October 1, 2025 • 30 mins
Dr. Steven Rogelberg, an organisational psychologist from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, draws on his extensive research on workplace meetings to share how we might make acadmic meetings better. We discuss the inefficiencies of academic meetings, with Steven suggesting academics suffer from particularly ineffective meeting practices. He offers practical advice on improving meeting productivity, particularly for Faculty meetings, such as using targeted agendas and smaller group discussions, and stresses the value of bringing scientific rigour to meeting management. He also critiques the hybrid meeting format, advocating instead for fully virtual or in-person meetings. If you are looking for more insights about evidence-based meeting practices, I can highly recommend his books 'The Surprising Science of Meetings' and 'Glad We Met: The Art and Science of One-to-One Meetings' .
Overview:
00:29 Introduction: The Meeting Dilemma
01:42 Introducing Dr. Steven Rogelberg
03:56 The Academic Meeting Problem
09:23 Common Mistakes in Leading Meetings
11:06 Strategies for Effective Meetings
13:12 Having a Meeting About Meetings
14:34 The Importance of Feedback and Audits
15:55 The Faculty Meeting
18:15 Challenges of Large and Hybrid Meetings
19:21 More Inclusive Alternatives to Large Meetings
22:20 Hybrid Meetings and Virtual Meetings
23:54 Final Takeaways and Resources
25:46 Postscript
30:16 End
Related links:
Steven's web page, LinkedIn page and online meeting resources
https://www.stevenrogelberg.com
Steven's books:
Rogelberg, S. G. (2019). The surprising science of meetings: How you can lead your team to peak performance. Oxford University Press.
Rogelberg, S. G. (2024). Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1: 1 Meetings. Oxford University Press.
And his academic publications, for example the two we mentioned:
Rogelberg, S., Kreamer, L. M., & Gray, J. (2025). Thirty Years of Meeting Science: Lessons Learned and the Road Ahead. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 13.
Rogelberg, S. G., King, E. B., & Alonso, A. (2022). How we can bring IO psychology science and evidence-based practices to the public. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 15(2), 259-272.
And here is a
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Geri (00:05):
Welcome to Changing Academic Life.
I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick, and this isa podcast series where academics and
others share their stories, provideideas, and provoke discussions about what
we can do individually and collectivelyto change academic life for the better.
(00:29):
Do you love going to your facultymeetings or departmental meetings,
however you might call them where you are?
If you're like many people,I'm guessing probably not.
Meetings take up so much of ourtime as academics and researchers.
Often they just don't feellike a very effective or
valuable way of spending time.
(00:52):
Meetings came up as a topic in ourlast episode where Deborah Boehm Davis
talked about the many meetings she ranas both departmental chair and Dean.
And she also shared how she realized thatmany of the meetings just weren't the
most effective way to work with people,and so she started using a new strategy.
(01:12):
Of sending out long agendas withall of the materials that people
could pre-read before the meeting.
And then when they came to themeeting, they'd identify together
what were the most pressingissues, and then they'd focus their
time in discussing those issues.
(01:32):
And I thought it could be useful tobuild on this then, and to hear from
a world leading expert about whatthe science says about meetings.
And that expert is Dr.
Steven Rogelberg, an organizationalpsychologist who holds the title of
Chancellor's, professor at Universityof North Carolina, Charlotte, the
(01:55):
Distinguished National, internationaland Interdisciplinary Contributions.
And his research is all about howto make workplace meetings better.
He has over 200 research publicationson the topic and has numerous
awards and honors, reflecting thequality and value of that research.
(02:18):
The most recent one, being a RaymondKatzell Award for doing research that
makes a difference for people in society.
He's really committed to bringingorganizational psychology science, and
evidence-based practices to the publicso that it can make a difference.
(02:41):
In walking the talk, he's publishedtwo books that have been listed on
more than two dozen best of lists.
One book is the 2019 book called TheSurprising Science of Meetings, how You
Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance.
And then More Recently, in2024, he published another book
(03:03):
called Glad We Met the Art andScience of One-to-One Meetings.
His webpage, stevenrogelberg.com
is a treasure trove of usefulresources, as well as collating
numerous talks and interviews.
He's been frequently interviewed in manymajor media, outlets internationally and
(03:26):
has given numerous talks and keynotes.
So I'm really honored that he'sbeen able to speak with us here
about what the science of meetingsmight have to say to us in academia.
In particular, we focuson departmental meetings.
(03:47):
So I hope you enjoy this conversationand can find something really
practical to take away at the end.
Steven, thank you so much for joiningme, especially under the conditions
where you're not feeling so great.
Steven (04:04):
Well, I am thrilled to be here and a cold will not stop me for in
having this conversation with you, soI really appreciate the invitation.
Geri (04:15):
Thank you.
And I mean one of the reasons for theinvitation is your amazing research
on meetings and you have some reallystaggering figures about the time
and cost of meetings and despitethat investment, how the majority
of people say their meetings areunproductive and a waste of time.
And I'm just thinking aboutacademia because a lot of your
(04:38):
research has been in organizations.
Does academia have asimilar meeting problem?
Steven (04:44):
Yes.
Absolutely bad meetings are an epidemicacross all organizational types, but
I think academics might be the worst.
I really do.
I think it might be the worst.
Worst.
And that's for a couple reasons.
Geri (05:04):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (05:05):
But one is we are horrible at providing training to leaders.
The foundational skills that areessential to their leadership, right.
Often we promote people,their research records, and so
people don't have the skills.
(05:25):
At the same time, while it's verywell intentioned, our meetings and
academics are so, so, so, so, so large.
And we do it in the spirit of inclusion.
But the research actually shows that asmeeting size increases, not only does
ineffectiveness increase with it, butpeople's feelings of inclusion decreases.
(05:52):
So we think we're being inclusive,but it's actually the opposite.
People experience it as performative.
Yes.
So when you think about a lack of skills.
And you think abouttoo large of a meeting.
And also in academics, wetend to meet out of habit.
We have a lot of meeting ritualsthat we don't ever just stop and
go, wait, why are we doing this?
(06:14):
So those are some unique forces Yeah.
That we haven't,
Geri (06:18):
Yeah.
That's depressingly reassuring to know,because that totally reflects my own
experience of just too many meetings.
And yeah, the performativity ofit and the lack of skills and
training I've never been trained on.
I know.
Well, meetings or anyleadership skills really.
I think there's a little bit of a shift.
Steven (06:38):
Isn't that fascinating?
Yeah.
It really is fascinating when youthink about an organizational type
that promotes people to leadershippositions, but really for all intents and
purposes, does not prepare them for it.
Geri (06:53):
Yeah.
Yep.
It does not prepare them.
And what do we do?
I mean, we end up justperpetuating what's been done.
Exactly.
Steven (07:03):
Yeah.
We just keep recycling thesame dysfunctional practices.
So yeah, it's a big problem, but, um,there are some academic institutions that
actually wanna do something about it.
Geri (07:16):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (07:16):
For example, I was just at University of Tennessee and helping their
senior leadership, um, been at Universityof New Mexico and other universities.
So I do think that thoughtfuldeans and Provost realize that
this is a good thing to do.
Geri (07:35):
Yeah.
Steven (07:35):
That bad meetings really disengage their people and cost tremendous time
that could be used in so many better ways.
Geri (07:42):
Yeah.
Which is interesting as well, given thatwe're supposed to be scientists, but we
don't consider evidence-based practicesfor around things like meetings and
leadership practices more generally.
Steven (07:57):
That is so true.
Geri (07:58):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (07:58):
It's a blind spot that we have.
Geri (08:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And is that, I wonder if it's hubrisas well, because we're academics,
you know, we know how to do things.
Steven (08:10):
Yeah.
I mean, I think there's a lotof things that humans assume
they're good at, that they're not.
Geri (08:17):
Mm.
Steven (08:18):
Let's go for a basic one.
Let's go to marriageand picking a partner.
Clearly with 50% divorce rateswe're not that good at it.
Geri (08:28):
Yeah.
Steven (08:29):
And yet, if you ask people, they will say, oh no, I
could definitely pick a partner.
There's been research done on people inprisons and they ask these individuals who
evaluate their ethicality and integrity,and compared to the general population.
They rated themselves asbeing more ethical and higher
(08:49):
integrity than the population.
So we generally think thatwe are better than we are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this blind spot not onlyleads us to reifying the bad
practices we've experienced, butalso prevents us from learning.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
We generally assume that theproblem is everyone else, not us.
(09:14):
Right.
I am, I'm the academic thatabsolutely can run good meetings.
Geri (09:19):
Yeah.
Steven (09:19):
But you're probably not.
And it takes work.
I mean, I had to work really hardon my own meetings like it, when I
first started as a leader, I thoughtI was good, but I was actually making
mistakes and I had to really work on it.
And I had to collect feedback frompeople and suggestions and it helped.
Geri (09:40):
So what, what were some of the key mistakes that you made, do
you think, when you first started
Steven (09:48):
I privileged harmony in my meetings.
Geri (09:50):
Uhhuh.
Steven (09:51):
So I didn't really want people to be fighting.
I privileged harmony,and that's a mistake.
We want disagreement.
We just want it to beresolved constructively.
Geri (10:06):
Yeah.
Steven (10:07):
So the phrase that I really like is this idea of positive turbulence.
So a good meeting leadercreates positive turbulence.
Creates a safe space forpeople to resolve it.
Geri (10:19):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (10:20):
So initially, because I privileged harmony, I wasn't creating
the conditions for disagreement.
And then I embraced it.
I said, okay, no, we need disagreement.
We have hard things to talk about,so let's disagree, but let's do it
in a really healthy, informativeway that attacks ideas, not people.
Geri (10:41):
Mm.
And you talked about not learningsome of the leadership skills.
I imagine that in the process of makingthat change, you might have needed to have
called some people out sometimes where itdid start to become more personal attack.
How might you practically engagein that sort of conversation?
(11:03):
Or what would you actually say
Steven (11:07):
At the start of the meeting, if the leader of the meeting says
to the attendees, we have somereally important topics to discuss.
I know that not everyone'sgonna see it the exact same way.
We need you to disagree with eachother, but let's talk about keeping
it on the idea not the person.
Geri (11:29):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (11:30):
So basically, I'm trying to normalize a particular
behavior, but the fact is.
Until I talk about it,people don't know it.
Geri (11:40):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (11:41):
So often meeting leaders don't set expectations upfront.
Yeah.
Right.
They don't say, Hey, you know what,everyone, let's keep our contributions
to no more than 30 seconds sowe can create space for others.
Let's be sure to listen to each otherbefore we formulate our counter argument.
(12:01):
So put it out there.
Geri (12:02):
Mm-hmm.
And these are really important peopleskills and I like really like the
idea of the setting expectations.
Because that also gives permissionthen to say, we said 30 seconds,
can we just give someone else space?
It gives you the opportunity,the permission to intervene then.
Steven (12:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Um, you know, basically, this willsound funny, but we actually need to
talk more about meetings, and everyonce in a while we actually need
to have a meeting about meetings.
Geri (12:34):
Yes.
Steven (12:36):
Because how could we not?
Yeah, like if you think about it,you have all this discontent, all
this frustration, all this misery.
Why don't we talk about it constructively?
We're trained to solve problems.
Is this the one problem we can't solve?
Of course not.
So we need to, every once in a while,if you're a department chair, you need
(12:59):
to look at your department meetings andsay, is this really working for folks?
How can I make it better?
And every once in a while we need to doa meeting audit with our people to try
to identify meetings that aren't needed.
Geri (13:11):
Yep.
Steven (13:12):
So while I absolutely get the silliness of the notion of a
meeting about meetings, but we haveto have a meeting about meetings.
Geri (13:21):
No, but it's in line with that thing of setting up the
expectations for the beginning.
You often talk about beingintentional in your meetings.
Exactly.
It's being intentional about yourmeetings, not just in your meetings.
It's what makes sense.
Yeah.
And you
Steven (13:34):
can really position yourself as a hero, right.
So mm-hmm.
If I'm meeting with my departmentand I say, listen, you all are
stretched so far and you attend alot of meetings that are frustrating.
I don't want to be part of that problem.
I want to be a positiveforce in your world.
Geri (13:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Steven (13:55):
So let's look at our meetings to make them better.
So you really are positioning yourself.
Yeah.
As a hero.
And you know, faculty willbe like, oh, that's great.
Thank you.
Geri (14:08):
And as you articulate so eloquently in one of the books, in doing that
as well, it builds trust and probablyincreases the likelihood of engagement
in meetings when you do have meetingsbecause people know that it's a meeting
that you've thought about and thatyou are going to run in a good way.
That you think that there's value inthem giving their time to this meeting.
Steven (14:29):
You are completely right.
Geri (14:32):
What would be your advice to a department chair then?
So there's the have a meetingabout meetings, having done an
audit and gathering feedback.
You talked about that as well.
Steven (14:42):
So I would, I would just start with the feedback.
Geri (14:45):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (14:46):
I would ask people, I would just do a very quick little survey.
Geri (14:50):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (14:50):
Asking people.
To evaluate like departmentmeetings, what's going well, not
so well, and ideas for improvement.
Geri (14:57):
Yeah.
Steven (14:58):
I would also ask them what meetings are they regularly attending
that perhaps aren't needed that couldbe improved, and what are their ideas?
Geri (15:05):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Steven (15:06):
So basically the, you know, meetings are shared experiences.
So therefore we want to engagethe collective in solving it.
Geri (15:17):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Steven (15:18):
And the good news is by doing that.
You're basically changingthe norms in that department.
So when, let's say program directors havemeetings right now, they're on notice.
Geri (15:29):
Yes.
Yes.
Steven (15:29):
So you can start cascading healthy and effective process.
Geri (15:33):
Yes.
Yes.
That's the, that's part ofthe whole setting the culture.
And you've just had a paper that you'vepublished just in July that was reviewing
30 years of research on meetings.
Yeah.
And that reflects some of therecommendations you have for the
organizational level about the auditand doing all of this sort of work.
Steven (15:54):
Yes.
Geri (15:55):
So in, in the work that you've done with other universities, has
it often been talking about thefaculty level type meeting, the
department level meeting and all?
Steven (16:05):
All the above.
Yeah.
Geri (16:06):
All.
Okay.
Steven (16:07):
Yeah.
You know, it's very interesting when youthink about organizational expenses.
Geri (16:14):
Yeah.
Steven (16:15):
And we often think IT is probably our most expensive
thing that we do as an entity.
But in most organizations, meetings areactually the most expensive thing by far.
Geri (16:29):
Yeah.
Steven (16:30):
You know, the time by salaries, not to mention opportunity costs.
Geri (16:35):
Yeah.
Steven (16:36):
And it,
we manage that budget.
We make sure it's working for us.
Geri (16:43):
Mm.
Steven (16:44):
But when it comes to meetings, we don't,
Geri (16:46):
Nope.
Steven (16:47):
So this is an opportunity for universities,
right, to say, you know what?
Let's stop wasting our people'stime and causing frustration.
Geri (16:55):
And it's probably, I'm just thinking about the research that's showing that
academics have a higher rate of burnoutand stress than the general population.
And all of the research is showingthat that's increasing as well.
And that for all sorts of reasonswith the managerial culture and
performance measures and so on.
Yeah.
But you know, like instead of givinga yoga program or a mindfulness
(17:17):
program for people to attend,this would be far more effective.
In respecting people's time.
It's a way of showing that respect forpeople's time and helping them navigate.
Steven (17:28):
I really like that.
Yeah, I like that.
A lots and trade-offs.
You know, we, we tell our colleagues,you need to do more with less.
They're going to shoot, they'regoing to be pretty angry.
Geri (17:39):
Yeah.
Steven (17:40):
But if we say, yeah, here are some things that we have to work on.
Yeah.
But let's make some cuts elsewhere.
Right?
By removing some wasted meetings.
So.
Just piling on people is notwhere people are at right now,
especially in universities in the us.
Geri (17:57):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Steven (17:58):
And so yeah, we need to hear messages of support, less wasted work.
Those are really critical.
It's, it's critical for all universities.
It's just that we have someunique challenges right now.
Geri (18:11):
You do have some unique challenges.
I'm just trying to think about thetension between the performativity
of large faculty meetings and theamount of time that's wasted if
you've got your 50, 60, whatever, ahundred faculty that're supposed to be
sitting in a room or hybrid as we'reincreasingly doing now at our place.
And, the notion of inclusion.
(18:33):
And some of the research that talksabout academics wanting to have a voice.
And they like having a voice as we know.
That thing then about how do you navigatethat tension of making everyone feel
like they can have a say or hear aboutwhat's going on, but use their time well.
(18:53):
What would be some of the top tricksthat a departmental chair or meeting
facilitator could do with a large meeting?
Steven (19:05):
The large meetings are obviously very hard and tricky.
And typically in academicspeople are posturing.
And there's not reallyengagement on ideas.
Basically everyone's just positioningtheir comment that they want to make.
So I think we have to thinkdifferently about the process.
Geri (19:20):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (19:22):
We need to do more, um, maybe sequential, smaller group meetings, right?
So if a chair wants to, let's say, settleon this curriculum issue, what they
could do is invite everyone to have inputvia a survey or some document, right?
So now everyone's voice.
Then there's a committee of, let'ssay, of six people who, you know, kind
(19:43):
of collect that, put it all together.
And then, you know, perhaps they canengage in a process for narrowing down
the types of op options by having voting.
But that's another way of includingall voices, and you can keep sharing
the findings for each one of these,
you know, then you could potentiallycreate, another small group that refines
(20:05):
the ideas and then it's sent back outto people who then approve the refining.
So basically what we're doing is, we'renot adding more time to people's schedule,
we're just making the time more productiveby breaking it up and spreading it out.
But the process I just shared, which isjust off the cuff by the way, it's real.
(20:30):
Right?
It's inclusive.
It actually uses people's voices.
Yeah.
And accommodates what they learn.
It's an iterative process.
So basically this thought of putting 25,30 people in a room and saying, yeah,
let's come up with a group decision.
That's rubbish.
Not possible.
But we can do these othertypes of approaches, right?
(20:53):
Soliciting input, small groups, goingback out, having people vote, rank
order, small group refining like thatis a way of truly engaging with people.
Geri (21:05):
And it sounds like it would encourage much more thoughtful
contributions and input andbe more inclusive for people.
So I don't know about your, departmentor faculty, but we have many of us
have very multicultural areas and peoplewith different languages, uh, can often
find it difficult to express themselves.
Especially where you have a lot of thevery active people who like to talk a lot.
(21:30):
Yeah.
And so this provides.
Both the opportunity for more thoughtfulinput as well as getting more voices.
Steven (21:37):
Exactly.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, when we ask people to respondto some worry via email or form Right.
That's starting to privilege peoplewho write better than they speak.
Geri (21:50):
Mm.
Yeah.
Steven (21:50):
And we definitely have those people in the cast.
Yes.
Geri (21:53):
Yep.
Steven (21:54):
So, you know, let's make sure that we design an eclectic experience
so that everyone is privileged.
And disadvantaged at various times.
Mm.
The bottom line though is thatno one should think that they can
truly generate consensus once ameeting goes beyond 20 people.
It's just not, it's not real.
It's.
Geri (22:15):
No, it's a tick in the box, isn't it?
That says, I've consulted everyone.
Exactly.
Does your research say anythingabout hybrid and, yes.
Yeah.
Steven (22:25):
Yes.
So sadly, hybrid are the worst.
Those people who are attending remoteor just unplugged their multitasking.
They don't feel included.
Geri (22:38):
I have to just put my hand up to that.
Steven (22:41):
Um, so yeah, they're just there, but not there at all.
The best practice is not a hybrid meeting,but either a fully virtual meeting Yeah.
Or for a fully in person meeting.
Geri (22:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Steven (22:58):
And I think it's important to recognize virtual meetings
actually have more promise thaneven face-to-face meetings.
Geri (23:08):
Oh, okay.
Steven (23:08):
Right.
So virtual meetings createa more democratic setup.
Everyone's pictures on equal playing,there's no head of table effects.
Oh.
The use of the chat functionallows for more voices to emerge.
People who are more comfortablewriting can have their voice,
greater integration of voting.
(23:30):
There's a lot of inherent positivesassociated with virtual meetings.
I'm not saying youshouldn't have face-to-face
Geri (23:37):
No.
Steven (23:37):
But I'm saying virtual meetings.
Geri (23:39):
Yeah.
Steven (23:39):
Stock up.
Geri (23:40):
And that's part of the intentionality then, isn't it?
About what, um, medium is going to be bestfor the sort of topics we want to have.
Because you can also do thebreakout groups in so you can get
lots of small discussions as well.
Steven (23:54):
Excellent.
Geri (23:55):
Just in wrapping up, is there's some final takeaway that you
would wanna leave us with about, youknow, if there's one thing that people
could do better, what would it be?
Us people in Yes.
Academia for our colleagues.
Steven (24:11):
Yes.
So, you know, my bookshave a lot of ideas.
Right.
And
Geri (24:16):
Lots.
Steven (24:16):
I'll share one of the ones that I think is particularly good for academics.
So when we look at agendas,most agendas are structured as
a set of topics to be discussed.
What I wannt o encourage leadersto do is to frame their agendas as
a set of questions to be answered.
(24:39):
By framing your agenda as questions,now you have to really stop and
think, why are we having this meeting?
It's to answer these questions.
By framing your agenda asquestions, you have a much better
idea of who needs to be there.
They're relevant to the questions
By framing your agenda as questions,you actually know if the meeting
has been successful or not.
The questions have been answered.
(25:00):
And by framing your agenda asquestions, it creates an engaging
challenge that draws them in justlike we see with our students.
Hmm.
And finally, if you can't thinkof any questions, it likely
means you don't need, you don't
Geri (25:15):
need a meeting
Steven (25:16):
and that might be a great way of wrapping up our call.
Geri (25:20):
That sounds great.
Because I did read something thatsaid people's favorite meetings
were the meetings that got canceled.
Steven (25:27):
Yeah.
That's sad but true.
Geri (25:30):
Yeah.
So Steven, thank you so much foryour time and for your generosity
and all the resources that you share.
I'll point people to those resourcesand to your books 'cause you have
lots of tools, templates, checklists.
Yep.
Yep.
So thank you very much.
Steven (25:45):
My pleasure.
My pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Geri (25:48):
What a great call to action to stop and reflect on what meetings
we have if we need to have them,and how to make them better.
So in terms of being more intentionalabout meetings, we can take Steven's
last questions and reframe themas: why are we having this meeting?
Who needs to be there?
(26:11):
How will they engage?
And how will I know if themeeting has been successful?
And he talked about the value of framingan agenda as questions because they can be
the anchor points for how you answer thosequestions around your intentional meeting.
(26:31):
We never got to discuss it, but Ican also share what Steven's book
would say about Deborah's strategy ofsending out the reading beforehand.
His evidence-based practicerecommendations is about providing
an agenda ahead of time that includesadditional information such as the
goals for the meeting and the purposeof each person's attendance there.
(26:59):
And he does say about providing materials,preparatory materials in advance of
the meeting, like sending any necessaryreading or introduction materials.
But his proposal is to limit theamount of materials where possible.
And he also makes mention in his bookon some of the practices at Amazon, for
(27:20):
example, about time for silent reading.
So if people, or on the assumption thatpeople don't have time to read beforehand,
providing explicit time at the beginningof the meeting for that silent reading.
So I'm really grateful to Stevenfor all that he shared here.
(27:42):
I also just want to say that Steven seemslike an amazing human being, that he
still did this call with me despite beingunder the weather and was so present.
I also want to just recognize him forhow amazingly responsive and respectful
he's been in all his communicationswith me in setting up this call.
And I also think he's a bit of arole model in how to translate our
(28:05):
research so that it can be moreaccessible to the public as he's
done with his meetings research.
And for that reason, I'm reallyhappy to strongly recommend his book,
the Surprising Science of Meetings.
It's a really practical book, andwhat we talked about here is just a
tiny flavor of what he offers there.
(28:29):
The book also includes lots oftools and checklists to support
putting the ideas into action.
I'll put the relevant links on theepisode webpage, for example, to
his research papers, including thejournal paper on bringing science
to the public and his recent journalpaper, 30 years of meeting science
(28:50):
lessons learned and the road ahead.
I'll also provide a PDF template thatyou can download that I constructed
based on having read his book.
So it may be useful for you if you dowant to conduct your own meeting audit.
And I'd leave you with a finalquestion then to think about how might
(29:13):
you be more intentional about themeetings you run if you are a leader.
Or a meeting facilitator.
And what can you do if you are ameeting participant to contribute to
making your meetings better as well?
You can find the summary notes, atranscript and related links for this
(29:37):
podcast on www.changingacademiclife.com.
You can also subscribe to ChangingAcademic Life on iTunes, Spotify.
And I'm really hoping that we canwiden the conversation about how
we can do academia differently.
And you can contribute to this by ratingthe podcast and also giving feedback.
(29:57):
And if something connected withyou, please consider sharing this
podcast with your colleagues.
Together we can make change happen.
Welcome to Changing Academic Life.
I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick, and this isa podcast series where academics and
others share their stories, provideideas, and provoke discussions about what
we can do individually and collectivelyto change academic life for the better.
(00:29):
Do you love going to your facultymeetings or departmental meetings,
however you might call them where you are?
If you're like many people,I'm guessing probably not.
Meetings take up so much of ourtime as academics and researchers.
Often they just don't feellike a very effective or
valuable way of spending time.
(00:52):
Meetings came up as a topic in ourlast episode where Deborah Boehm Davis
talked about the many meetings she ranas both departmental chair and Dean.
And she also shared how she realized thatmany of the meetings just weren't the
most effective way to work with people,and so she started using a new strategy.
(01:12):
Of sending out long agendas withall of the materials that people
could pre-read before the meeting.
And then when they came to themeeting, they'd identify together
what were the most pressingissues, and then they'd focus their
time in discussing those issues.
(01:32):
And I thought it could be useful tobuild on this then, and to hear from
a world leading expert about whatthe science says about meetings.
And that expert is Dr.
Steven Rogelberg, an organizationalpsychologist who holds the title of
Chancellor's, professor at Universityof North Carolina, Charlotte, the
(01:55):
Distinguished National, internationaland Interdisciplinary Contributions.
And his research is all about howto make workplace meetings better.
He has over 200 research publicationson the topic and has numerous
awards and honors, reflecting thequality and value of that research.
(02:18):
The most recent one, being a RaymondKatzell Award for doing research that
makes a difference for people in society.
He's really committed to bringingorganizational psychology science, and
evidence-based practices to the publicso that it can make a difference.
(02:41):
In walking the talk, he's publishedtwo books that have been listed on
more than two dozen best of lists.
One book is the 2019 book called TheSurprising Science of Meetings, how You
Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance.
And then More Recently, in2024, he published another book
(03:03):
called Glad We Met the Art andScience of One-to-One Meetings.
His webpage, stevenrogelberg.com
is a treasure trove of usefulresources, as well as collating
numerous talks and interviews.
He's been frequently interviewed in manymajor media, outlets internationally and
(03:26):
has given numerous talks and keynotes.
So I'm really honored that he'sbeen able to speak with us here
about what the science of meetingsmight have to say to us in academia.
In particular, we focuson departmental meetings.
(03:47):
So I hope you enjoy this conversationand can find something really
practical to take away at the end.
Steven, thank you so much for joiningme, especially under the conditions
where you're not feeling so great.
Steven (04:04):
Well, I am thrilled to be here and a cold will not stop me for in
having this conversation with you, soI really appreciate the invitation.
Geri (04:15):
Thank you.
And I mean one of the reasons for theinvitation is your amazing research
on meetings and you have some reallystaggering figures about the time
and cost of meetings and despitethat investment, how the majority
of people say their meetings areunproductive and a waste of time.
And I'm just thinking aboutacademia because a lot of your
(04:38):
research has been in organizations.
Does academia have asimilar meeting problem?
Steven (04:44):
Yes.
Absolutely bad meetings are an epidemicacross all organizational types, but
I think academics might be the worst.
I really do.
I think it might be the worst.
Worst.
And that's for a couple reasons.
Geri (05:04):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (05:05):
But one is we are horrible at providing training to leaders.
The foundational skills that areessential to their leadership, right.
Often we promote people,their research records, and so
people don't have the skills.
(05:25):
At the same time, while it's verywell intentioned, our meetings and
academics are so, so, so, so, so large.
And we do it in the spirit of inclusion.
But the research actually shows that asmeeting size increases, not only does
ineffectiveness increase with it, butpeople's feelings of inclusion decreases.
(05:52):
So we think we're being inclusive,but it's actually the opposite.
People experience it as performative.
Yes.
So when you think about a lack of skills.
And you think abouttoo large of a meeting.
And also in academics, wetend to meet out of habit.
We have a lot of meeting ritualsthat we don't ever just stop and
go, wait, why are we doing this?
(06:14):
So those are some unique forces Yeah.
That we haven't,
Geri (06:18):
Yeah.
That's depressingly reassuring to know,because that totally reflects my own
experience of just too many meetings.
And yeah, the performativity ofit and the lack of skills and
training I've never been trained on.
I know.
Well, meetings or anyleadership skills really.
I think there's a little bit of a shift.
Steven (06:38):
Isn't that fascinating?
Yeah.
It really is fascinating when youthink about an organizational type
that promotes people to leadershippositions, but really for all intents and
purposes, does not prepare them for it.
Geri (06:53):
Yeah.
Yep.
It does not prepare them.
And what do we do?
I mean, we end up justperpetuating what's been done.
Exactly.
Steven (07:03):
Yeah.
We just keep recycling thesame dysfunctional practices.
So yeah, it's a big problem, but, um,there are some academic institutions that
actually wanna do something about it.
Geri (07:16):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (07:16):
For example, I was just at University of Tennessee and helping their
senior leadership, um, been at Universityof New Mexico and other universities.
So I do think that thoughtfuldeans and Provost realize that
this is a good thing to do.
Geri (07:35):
Yeah.
Steven (07:35):
That bad meetings really disengage their people and cost tremendous time
that could be used in so many better ways.
Geri (07:42):
Yeah.
Which is interesting as well, given thatwe're supposed to be scientists, but we
don't consider evidence-based practicesfor around things like meetings and
leadership practices more generally.
Steven (07:57):
That is so true.
Geri (07:58):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (07:58):
It's a blind spot that we have.
Geri (08:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And is that, I wonder if it's hubrisas well, because we're academics,
you know, we know how to do things.
Steven (08:10):
Yeah.
I mean, I think there's a lotof things that humans assume
they're good at, that they're not.
Geri (08:17):
Mm.
Steven (08:18):
Let's go for a basic one.
Let's go to marriageand picking a partner.
Clearly with 50% divorce rateswe're not that good at it.
Geri (08:28):
Yeah.
Steven (08:29):
And yet, if you ask people, they will say, oh no, I
could definitely pick a partner.
There's been research done on people inprisons and they ask these individuals who
evaluate their ethicality and integrity,and compared to the general population.
They rated themselves asbeing more ethical and higher
(08:49):
integrity than the population.
So we generally think thatwe are better than we are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this blind spot not onlyleads us to reifying the bad
practices we've experienced, butalso prevents us from learning.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
We generally assume that theproblem is everyone else, not us.
(09:14):
Right.
I am, I'm the academic thatabsolutely can run good meetings.
Geri (09:19):
Yeah.
Steven (09:19):
But you're probably not.
And it takes work.
I mean, I had to work really hardon my own meetings like it, when I
first started as a leader, I thoughtI was good, but I was actually making
mistakes and I had to really work on it.
And I had to collect feedback frompeople and suggestions and it helped.
Geri (09:40):
So what, what were some of the key mistakes that you made, do
you think, when you first started
Steven (09:48):
I privileged harmony in my meetings.
Geri (09:50):
Uhhuh.
Steven (09:51):
So I didn't really want people to be fighting.
I privileged harmony,and that's a mistake.
We want disagreement.
We just want it to beresolved constructively.
Geri (10:06):
Yeah.
Steven (10:07):
So the phrase that I really like is this idea of positive turbulence.
So a good meeting leadercreates positive turbulence.
Creates a safe space forpeople to resolve it.
Geri (10:19):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (10:20):
So initially, because I privileged harmony, I wasn't creating
the conditions for disagreement.
And then I embraced it.
I said, okay, no, we need disagreement.
We have hard things to talk about,so let's disagree, but let's do it
in a really healthy, informativeway that attacks ideas, not people.
Geri (10:41):
Mm.
And you talked about not learningsome of the leadership skills.
I imagine that in the process of makingthat change, you might have needed to have
called some people out sometimes where itdid start to become more personal attack.
How might you practically engagein that sort of conversation?
(11:03):
Or what would you actually say
Steven (11:07):
At the start of the meeting, if the leader of the meeting says
to the attendees, we have somereally important topics to discuss.
I know that not everyone'sgonna see it the exact same way.
We need you to disagree with eachother, but let's talk about keeping
it on the idea not the person.
Geri (11:29):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (11:30):
So basically, I'm trying to normalize a particular
behavior, but the fact is.
Until I talk about it,people don't know it.
Geri (11:40):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (11:41):
So often meeting leaders don't set expectations upfront.
Yeah.
Right.
They don't say, Hey, you know what,everyone, let's keep our contributions
to no more than 30 seconds sowe can create space for others.
Let's be sure to listen to each otherbefore we formulate our counter argument.
(12:01):
So put it out there.
Geri (12:02):
Mm-hmm.
And these are really important peopleskills and I like really like the
idea of the setting expectations.
Because that also gives permissionthen to say, we said 30 seconds,
can we just give someone else space?
It gives you the opportunity,the permission to intervene then.
Steven (12:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Um, you know, basically, this willsound funny, but we actually need to
talk more about meetings, and everyonce in a while we actually need
to have a meeting about meetings.
Geri (12:34):
Yes.
Steven (12:36):
Because how could we not?
Yeah, like if you think about it,you have all this discontent, all
this frustration, all this misery.
Why don't we talk about it constructively?
We're trained to solve problems.
Is this the one problem we can't solve?
Of course not.
So we need to, every once in a while,if you're a department chair, you need
(12:59):
to look at your department meetings andsay, is this really working for folks?
How can I make it better?
And every once in a while we need to doa meeting audit with our people to try
to identify meetings that aren't needed.
Geri (13:11):
Yep.
Steven (13:12):
So while I absolutely get the silliness of the notion of a
meeting about meetings, but we haveto have a meeting about meetings.
Geri (13:21):
No, but it's in line with that thing of setting up the
expectations for the beginning.
You often talk about beingintentional in your meetings.
Exactly.
It's being intentional about yourmeetings, not just in your meetings.
It's what makes sense.
Yeah.
And you
Steven (13:34):
can really position yourself as a hero, right.
So mm-hmm.
If I'm meeting with my departmentand I say, listen, you all are
stretched so far and you attend alot of meetings that are frustrating.
I don't want to be part of that problem.
I want to be a positiveforce in your world.
Geri (13:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Steven (13:55):
So let's look at our meetings to make them better.
So you really are positioning yourself.
Yeah.
As a hero.
And you know, faculty willbe like, oh, that's great.
Thank you.
Geri (14:08):
And as you articulate so eloquently in one of the books, in doing that
as well, it builds trust and probablyincreases the likelihood of engagement
in meetings when you do have meetingsbecause people know that it's a meeting
that you've thought about and thatyou are going to run in a good way.
That you think that there's value inthem giving their time to this meeting.
Steven (14:29):
You are completely right.
Geri (14:32):
What would be your advice to a department chair then?
So there's the have a meetingabout meetings, having done an
audit and gathering feedback.
You talked about that as well.
Steven (14:42):
So I would, I would just start with the feedback.
Geri (14:45):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (14:46):
I would ask people, I would just do a very quick little survey.
Geri (14:50):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (14:50):
Asking people.
To evaluate like departmentmeetings, what's going well, not
so well, and ideas for improvement.
Geri (14:57):
Yeah.
Steven (14:58):
I would also ask them what meetings are they regularly attending
that perhaps aren't needed that couldbe improved, and what are their ideas?
Geri (15:05):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Steven (15:06):
So basically the, you know, meetings are shared experiences.
So therefore we want to engagethe collective in solving it.
Geri (15:17):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Steven (15:18):
And the good news is by doing that.
You're basically changingthe norms in that department.
So when, let's say program directors havemeetings right now, they're on notice.
Geri (15:29):
Yes.
Yes.
Steven (15:29):
So you can start cascading healthy and effective process.
Geri (15:33):
Yes.
Yes.
That's the, that's part ofthe whole setting the culture.
And you've just had a paper that you'vepublished just in July that was reviewing
30 years of research on meetings.
Yeah.
And that reflects some of therecommendations you have for the
organizational level about the auditand doing all of this sort of work.
Steven (15:54):
Yes.
Geri (15:55):
So in, in the work that you've done with other universities, has
it often been talking about thefaculty level type meeting, the
department level meeting and all?
Steven (16:05):
All the above.
Yeah.
Geri (16:06):
All.
Okay.
Steven (16:07):
Yeah.
You know, it's very interesting when youthink about organizational expenses.
Geri (16:14):
Yeah.
Steven (16:15):
And we often think IT is probably our most expensive
thing that we do as an entity.
But in most organizations, meetings areactually the most expensive thing by far.
Geri (16:29):
Yeah.
Steven (16:30):
You know, the time by salaries, not to mention opportunity costs.
Geri (16:35):
Yeah.
Steven (16:36):
And it,
we manage that budget.
We make sure it's working for us.
Geri (16:43):
Mm.
Steven (16:44):
But when it comes to meetings, we don't,
Geri (16:46):
Nope.
Steven (16:47):
So this is an opportunity for universities,
right, to say, you know what?
Let's stop wasting our people'stime and causing frustration.
Geri (16:55):
And it's probably, I'm just thinking about the research that's showing that
academics have a higher rate of burnoutand stress than the general population.
And all of the research is showingthat that's increasing as well.
And that for all sorts of reasonswith the managerial culture and
performance measures and so on.
Yeah.
But you know, like instead of givinga yoga program or a mindfulness
(17:17):
program for people to attend,this would be far more effective.
In respecting people's time.
It's a way of showing that respect forpeople's time and helping them navigate.
Steven (17:28):
I really like that.
Yeah, I like that.
A lots and trade-offs.
You know, we, we tell our colleagues,you need to do more with less.
They're going to shoot, they'regoing to be pretty angry.
Geri (17:39):
Yeah.
Steven (17:40):
But if we say, yeah, here are some things that we have to work on.
Yeah.
But let's make some cuts elsewhere.
Right?
By removing some wasted meetings.
So.
Just piling on people is notwhere people are at right now,
especially in universities in the us.
Geri (17:57):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Steven (17:58):
And so yeah, we need to hear messages of support, less wasted work.
Those are really critical.
It's, it's critical for all universities.
It's just that we have someunique challenges right now.
Geri (18:11):
You do have some unique challenges.
I'm just trying to think about thetension between the performativity
of large faculty meetings and theamount of time that's wasted if
you've got your 50, 60, whatever, ahundred faculty that're supposed to be
sitting in a room or hybrid as we'reincreasingly doing now at our place.
And, the notion of inclusion.
(18:33):
And some of the research that talksabout academics wanting to have a voice.
And they like having a voice as we know.
That thing then about how do you navigatethat tension of making everyone feel
like they can have a say or hear aboutwhat's going on, but use their time well.
(18:53):
What would be some of the top tricksthat a departmental chair or meeting
facilitator could do with a large meeting?
Steven (19:05):
The large meetings are obviously very hard and tricky.
And typically in academicspeople are posturing.
And there's not reallyengagement on ideas.
Basically everyone's just positioningtheir comment that they want to make.
So I think we have to thinkdifferently about the process.
Geri (19:20):
Mm-hmm.
Steven (19:22):
We need to do more, um, maybe sequential, smaller group meetings, right?
So if a chair wants to, let's say, settleon this curriculum issue, what they
could do is invite everyone to have inputvia a survey or some document, right?
So now everyone's voice.
Then there's a committee of, let'ssay, of six people who, you know, kind
(19:43):
of collect that, put it all together.
And then, you know, perhaps they canengage in a process for narrowing down
the types of op options by having voting.
But that's another way of includingall voices, and you can keep sharing
the findings for each one of these,
you know, then you could potentiallycreate, another small group that refines
(20:05):
the ideas and then it's sent back outto people who then approve the refining.
So basically what we're doing is, we'renot adding more time to people's schedule,
we're just making the time more productiveby breaking it up and spreading it out.
But the process I just shared, which isjust off the cuff by the way, it's real.
(20:30):
Right?
It's inclusive.
It actually uses people's voices.
Yeah.
And accommodates what they learn.
It's an iterative process.
So basically this thought of putting 25,30 people in a room and saying, yeah,
let's come up with a group decision.
That's rubbish.
Not possible.
But we can do these othertypes of approaches, right?
(20:53):
Soliciting input, small groups, goingback out, having people vote, rank
order, small group refining like thatis a way of truly engaging with people.
Geri (21:05):
And it sounds like it would encourage much more thoughtful
contributions and input andbe more inclusive for people.
So I don't know about your, departmentor faculty, but we have many of us
have very multicultural areas and peoplewith different languages, uh, can often
find it difficult to express themselves.
Especially where you have a lot of thevery active people who like to talk a lot.
(21:30):
Yeah.
And so this provides.
Both the opportunity for more thoughtfulinput as well as getting more voices.
Steven (21:37):
Exactly.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, when we ask people to respondto some worry via email or form Right.
That's starting to privilege peoplewho write better than they speak.
Geri (21:50):
Mm.
Yeah.
Steven (21:50):
And we definitely have those people in the cast.
Yes.
Geri (21:53):
Yep.
Steven (21:54):
So, you know, let's make sure that we design an eclectic experience
so that everyone is privileged.
And disadvantaged at various times.
Mm.
The bottom line though is thatno one should think that they can
truly generate consensus once ameeting goes beyond 20 people.
It's just not, it's not real.
It's.
Geri (22:15):
No, it's a tick in the box, isn't it?
That says, I've consulted everyone.
Exactly.
Does your research say anythingabout hybrid and, yes.
Yeah.
Steven (22:25):
Yes.
So sadly, hybrid are the worst.
Those people who are attending remoteor just unplugged their multitasking.
They don't feel included.
Geri (22:38):
I have to just put my hand up to that.
Steven (22:41):
Um, so yeah, they're just there, but not there at all.
The best practice is not a hybrid meeting,but either a fully virtual meeting Yeah.
Or for a fully in person meeting.
Geri (22:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Steven (22:58):
And I think it's important to recognize virtual meetings
actually have more promise thaneven face-to-face meetings.
Geri (23:08):
Oh, okay.
Steven (23:08):
Right.
So virtual meetings createa more democratic setup.
Everyone's pictures on equal playing,there's no head of table effects.
Oh.
The use of the chat functionallows for more voices to emerge.
People who are more comfortablewriting can have their voice,
greater integration of voting.
(23:30):
There's a lot of inherent positivesassociated with virtual meetings.
I'm not saying youshouldn't have face-to-face
Geri (23:37):
No.
Steven (23:37):
But I'm saying virtual meetings.
Geri (23:39):
Yeah.
Steven (23:39):
Stock up.
Geri (23:40):
And that's part of the intentionality then, isn't it?
About what, um, medium is going to be bestfor the sort of topics we want to have.
Because you can also do thebreakout groups in so you can get
lots of small discussions as well.
Steven (23:54):
Excellent.
Geri (23:55):
Just in wrapping up, is there's some final takeaway that you
would wanna leave us with about, youknow, if there's one thing that people
could do better, what would it be?
Us people in Yes.
Academia for our colleagues.
Steven (24:11):
Yes.
So, you know, my bookshave a lot of ideas.
Right.
And
Geri (24:16):
Lots.
Steven (24:16):
I'll share one of the ones that I think is particularly good for academics.
So when we look at agendas,most agendas are structured as
a set of topics to be discussed.
What I wannt o encourage leadersto do is to frame their agendas as
a set of questions to be answered.
(24:39):
By framing your agenda as questions,now you have to really stop and
think, why are we having this meeting?
It's to answer these questions.
By framing your agenda asquestions, you have a much better
idea of who needs to be there.
They're relevant to the questions
By framing your agenda as questions,you actually know if the meeting
has been successful or not.
The questions have been answered.
(25:00):
And by framing your agenda asquestions, it creates an engaging
challenge that draws them in justlike we see with our students.
Hmm.
And finally, if you can't thinkof any questions, it likely
means you don't need, you don't
Geri (25:15):
need a meeting
Steven (25:16):
and that might be a great way of wrapping up our call.
Geri (25:20):
That sounds great.
Because I did read something thatsaid people's favorite meetings
were the meetings that got canceled.
Steven (25:27):
Yeah.
That's sad but true.
Geri (25:30):
Yeah.
So Steven, thank you so much foryour time and for your generosity
and all the resources that you share.
I'll point people to those resourcesand to your books 'cause you have
lots of tools, templates, checklists.
Yep.
Yep.
So thank you very much.
Steven (25:45):
My pleasure.
My pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Geri (25:48):
What a great call to action to stop and reflect on what meetings
we have if we need to have them,and how to make them better.
So in terms of being more intentionalabout meetings, we can take Steven's
last questions and reframe themas: why are we having this meeting?
Who needs to be there?
(26:11):
How will they engage?
And how will I know if themeeting has been successful?
And he talked about the value of framingan agenda as questions because they can be
the anchor points for how you answer thosequestions around your intentional meeting.
(26:31):
We never got to discuss it, but Ican also share what Steven's book
would say about Deborah's strategy ofsending out the reading beforehand.
His evidence-based practicerecommendations is about providing
an agenda ahead of time that includesadditional information such as the
goals for the meeting and the purposeof each person's attendance there.
(26:59):
And he does say about providing materials,preparatory materials in advance of
the meeting, like sending any necessaryreading or introduction materials.
But his proposal is to limit theamount of materials where possible.
And he also makes mention in his bookon some of the practices at Amazon, for
(27:20):
example, about time for silent reading.
So if people, or on the assumption thatpeople don't have time to read beforehand,
providing explicit time at the beginningof the meeting for that silent reading.
So I'm really grateful to Stevenfor all that he shared here.
(27:42):
I also just want to say that Steven seemslike an amazing human being, that he
still did this call with me despite beingunder the weather and was so present.
I also want to just recognize him forhow amazingly responsive and respectful
he's been in all his communicationswith me in setting up this call.
And I also think he's a bit of arole model in how to translate our
(28:05):
research so that it can be moreaccessible to the public as he's
done with his meetings research.
And for that reason, I'm reallyhappy to strongly recommend his book,
the Surprising Science of Meetings.
It's a really practical book, andwhat we talked about here is just a
tiny flavor of what he offers there.
(28:29):
The book also includes lots oftools and checklists to support
putting the ideas into action.
I'll put the relevant links on theepisode webpage, for example, to
his research papers, including thejournal paper on bringing science
to the public and his recent journalpaper, 30 years of meeting science
(28:50):
lessons learned and the road ahead.
I'll also provide a PDF template thatyou can download that I constructed
based on having read his book.
So it may be useful for you if you dowant to conduct your own meeting audit.
And I'd leave you with a finalquestion then to think about how might
(29:13):
you be more intentional about themeetings you run if you are a leader.
Or a meeting facilitator.
And what can you do if you are ameeting participant to contribute to
making your meetings better as well?
You can find the summary notes, atranscript and related links for this
(29:37):
podcast on www.changingacademiclife.com.
You can also subscribe to ChangingAcademic Life on iTunes, Spotify.
And I'm really hoping that we canwiden the conversation about how
we can do academia differently.
And you can contribute to this by ratingthe podcast and also giving feedback.
(29:57):
And if something connected withyou, please consider sharing this
podcast with your colleagues.
Together we can make change happen.
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