hey, you know, there's
a lot of participants in thismeeting, it might not be clear
to everyone what their role inthis meeting is. Can Can you
send an agenda so that it'sclear and that we can make the
(28:49):
best of our time together? I
Indra Klavins (28:51):
love that. I love that I'd say the other thing,
and it's sort of my dataexample, sort of led up to that
too, is like the availability ofthe content or the information
for that meeting, if you don'thave all the stuff that you
need, if you haven't definedyour agenda and not everyone
knows what they need to bring tothe meeting, like there is no
purpose in scheduling it on thatparticular day because you can't
(29:14):
read the accident so you haveThe stuff you need, the
material, right? Right?
Amanda Jane Lee (29:21):
We talked about the post meeting, not just the
pre meeting, but the postmeeting. I think, you know, the
post meeting is useful, but Ialso think the post, like action
items and takeaways, is alsoimportant
Indra Klavins (29:36):
100% most meeting. I think that the post
meeting to the meeting usuallyhappens when it's a large form
or with a senior leader orsomething, where you just, like,
everyone's trying to hear whatthey heard. But in most cases,
that follow ups and that shareouts via, you know, like, here
are the high level notes. Wasreally, is really important,
yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (29:53):
right. Just like, really hammer home. Like,
the purpose of that meeting, wemet because. Here are the
outcomes, and here are the nextsteps, as opposed to, I think
it's just a tool well, one,it's, I think it's best
practice, and two, it's a toolto like, make people feel like
that wasn't a waste of time.
Indra Klavins (30:13):
Yes, and you know, it's this is this could
also be its own episode. Butlike, decision logs decisions
made were this, which thencombats the person who comes in
at the 11th Hour. It's like, butI don't love this deck. And
like, why did we choose thisimage style? Like, we had the
decision log it went to you,right? We're moving forward
because this meeting has apurpose. So some other
(30:40):
resources. Like, we talked alittle bit about Lean Coffee.
I'll make sure that that's inthe show notes, because it's a
it's a really handy methodologyto have in your pocket. You
know, they've I've useddifferent portions of it in
different scenarios. There's abook called meeting design by
Rosenfeld media, which is justone, or from Rosenfeld media,
which is lovely. Lots of peoplehave spoken really highly about
(31:01):
that. And the other thing thatcomes to mind, I'll make sure,
I'll add the I'll add the linkto it to for the Apple version.
Most of our listeners listen onon Apple's podcast app, but
there's the fixable episode withPriya Parker there. They really
were talking about meetings, soPriya Parker was the guest for
(31:22):
Francis fry and Anne Morris'spodcast. And those were really,
they have really good tools andtips within that one. So those
are the things that come to mindfor me. Yeah, I
Amanda Jane Lee (31:33):
think, you know, we talked a lot about, you
know, having a clear agenda,having a clear like meeting
facilitator, right? Having clearhaving clear goals. Like, what
are we trying to accomplish inthis meeting? And then the post
meeting stuff of, you know, whatwere the takeaways? What were
the outcomes? Like, what did wediscuss in this meeting? And so
(31:54):
that we can file it away forlater, it's
Indra Klavins (31:57):
the follow through. Like, I'm not a sports
ball girl, but I know that. Youknow when you're playing
baseball, you want to followthrough when you're playing
through. When you're playinggolf, you want to follow through
like you need. Unless you finishthat stroke or whatever that
swing, it doesn't, it doesn'thave the impact that you needed
to have. So those follow ups arethat follow through. Yeah, for
sure. I love it. I love it.Well, thank you, Amanda, for
(32:20):
another thoughtful conversation,and thank you to our listeners
for joining us today. Hopefullyyou heard something that helped
you feel a little bit more seenand supported, and you'll join
us next time when we exploreanother topic from the messy
middle bye, everyone bye, thanksfor taking time with us in the
messy middle word of mouthremains most powerful way for
(32:41):
people to find us. If thisepisode sparked something for
you, we'd love it. If you'dsubscribe to the podcast on your
favorite app, download a fewepisodes and share it with
someone else who's navigatingthe in between. Do you have
ideas for future episodes ortopics you'd like us to explore?
You can find our feedback format the messymiddle matters.com
or in the show notes, thank youfor joining us on this journey.
(33:03):
This work is better when we doit together, until next time
you.
Indra. I'm Indra,
Amanda Jane Lee (00:08):
and I'm Amanda,
Indra Klavins (00:10):
and we'd like to welcome you to the messy middle
matters. Hey, Amanda, how areyou today? I'm good. How are you
Indra? I'm good. I'm good today,we're talking about one of the
more frustrating things that youand I get to experience at work
or our listeners, probably tooyou know, the all too familiar
experience when you walk into ameeting that you didn't
(00:33):
organize, you get there and noone in the meeting knows why
you're meeting, including theperson who set that meeting. And
I'm not talking about the timewhen the person is like, running
back to backs and they've got,like, they're spinning all the
place, and they're trying to geteverything done, and they need a
second to, like, be like, holdon. Which meeting is this? Like,
they literally don't know whythat meeting was scheduled.
(00:54):
Probably because someone said,Hey, we need to meet. So pull
these people together again. Andthis is the subject line, but
nobody knows why it's there,right? Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (01:03):
nobody knows why it's there. My favorite ones
are the ones that just say, youknow, like, Team sync the
meeting, and it's like, what arewe thinking about? Like, who?
What's the agenda, who's leadingthis meeting? Like, why?
Indra Klavins (01:19):
100% and I, you and I both love a good meeting,
like we love a good meeting,like I really, really love
working with humans and workingthrough things with humans. But
when none of us knows why it'shappening, it's kind of, it kind
of feels the worst. It kind offeels the worst. So let's talk
about some of the most commonmeeting. Example, types you gave
a wonderful subject line, like,but my personal favorite, that
(01:44):
I've lived a few differenttimes, I'm sure we're going to
dig into as we as we dig in alittle bit further is like
weekly leadership meetings thatthat's a meeting that you know,
for me, is, can be the best andcan be the worst. Can be the
best, can be the worst. It youknow? Yeah, it's one of those
meetings where it just feelslike someone told you that you
(02:07):
have to have a weeklyleadership, leadership meeting
so you do, even if you havenothing to discuss. Well, and
you do, and like you know it, bythe nature of my role, I've been
the person who, when I joined anorganization winds up taking
over that meeting, owning thecalendar, invite, owning the
agenda, owning the everything.But it's so hard because it is
(02:28):
our meeting. We are a leadershipteam. It's not just mine. Indra
is not the CEO of theorganization. She is a member of
that leadership team. I'mtalking about myself in third
person, which drives me crazy.But anyway, I'm a member of that
team, and we all need to bringthings. We're all responsible
for different parts of thebusiness, and we all need to
(02:51):
contribute to something. I candivine things from the sky that
are really important all thetime, like that is just one of
my superpowers. But that may notbe the most important stuff.
It's and everyone just sitsthere and stares at me, like,
what are we talking about today?I'm like, I don't know. You're
leading this team too.
Amanda Jane Lee (03:09):
Yeah, everything you just said could
also apply to the weekly teammeeting. Same, same, right? It
doesn't have to be a leadershipmeeting. It can be a weekly team
meeting, the weekly meeting, or,however, whatever the cadence
is, right, the the team meeting,where your whole team gets
together and you talk about, youknow, whatever you need to talk
about are, like, is the teamworking? Well, like, what,
(03:32):
what's, let's celebrate. Let's,let's talk about some issues.
Let's work through some of thisstuff. But it isn't up to the
manager or the team lead to cometo the table with the full list
of topics,
Indra Klavins (03:46):
100% and you know, some of the you know, we
love to give tools and tips. Andthis is by no means the only
meeting type we're going to betalking about just but just to
give people a sense of how Ihandle those types of meetings,
I love to hear how you handlethem. So for me, I've always got
a running document. Like, thereis the me, the leadership
meeting document, and it's inreverse chronological order, so
(04:09):
the most recent meeting is atthe top, and then I drop in
topics, and I've got even aplaceholder for future topics,
right? And what we'll do is, Iwill, I will send out reminders
before the meeting, like, Heyfolks, I drafted an agenda. I
chose what the most importantthings are for today. Feel free
to look at the document and seehow it goes. Or, you know, at
(04:31):
the top of the conversation,let's, let's assume that
nobody's had a chance to look atthat. And also, you'll see
people live editing as they getinto the room, talking, because
usually a Google Doc or a sharedoc, and they'll start adding
stuff. And then what we do is, Iapply a methodology. It's I riff
on it. It's not the purestversion of it, called Lean
(04:52):
Coffee, but like Lean Coffee,the concept is, at the very
highest level, is that, youknow, you brainstorm your topics
for the. Meeting at the top ofthe meeting, and then everybody
votes on what the highestpriorities are, right? And so by
by having everyone add things,and by using a shared document,
I organically over the course oftime, as I know the as I know
(05:14):
the leadership team, usually myagenda is accurate, unless
something sneaks in. And then wejust reprioritize. But then we
decide, like, Hey, we're goingto spend 10 minutes on this. At
the end of 10 minutes, we'relike, do we need more time, or
is it? Do we need to move to thenext topic? And we do this time
checking throughout the wholething. And that's my really by
(05:35):
making it everyone'sresponsibility, by having
everybody prioritize the topicsat the top of the meeting, and
by time checking along the wayand helping everyone mark time
and understand how much timeyou're spending on each topic.
That's my like the meetingwithout the meeting that I'm
sort that I am in charge of, butI cannot myself define the
purpose of it. That's myfavorite approach. How do you
(05:56):
handle like, those leadership orthose team meetings that are the
weekly recurrings that are just
Amanda Jane Lee (06:01):
Yeah, yeah. The whole time you were talking, I
was just nodding, because that'sexactly, that's exactly how I
handle it, right? Like it'spractice just the most
collaborative way, right? YouYou have a shared agenda doc
that you attach to the meeting,and then you remind people
before the meeting, yep, to fillin topics, and then you just
(06:22):
kind of organically figure itout. And the more you do it, the
more you find your rhythm, youfind like, what the dynamic of
the team is, and it becomes amore seamless process, I think,
yeah, and it
Indra Klavins (06:36):
builds culture. It builds culture. And like, I
love it, I love the method, orthe methodology, or the
approach, or whatever, whateveryou want to call it, because it
makes everyone have skin in thegame. Because if they just show
up and like, I'm a leader, I'm ateam member, I'm a this and
like, and they're like, Okay, sotell me what to do. Like, no,
(06:57):
we're all adults. Let's adulttogether, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (07:01):
And then, like, setting that expectation is
important too, because then, youknow, if it's on the whole
audience, yeah, to bring topicsto the meeting, they're not
allowed to leave the meetinglike, Well, that was a waste of
time.
Indra Klavins (07:18):
Well, right? And I, what I also do is just for
anyone who is looking to applythis, make sure I document who
added that item to that list. Sowhen it shows up, they lead that
conversation, or they at leastkick start it. Right? They're
like, Hey, this is what thosewords mean. Back to words
matter, episode right? EpisodeTwo. This is what those words
(07:38):
mean, because usually they'lluse some sort of shorthand, let
me and this is what my ask of,why I'm bringing it to you guys.
Let's talk about it and makethem take a version of the lead
during that part of theconversation. Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (07:53):
all right, so we talked about the the weekly
team meeting, yeah? Leadershipmeeting, a team meeting, a stand
up like the weekly or thewhatever cadence meeting, the
regular
Indra Klavins (08:06):
standing meeting, the standing meetings to discuss
things on a regular basis,right? A bunch of people? Yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (08:13):
another meeting that I you know a common meeting
is a status meeting, a projectstatus meeting or a program
status status meeting, or a, youknow, a portfolio status
meeting, like the executivestatus meeting.
Indra Klavins (08:28):
Let's talk about it. You know, there,
Amanda Jane Lee (08:33):
there are. We've all been in those meetings
where it just feels likesomeone's just reading off a
document and it's like, thismeeting could have been an
email.
Indra Klavins (08:43):
This meeting could have been an email, and I
think it depends on yourorganization as to whether or
not you can make it an email.That's the interesting part
well, and that's
Amanda Jane Lee (08:51):
the thing, right? Like, I've definitely
worked at organizations whereit's like, yes, it could have
been an email, but is anyonegoing to read that email? 100%
Indra Klavins (09:01):
100% and like in those this is more art than than
science, but in those meetings,like the challenge that you
face, because in the most let'ssay, robust versions of that
meeting, you have to have slidesprepared for each and every
single status update, whichrequires a number of people to
(09:22):
contribute to those slides, toprovide the red, amber, green,
red, yellow, green status forthis particular thing, the
latest updates, the upcomingmilestones, the whatever. So the
creation of slides, which I amsure is going to be a future
episode, slides and decks,right? But then so, like, that's
one lift you have to do for it,then it's the actual meeting and
(09:44):
the facilitation and all ofthat, and reading stuff off the
slides here, folks and you know,in the best version of that most
robust meeting, where you'redoing all of that prep and
everything, it is a place toanswer questions, right? So,
like, I'm thinking back to mytime. At TD Ameritrade, where we
would have the weekly meetingbetween technology and product.
(10:06):
And I was a, I was a, I was acontributor. I was not leading
the meeting in any sort of way.There was, it was a really
active meeting, because they'rereally trying to our product
managers were trying tounderstand, like, what does the
roadmap look like? What'sshifting? Why is it shifting? So
they can communicate out totheir stakeholders? This was on
(10:28):
the institutional side of thehouse, so there were really deep
relationships with our clients,right, our users, and so, like,
it was a very active meetingaround a lot of different
things. So yes, there was alarge lift. Yes, people actually
read the deck before themeeting, which was really
amazing, and they actually useit to answer questions. So you
(10:49):
have to know your organization,as to what the lift is worth and
why, right? Yeah, and it, it's agood call out the lift part,
right? The the preparation, theslides, the gathering
information, the there's all ofthis
Amanda Jane Lee (11:06):
pre meeting stuff, right, that you spend
time on in addition to theactual meeting. And so, you
know, at many organizations thatI've worked at, I've I've always
been the one to either organizeor lead the the status meeting,
the weekly status meeting, ofeverything in flight, and
sometimes even like the thingsthat are on deck. Yep, and it is
(11:32):
an art. It's hard to figure outlike who the right audience is,
because you want, you want toinclude the people who need to
know this information, but youalso want to include people who
can answer and questions andthen and then, and then, and
then, and then, and then andthen. It becomes like a
department wide meeting, andit's like, well, is this the
(11:53):
right is this the right way tospend an hour of everybody's
time?
Indra Klavins (12:00):
I feel like that's yet another episode, like
figuring out who should be inthe meeting, because it's these
meetings can become veryexpensive. And like for folks
who are not familiar with likewhen somebody says this meeting
is expensive, you mentallyquickly calculate what is the
salary of all of the people thatare there, and how much an hour
(12:23):
of time of 16 executives isworth. If something productive
doesn't come out of it, it's notreally useful, you know. And how
do you make that better? Andlike knowing who to invite and
how to keep the right people outof that meeting, because there's
a lot of FOMO. But like I said,that's a different conversation,
right?
Amanda Jane Lee (12:41):
That's a different conversation. And what
I've what I have found works forme is, you know, you do all the
prep, you do as much you makethe format as lightweight as
possible, right? The prep partsometimes, and depends on the
organization, because sometimesexecutives are like, Nope, I
(13:02):
need this in slide format, yeah,if you can get away with it, if
you can get away with it, youpull up, you know, just like the
the actual real time doc of likeyour Project Tracker with the
status, and you just pull thatup, and you just go through it.
And what I found useful forthose types of meetings is, I
make it very clear in the agendathat for anything that's going
(13:26):
well, that for anything that'sgreen, yeah, we just say green.
Move on. Let's focus. Let's usethis time to talk about the
things that are at risk or offtrack, yeah, and like, what we
can do to mitigate that risk, orwhat we are doing to maybe get
this thing back on track. Like,let's discuss, because that is
how we make the best use of ourtime together.
Indra Klavins (13:49):
Yeah, and I'd say the last thing that I would add
maybe to, or the from my side,that comes to mind for status
meetings is playing withcadence. How often are you
meeting? Like, you know, I haveplayed with, like, letting a
meeting disappear off ofpeople's calendars and seeing if
they notice or don't let do andthen when it came here, is like,
(14:10):
let's do it monthly. See ifthat's enough. Let's do it every
other week. Let's I was like,sometimes there is this desire,
or at the moment of time whenthat series was set up, it made
sense to me twice a week becausea project was at risk, or there
was a major release deadline,everybody needed to know
everything, because there wasjust so much going on. But that
might not be the appropriatecadence at this moment in time.
(14:32):
So play with that like it mightbe more frequent, less frequent
you just did along the way, andyou let it flex as it needs to
flex, right or the duration ofthe meeting. Ah, that one too.
Yeah, that's actually a reallygood one too. I mess with that
stuff all the time,
Amanda Jane Lee (14:47):
right? Yeah, you either expand or contract
that meeting as needed as youknow it is an art, right? You
pay attention to what's goingon, what's discussed, like you.
You make a mental note. Of, oh,you know, we needed more time to
discuss things like three weeksin a row. Maybe we should. We
should expand this meeting alittle bit, 100% 100%
Indra Klavins (15:11):
so let's go on to the namesake of this episode,
the meeting for the meeting forthe meeting for the meeting. I
could keep on going on. Thatcould be recursive, over and
over and over and over again.That's the infinite like, what
like prepping, and there's somany different sub flavors of
that. Like, it's, it's kind of,it can be kind of insane. And
(15:31):
like, sometimes it's worthwhile.And I know that we'll have a
future episode on like, whendoes it make sense to have the
meeting for the medium? Why doyou want to have the meeting for
the meeting. But a lot of timesit's just like, my, my favorite
one is, or it can actuallyhappen afterwards, too.
Sometimes the after meeting,like, what meeting did we just
have? Like, what did y'all hear?Like, I got no idea. It's to
(15:53):
understand. Like, what did, whatdoes leadership want, want? Or,
what did leadership say? Like,what are we doing here? It's
this, like, nebulous, like, WTF,
Amanda Jane Lee (16:04):
right? And when I've seen this meeting for a
meeting for a meeting for ameeting be a thing is when there
is like this, it's usually likean executive leadership meeting,
or a meeting like for executiveleadership, right? Like we the
team is presenting something toexecs, yes, oh yes, yeah, the
(16:29):
team is is expected to presentsomething, whether that's a
project status, whether that's alike, Why did, why did this
project go so wrong, or, like,just something, yeah, to the
executive team, or, like, toleaders, right? Not, not, not
only executives, sure. Andeveryone is stressed out about
it. They're like, what, what dowe present? How do we do it? Do
(16:52):
we do it in, in slide format?Like, what? What is, what does
our agenda look like? Who'sspeaking when, who's talking
about what, who's taking thelead and like, that's when this
meeting for a meeting for ameeting for a meeting usually
happens, in my experience,
Indra Klavins (17:09):
that's a good example. And I think that
there's that could be, as I'msitting here listening to you,
I'm imagining that could eitherbe a really effective, good
working session, or it could beor it could spiral. Trend is up
that it can really spiral. Andif there isn't somebody skillful
(17:29):
who can grab the reins of thatconversation with the right
authority or gravitas orwhatever, depending on their
level or their role. It can belike a bunch of peers trying to
be polite with each other, yettrying to get stuff done, yet
not trying to out themselves fornot knowing what's going on.
(17:51):
Like, oh my gosh, yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (17:54):
yeah. I've seen the spiral many times. And the
first, the first example thatcomes to mind is the nitpicking
the deck. It's like, are thesethe right fonts? Should we use
these words? Should this be inbullet form? Like, how many
slides should this be? Should weinclude images? And it's just
Indra Klavins (18:17):
like you're obsessed about talking here.
Yeah, oh my god, I as you weresaying it, I was like, I was
fine. Font was the first wordthat came to mind. Because,
like, they love obsessing withthe font and the layouts of the
fonts, like, you know, and forme, sometimes when I see that
happen, I'm like, I'm grabbing ablank deck because i i whether I
(18:39):
do or I don't, it could be afit. But I'm like, I don't know
where the template is. I'm justgoing to grab a blank deck with
the default Arial font. Let'sfigure out the content. Yep,
let's figure out the content.And sometimes I will just and I
will make sure that isdeliberately ugly so that
everyone doesn't get obsessed.Well, is that the right shade?
Wait, that's our old logo. Like,can we just worry about the
(19:02):
content, and I will hit it withthe pretty stick later. And, you
know, like, make it look pretty,and I will do you a solid. I
just need to worry aboutcontent, right? Like, I we're
not
Amanda Jane Lee (19:12):
here to talk about font colors, font choices,
font size, just the esthetics ofthe deck. What are we trying to
achieve? Right? I'm here to toask you what's important to talk
about in this deck, two of thesepeople at this moment in time,
right? Right? Yeah, I've, I'vebeen in meetings, the pre
(19:36):
meetings, for the pre meetings,the prep meetings, where we are
going through the deck, and likethe deck has been done, and
someone, someone who's been withus this whole time, questions
everything on it, and it's like,Where have you been? I know
you've been here and like youwere the one who said. Okay,
(20:00):
that looks good, but you woke uptoday and all of a sudden, these
are not the right words. This isnot the right thing. This image
does not depict the rightinformation. And yeah, and that,
that's the spiral,
Indra Klavins (20:15):
yeah. And the way that I and I think I've walked
around in my career with moreauthority than I've had, which
has served me well. I've knownwhen I'm stepping above and
just, you know, I'll monitor thesituation, but like, I will
usually step in with a bit ofauthority, say, hey, we
discussed that in the last threemeetings. What's done is done.
(20:35):
We're moving forward. We can dothat the next time. Is this
going to be the deal breaker, oris this something that, like, if
we could do it again, we do itdifferently, like, I need to
know, is this going to tank thewhole thing or not? Like, it
needs to be extreme. If it's notextreme, we're moving forward
from where we are. You've beenhere all along, and unless, I
mean, there is the scenariowhere it could be an executive
and whatever, like you gotta,you gotta use your skills, but,
(20:58):
and just, it's, it's movingforward. The train left the
station. We have our plan. We'removing forward. And so sorry, so
sad. I'll talk to you laterafter this, if we really need to
regroup it for this meeting.We're staying on the course, and
we're doing this.
Amanda Jane Lee (21:14):
Yeah, and I think the the guidance that you
gave of you know there needs tobe somebody who has that
authority or influence who canjust take the reins and control
this meeting. Otherwise, you'regoing to have more meetings
about this meeting. And the bestis when, like, you're obsessed
over, you know, these littledetails, and then you go to the
(21:36):
actual meeting with a capital M,and everything's fine.
Indra Klavins (21:41):
Everything is, and that's where you're just
like, Okay, fine, and that, butthat's when it's important to
have the meeting after themeeting and say to everyone,
hey, this is what it took for usto get here today. It went
really well. Let's rememberthis, and let's not repeat the
same spiral the next time,because I'm going to literally
(22:02):
take this deck that they loved,or it's a template spreadsheet
or whatever, and we're going toliterally just replace content
next time, and we're going toassign slides, and this is how
we're going to run the show. Andthey'll look at you, and I'm
like, okay, and then the nexttime the meeting comes up,
you're like the next type flavorof that meeting, you know, you
(22:25):
remind them the same thing yousaid in that post. Me, they
think that that's where the moreyou can lather, rinse, repeat,
the better off you're going tobe in making sure that your
meetings are purposeful andeffective.
Amanda Jane Lee (22:39):
Yeah, the lather, rinse and repeat is good
and like, ensure everybodyunderstands what we're
lathering, rinsing andrepeating, right? Like, have a
clear agenda. Have a clear youknow, if you, if you do need the
pre meeting for the meeting,which sometimes, oftentimes, you
do at least one, make it veryclear that this is, these are
(23:03):
the things that you want toachieve in the meeting, 100%
Indra Klavins (23:08):
100% and you know, I do, we do like to keep
our episodes tight. And I we,this could be its own. This own
topic is the bigger the bigforums, like your off sites,
your summits, your town halls. Ifeel like, I feel like that
could be a rabbit hole that wecould get stuck in. But no, just
(23:29):
no listeners, we are going tomake sure that we have a topic
on organizing large forums,because that is its own. It's
got its own spirals. It's gotits own spirals. It's got its
own churn that goes to it. So,you know, we've talked a little
bit about, like, the cost of thepurpose, purposeless meetings,
like we've talked about timewasted, like, or, or the cost of
(23:49):
the meetings themselves, right?There is that. You know, there's
the frustration and thedisengagement that can happen if
you talk about things for fartoo long and aren't doing, you
know, productivity, there's adrain that happens with people.
Like, there's there. There are alot of hidden costs. Yeah, the
the
Amanda Jane Lee (24:09):
drain, the mental and emotional drain
Indra Klavins (24:12):
of a truly purposeless meeting, or one of
those spiral meetings is soreal, like I I've been in so
many of those meetings, whereafter the meeting, I'm, like, I
just need to, like, take a breakand lie down, because, like,
what, what just happened? Whatjust happened? I walk a lot
after meetings and, like, theother thing is, I think that the
(24:35):
other thing that came to mind isalso we need to acknowledge the
fact, like a lot of ourcolleagues, might not be
neurotypical, right? You've got,like, ADHD, you've got people on
on the spectrum. We got a lot ofdifferent potential neuro
divergences that can behappening, and you need to
factor that in. So if you're inthis feeling of a purposeless
(24:56):
meeting, that's just likechurning on stuff, and
sometimes. That churn isabsolutely necessary. Like, you
really need to futz about, like,particular numbers for figuring
out your budget for next year,and you need to really debate,
like, decimal points. Like,there can be a need for it, but
often it's not. And when you arewhen you're turning on something
that's really not high value,the people with things like
(25:19):
ADHD, they've checked out.They've checked out, they're on
chat. They're doing the workthat they would be doing if they
weren't in the meeting. Like,figure out how to consider that.
Consider that as your as you'renavigating your meeting. So
that's a different version.Yeah, yeah. I think
Amanda Jane Lee (25:36):
just what it comes down to is define what the
purpose is of the meeting and,like, that's how you figure out
whether or not it's going to bea purposeful or purposeless
meeting.
Indra Klavins (25:51):
What's a goal? Who's owning things? What's your
agenda? Like, we've talked aboutthose a fair bit throughout this
conversation,
Amanda Jane Lee (25:58):
right? What's the agenda? What are we trying
to accomplish in this meetingwith this, with this set of
people on this day, at thistime, 100%
Indra Klavins (26:09):
100% because that's that's so much of it, and
stating that agenda, statingthat purpose, like we meet every
week, to discuss this for thesereasons and these business
outcomes, a reminder, when thetop of the meeting is so
important, it sets the stage. Itsets the stage.
Amanda Jane Lee (26:29):
Yeah, and, you know, I think I annoy people
with this, but I I've often whenI when I'm invited to a meeting
that does not have an agendalike it has. Even if the meeting
name is really clear, if itdoesn't have an agenda, I'll be
like, what's the agenda? Whatare we what are we trying to
accomplish? What? What are thedecisions that need to be made?
(26:51):
Are these the right people?Like, I just ask so many
questions about this meetingbecause I, I don't like to waste
time.
Indra Klavins (26:58):
No. And you know, every you want everyone to be
able to show up prepared,because if you haven't done
that, and it requires them topull data from data sources, and
that requires three hours ofprep time, and they only figure
out that they needed that data.Like, when they enter the
meeting, you're like, it'spurposeless. And everyone's
everyone's like, they're like,Oh, now we can need to
(27:19):
reschedule the meeting, and thenyou put it the next week, right,
right? Oh, we need
Amanda Jane Lee (27:23):
to reschedule the meeting. And, like, sorry,
so sorry that you could havebeen doing something, something
else.
Indra Klavins (27:29):
Yeah, I like your approach. I've seen some
colleagues take the if themeeting doesn't have an agenda,
I refuse to attend. Like, that'sa little aggressive for most
workplaces. Like, like, it's alittle aggressive for most
workplaces. I prefer the Hey.Can you add an agenda, please,
and even sending that out toeveryone on like, you need to be
skillful in your language. Youdon't want to make anyone feel
(27:53):
you don't want to make anyonefeel terrible about themselves.
You don't want to shame them anysort of way. Shame is not used
as a, not a useful tool ingetting things done. But say,
hey, you know, there might besome sort of glitch with my
calendar. You know, can you, canyou forward me the in the
agenda? Because it seems to bemissing for me, because that
literally can happen. I mean,I've calendar diagnosis is a
(28:16):
whole nother conversation. Whythat? Why this is breaking and
why things aren't showing forcertain people, but, like,
that's a lovely way blame thetechnology. Say, Hey, it's not
showing up for me. Do you mindresending me the agenda?
Amanda Jane Lee (28:29):
Yeah, what I like to do, especially for a
large meeting, for a meetingthat includes a lot of people,
if I don't see an agenda, I'llbe like, hey, you know, there's
a lot of participants in thismeeting, it might not be clear
to everyone what their role inthis meeting is. Can Can you
send an agenda so that it'sclear and that we can make the
(28:49):
best of our time together? I
Indra Klavins (28:51):
love that. I love that I'd say the other thing,
and it's sort of my dataexample, sort of led up to that
too, is like the availability ofthe content or the information
for that meeting, if you don'thave all the stuff that you
need, if you haven't definedyour agenda and not everyone
knows what they need to bring tothe meeting, like there is no
purpose in scheduling it on thatparticular day because you can't
(29:14):
read the accident so you haveThe stuff you need, the
material, right? Right?
Amanda Jane Lee (29:21):
We talked about the post meeting, not just the
pre meeting, but the postmeeting. I think, you know, the
post meeting is useful, but Ialso think the post, like action
items and takeaways, is alsoimportant
Indra Klavins (29:36):
100% most meeting. I think that the post
meeting to the meeting usuallyhappens when it's a large form
or with a senior leader orsomething, where you just, like,
everyone's trying to hear whatthey heard. But in most cases,
that follow ups and that shareouts via, you know, like, here
are the high level notes. Wasreally, is really important,
yeah,
Amanda Jane Lee (29:53):
right. Just like, really hammer home. Like,
the purpose of that meeting, wemet because. Here are the
outcomes, and here are the nextsteps, as opposed to, I think
it's just a tool well, one,it's, I think it's best
practice, and two, it's a toolto like, make people feel like
that wasn't a waste of time.
Indra Klavins (30:13):
Yes, and you know, it's this is this could
also be its own episode. Butlike, decision logs decisions
made were this, which thencombats the person who comes in
at the 11th Hour. It's like, butI don't love this deck. And
like, why did we choose thisimage style? Like, we had the
decision log it went to you,right? We're moving forward
because this meeting has apurpose. So some other
(30:40):
resources. Like, we talked alittle bit about Lean Coffee.
I'll make sure that that's inthe show notes, because it's a
it's a really handy methodologyto have in your pocket. You
know, they've I've useddifferent portions of it in
different scenarios. There's abook called meeting design by
Rosenfeld media, which is justone, or from Rosenfeld media,
which is lovely. Lots of peoplehave spoken really highly about
(31:01):
that. And the other thing thatcomes to mind, I'll make sure,
I'll add the I'll add the linkto it to for the Apple version.
Most of our listeners listen onon Apple's podcast app, but
there's the fixable episode withPriya Parker there. They really
were talking about meetings, soPriya Parker was the guest for
(31:22):
Francis fry and Anne Morris'spodcast. And those were really,
they have really good tools andtips within that one. So those
are the things that come to mindfor me. Yeah, I
Amanda Jane Lee (31:33):
think, you know, we talked a lot about, you
know, having a clear agenda,having a clear like meeting
facilitator, right? Having clearhaving clear goals. Like, what
are we trying to accomplish inthis meeting? And then the post
meeting stuff of, you know, whatwere the takeaways? What were
the outcomes? Like, what did wediscuss in this meeting? And so
(31:54):
that we can file it away forlater, it's
Indra Klavins (31:57):
the follow through. Like, I'm not a sports
ball girl, but I know that. Youknow when you're playing
baseball, you want to followthrough when you're playing
through. When you're playinggolf, you want to follow through
like you need. Unless you finishthat stroke or whatever that
swing, it doesn't, it doesn'thave the impact that you needed
to have. So those follow ups arethat follow through. Yeah, for
sure. I love it. I love it.Well, thank you, Amanda, for
(32:20):
another thoughtful conversation,and thank you to our listeners
for joining us today. Hopefullyyou heard something that helped
you feel a little bit more seenand supported, and you'll join
us next time when we exploreanother topic from the messy
middle bye, everyone bye, thanksfor taking time with us in the
messy middle word of mouthremains most powerful way for
(32:41):
people to find us. If thisepisode sparked something for
you, we'd love it. If you'dsubscribe to the podcast on your
favorite app, download a fewepisodes and share it with
someone else who's navigatingthe in between. Do you have
ideas for future episodes ortopics you'd like us to explore?
You can find our feedback format the messymiddle matters.com
or in the show notes, thank youfor joining us on this journey.
(33:03):
This work is better when we doit together, until next time
you.
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