How to Have the Perfect Meeting

under some form of constant improvement. There are any number of books, gurus, videos, articles that you can read to talk about how meetings are being revolutionized, disrupted, up ended, and yet we still have them, and most often they are terrible. This week on game Plan, we're talking about meetings. Hi, everybody, I am Sam Grobart. I am a writer at Bloomberg Business Week magazine. And I'm Rebecca Greenfield. I'm a reporter

at Bloomberg Berg cover the work Place. And I will say Becca that the only meetings I actually enjoy our our meetings to talk about what we're going to talk about. You don't have to say that, no, but it's true. It's true. But most other meetings they're terrible. Well, they're just there are a lot of them. A lot of people think that they waste time and meetings and can't

get actual work done. I think is one of the big problems absolutely, And in fact, we decided to go out and ask some of our coworkers what they thought about meetings, and we have some of those clips here now. I hate it when people schedule meetings and then canceled in period, but particularly when they do it at the last minute. For introductory meetings, when people ask you to say a fun fact about yourself, I can never think of a fun fact, and then usually just make something up.

So no grandstanding, no putting people down, don't make stuff out. The most egregious sin one can commit is to come to a meeting without a plan. The worst thing that I think someone can do in a meeting is if they're in like the position of power and there's food at the meeting, I think the worst thing that they could do is to not eat. Not get the food and eat it, because then you're sitting there and everyone else is in the meeting and you're just like looking

at this delicious looking food. Probably you haven't eaten all day because you've been waiting for this food, and you're just sitting there and the person in power is apparently not hungry. Apparently they don't spend all their time looking for free food around the office. Okay, so, yes, talk to me about the things that you don't like in meetings.

So I think the thing I have to start with as the woman on this show is that, as a woman, you feel sometimes that meetings are the place where sexism is the most apparent in the workplace, which is really unfortunate. I'm constantly thinking about how I have to force myself to speak up. But then I know there has been research that has shown that women get interrupted more than men, and then also research that shows that women who do

speak up are judged more negatively than men. So but if I don't speak up, then I feel like I'm not being a good employee. Right, So you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Either you're going to be sort of quiet and mousey, or you're gonna be bossy and overly aggressive. But that's that is a perception out there, right, that's the problem, and it's real.

It's totally real. The patriarchy is real. Yes, And furthermore, I would say totally acknowledging the point that you're making that meetings overall are often an odd sort of performance and even competition. And that goes for men too. Yeah that you know, people kind of come into them with a goal. The goal is not a successful meeting. The goal is a successful presentation of themselves. Yeah, you're selling

yourself in the meeting. So you have to make the next funniest joke or or cut down the next idea that somebody has, or or be the first person to say the obvious idea, right, which is something I wrote

about before I worked here at Bloomberg. Found this very popular article I wrote about brainstorming, and a lot of business school researcher types think brainstorming is really bad for coming up with ideas, which is the purpose of brainstorming, because of this thing called anchoring, where everybody rallies around the first idea, which is usually the most obvious idea. Sure,

and you know it's funny. I was thinking about this actually in the context of web comments, that somebody they'll be commenting on an article and then somebody will make sort of an outlandish claim and then all the comments that follow are just about that one post. Yeah, and you've completely moved on from maybe you know, the core definition of the article. And that's also true in meetings. So somebody says something and everybody now talks about that.

Was that the thing that we should be talking about? Totally unclear, but that's what we're doing. Yeah, there's a business school term for that that I read about, also called conformity press. Sure. I think you see certain kinds of tropes pop up in meeting, certain types of characters. Like we've said, there's you know, the jokester. I hate the jokester. I'm usually the jokester. I'm sorry. I know

I like laughing too. I like jokes too, but yeah, it's it's just like, we get it, you're funny, I am, um. And then you have the critic, right, the naysayer. It's really easy to say something negative in a meeting. That's way easier than coming up with an original, good idea. Right. There's often times I feel the repeater, somebody who maybe quite artfully but nonetheless says exactly the thing that the person just before said. Because you feel pressure to say

something in meetings. I think the tricken meetings is really not to say much of anything at all. But then you're wasting your time, which is why I think everybody feels about meetings. Well, people have been trying to get at the core of this issue for a long time, and we have one person with us here today who has tried to solve the problem in a very zen way. Um, for a number of years, he just didn't have any meetings.

We are joined by Chris White, the founder and CEO of Viable Markets, and independent consulting firm that works in the financial industry. And the reason we have Chris with us here today is in part because he did something extraordinary. Chris, for two years, you, I understand, never called a meeting, right. Um. I was working for a major investment bank and I had been working there for about five years, but the last two years that I was there, I purposely employed

a strategy of not calling any meetings. And what was ironic about it, or really surprising was I remember my boss pulling me aside one day and just saying, I've seen so much improvement from you over the past six months. And it was literally six months into me not calling any meetings. So um, it just started me thinking very differently about meetings. Why did you pursue that strategy of no meetings. What brought you to that decision, Well, Um, the type of work that I was doing was something

that is a little bit nontraditional. Within an investment bank, my responsibility was to help the traditional sales and trading business modernize. And when you're dealing with businesses that make a tremendous amount of money and your job is to talk about change and to help the business progress, that's met with a lot of resistance because obviously that famous phrase if it ain't broke, don't fix it is sort

of ingrained a lot of people's mentality. So though I was doing what I thought was right according to my my job title, it was not necessarily winning me any friends internally, So I had to figure out a different way to be influential. Wait, so when you were in meetings, when you were still doing meetings, it wasn't working well.

For a very very long time, I've used meetings, um strategically, I think that there's a perception that decisions are made in meetings, and and that is something that is something I've just not experienced. In fact, it's very difficult to come to actual hardcore decisions within a meeting. Another reason why I stopped calling meetings is because one of the pieces of advice I was given by one of my superiors was that I had to know what everyone was going to say in the meetings that I was holding.

So that meant that I would have to have bilateral meetings with every single individual prior to hosting the group meeting, and it became exhausting. Meetings on meetings, on meetings, exactly. It's meetings all the way down, Chris, I want to jump back to something you were just saying before. You said that a meeting is not a place for a decision to be made, right, tell me a little more about about that thinking. It depends on where you are.

If you're in a startup or certain other environments, maybe not all of this applies, but certainly if you're working in corporate America, and particularly in the world of finance, there's a tremendous amount of risk to saying yes. So anytime you're trying to move something forward, you're actually waiting for somebody to say yes, let's do it. And when you call a meeting and there's everybody sitting in a room, um,

it gets a lot harder. The larger the group, the bigger the meeting, the more senior people in the meeting, the harder it's going to be for you to actually get a yes. People are are pretty much convexed to say no because there's no risk to saying no, right because you never know what could have happened. You're not going to be responsible for the disaster of the yes. So normally, what what I think is the best use of a meeting and what your goals and expectations should be.

Meetings are for status, and meetings are also for authority. When you do not have authority, that meeting status oh god, but good to know we're being honest. Well, it depends on who It depends on who you are in the meeting. So in my role, I'm not a I'm not a technologist, but I relied on the work of I T I'm not a lawyer, but I relied on the work of our legal and compliance department. And so I used these meetings as a form of authority because what it did

is that they put transparency around their progress. And that's actually why I did it. So it was meant to be uncomfortable for them because they were being tasked and I knew that if they had said something last Thursday, in my next Thursday meeting, I could say, oh, John, last Thursday, you said that this would be done by Wednesday. What's the status? And that always makes someone feel uncomfortable

if they if they're not following through. Well, that proves my suspicion in my own experience that many of the meetings that I have attended, which might be sort of a weekly meeting, sort of standing meeting to check on progress, the purpose of that meeting is the threat of shame if you have not met the deadline that you are going to talk about at that meeting. The meeting itself is just a way to get you to do your work. Yes, that is the beauty of human sociology. The biggest incentive

behavioral incentive is how you appear to others. That's why I say a meeting can be your authority, depending on what position you're in. If you structure the meeting such that your process makes it transparent when somebody is not meeting their responsibilities, you're actually able to get really large, fantastic complex things done, even if you don't have direct

authority over anyone in the room. Up happens when the power and potential of every employee and leader in your workforce is released, and corn Ferry can get you there by aligning your people to your strategy, attracting, developing, engaging, and rewarding them to reach new heights. With corn Ferry, you get a partner who truly understands people, leadership, and the new landscape of work, a partner who knows how to take your business up. Learn more at corn ferry

dot com slash up. I want to go back to your two years son's meetings for a little bit. What were you doing to get things done then? Like, how did you run those big projects that you're working on? Well, Um, the way that I handled getting things done was I would just have many discussions with the people that I knew had the authority, and if I knew that that person needed reference information before making the decision, I would make sure to get a SoundBite from other people that

I know they'd want to check in with. So Becca, I would I would go to you and I would talk to you about something. I'd say, do you think

this is a good idea? And then you'd say, yeah, I think it's a good idea, And then immediately, Sam, I'd come to you and I'd say, well, I was talking with Becca and you know what she thinks is a good idea, and then I would be basically move I can move things forward that way without necessarily positioning the initiative or what I was doing is being Chris White's idea, UM, which is is it's just not going to work unless it's Chris White's company, which is why

I started my own company. It kind of reminds me of like a really good reporter who I sit near some really good reporters and yeah, they do a lot of I heard this thing from this person. What do you think about that? Totally? It is UM. It's a technique that I think UM comes quite naturally if you're having to talk about things or do things that people may not want to necessarily prioritize. Do you have any thoughts about when you're actually in the meeting sort of

the tactics of that moment. Are there things that you're doing or not doing um? Other than having called the meeting? Of course, what you've explained sort of why the meeting exists, But what about actually when you're conducting the meeting? Sure, I like to let other people in the meeting do the talking, and all I was acting as is really the talk show host. UM. In that way, I think just people feel more engaged, they feel like they have

a voice, they feel like they're being respected. There's nothing worse than sitting in a meeting for you know, forty five minutes and one person is talking on and on and on, and you're not hearing a different voice, and you're not hearing any sort of community within the discussion.

So I always I always paid attention that. UM. I think it's especially important when you're working in a diverse work environment because there are politics at play that maybe we we don't sometimes notice where certain people get drowned out and if you don't give them at least some space, they're not going to be heard and their content isn't going to be appreciated. So I was really really conscious of that. Yeah, I think about that a lot in meetings.

How I have to force myself to be heard sometimes not because anybody's malicious or doing anything, it's just you know, being a younger woman in the room, Yes, necessarily going

to be the loudest person in the room. Well, did you I don't know if you guys had a chance to read this, but there was an article out about what the women who are part of the Obama administration do in the meetings, and what they do is when a woman says something, then another woman would repeat what that woman said, just to make sure that she was heard. I think it's a brilliant tactic because those dynamics are at play in some of these meetings. It's not just

a gender. It could also be about age. I mean you mentioned being a younger woman in the room. People's listening ears sometimes turn off, um, depending on who's doing the talking. So the exact same thing can be said by two different people, but it will have varying different impacts, uh,

depending on the source. It appears to me that from how you're describing your approach to meetings, I think it's actually a lot more methodical, and you you do have sort of a script almost and a and a plan as far as how the meeting is going to commence, who is going to speak within it, and what the

objective is at the end. Whereas, honestly, and I've been guilty of this as well, meetings are often just called like hey, let's talk about X, you know, like Hey, we're all here, so uh, and there's no and then you spend twenty minutes shooting the talking about last night's debate, right, and then yeah, you do like brainstorming. That seems not

that useful. There's no trajectory. Well, I think with regards to my own situation, there were specific things that I was trying to move forward, and so I was quite clear as to why I was using the meeting. If the meeting is just to kick around ideas, I think it is going to have that sort of looseness to it and it might meander, but I but I always was thinking of where the business needed to be six months from now, was based on the meeting that I

was having that day. Um. And another thing that I did consistently and still do try to practice is to have that follow up email. I'm sure there are some some meetings you have where there's like the follow up email. Well, there's nothing gave me greater pleasure than to have somebody come to me, let's say, six weeks after something was in motion and say why are we doing this? Or I you know who signed off on this? And I would dig through my follow up emails and I'd say

Oh yeah, Um. On January ten, I sent out the status this is what was said. You were in the room at that time. You didn't raise an objection, And I really had to do that in the environment that I was in. I was working for large investment banks. You're dealing with, you know, really aggressive personality is a lot of you know, I would say a types in the room, and there's no way in terms of what I was doing and had to do a lot with technology and modernization, there was no way that I was

going to run over anyone. That would just have made me completely ineffective in the world. So I had to figure out how to use their weight against them. And the best way to use someone's weight against them is to sort of bury them in a process, and then as they try to move outside of that process, you can kind of, you know, show them the evidence, um that you were following the steps and had been transparent

with everyone. Yeah. I think that follow up email is definitely controversial, and I send them in our meetings when we talk about this show sometimes and I feel very self conscious because it feels kind of naggy almost you're going to do this, but it gets people to do stuff is and to your point, it creates a record, so it's not left to the sort of fuzzy memory of did you agree, did you not agree? I don't

know who's to say totally. I mean, I was actually just having a conversation with a friend of mine on on the way up to this podcast, and he was complaining about a technology project that was running behind. And the advice that I gave him, I said, all you need is a simple Excel spreadsheet that shows each of the technology tasks when the technologists said it was going to be complete, and the current status and everything that's

like that's late. You make sure that this the cell color is red, a bright red, and then you take that image and you send that to the boss with all of the technologists see seed. I guarantee you that project will get right on time. I think our most organized listeners are really into this advice. Yes, and maybe some are slightly frightened. You are less organized, but it's good to hear all the same. Chris white thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a real

education and pleasure. Oh thank you my pleasure as well. And good luck with your meetings everyone. Chris white Man with a plan. That guy's got it all worked out. Yeah, it's clearly working for him. Like I said, I really do think that it probably stresses some people out. Not sure that I would want to be in a meeting with him. I feel like I would constantly feel like I was in trouble or something for his projects. But yeah, it's he has found ways to make meetings work for him.

They are specific, particularly, I think, to his industry and the culture and his industry. It may not always apply to every place that you work, but as we've been sitting here talking about how terrible meetings are and how we can try to fix them, I mean there are some good things about meetings. We do like meetings, or at least some of them. Yeah, I do like meetings. They break up my day in a way that I think helps me think of ideas in a different way,

which in our industry seems important. Sure, I don't oftentimes see people in meetings that I might not otherwise see on a fairly regular basis. So from a social standpoint, it's great. That's some part of work. Yeah, I think making connections. But yeah, I think the best meetings I have, Like you mentioned, you liked our meetings, and I think that's because we have a really specific purpose and it's fairly small group of about four people usually, and we're

really trying to get something done. It's it's not like a meeting for the sake of having a meeting, which I think a lot of meetings are, and if a meeting is related to a task. In this case, our meetings are very close to the task in hand, which is let's make another episode, as opposed to sort of the more really strategy based meetings. We're not sitting around like what kind of podcast should game plan be if

I sustain and what words would you associate. I also think not having them on a regular basis is kind of good. There's a lot of meetings where it's like we need to have a weekly nine am and we are kind of like, oh, no, we should probably meet. It's more at yeah, yeah, it's more tailored to the

needs of the podcast. I also think meetings have become better because of the rise of programs like Slack and hip chat, where a lot of the conversations that we don't like our happening and all those performative things also happened there. You have to ask yourself the question if you're ever thinking about having a meeting, you know, is anything here that I can do in the meeting? Can I put that into an email or a Slack conversation or some other format? Is it is a meeting the

necessary thing? The meeting should actually be sort of the last resort. Yeah, I'll take a meeting with you. All right, we can meet. Let's do it. And now half baked takes half fake takes. Half bake takes are partially formed ideas. Becca and I have that discuss over the air here at this podcast, Becca, why don't you start with your health back takes? Well, this week we're doing meetings themed half baked takes, even though I already had one in

a previous episode, have another? I have so many. So there are so many meeting types like lunch, meeting, walk and talk. One that I get pitched a lot is the desk side meeting when a CEO of a company wants to talk to me reporter and their PR person is like, well, just like meet at your desk. It's going to be real cash total. It's a hangout, but it's a meeting. You know, we're still talking about what you can do for me. And I can do for you. But it's dusk side. I think it's a really jargon

e term. Obviously, to your point, I think it connotes a less formal meeting than a conference room meeting, right, But to me, it's just hilarious to think of the CEO or really anyone coming up and having a meeting at my really messy desk in my open office, next to my coworkers who have like garbage on their desks and are like working and making phone calls or typing or doing stuff. Yeah, it's just not the place. And also I hate the term. I don't. I just see

a duck side and I'm not going to take that meeting. Sorry. I'm much more interested in the pool side meeting or the beach side meeting. Yeah, you want to propose one of those to me, It's s Growbard at Bloomberg dot net. Feel free to drop me a line. My half bake take. Also meeting related, obviously, I'm sure you've all been in

this meeting before. There's a white board and then there's the person leading the meeting, and it's a big strategy meeting, and they decide that what we're gonna do is we're gonna all think of words associated with the thing that we're talking about. So everybody write down a word and pass it up to the front. Just get out of that meeting. That's a terrible meeting. Nobody should ever be

in that meeting. I definitely experienced this where we all had to write words on post it notes and then put them on the big glass window, and it felt very hokey. It's totally hokey. It's pulled out of some nineteen seventy two management technique textbook. It doesn't work. It's a colossal waste of time, and I hate them. It's like the trust falls of meeting. That's what I was

just thinking. It's totally like some new games, like hey it's cool, No, it's not cool, pretend you're sick and leave, okay, And that's been half bake takes, ha fake takes. You've been listening to game Plan, I am Sam Grobart. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter at Sam Grobart and I'm Rebecca Greenfield and you can find me on Twitter at RZ Greenfield. And if you liked this show, head over to iTunes and subscribe and review and rate us. Game Plan is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson.

Head of Bloomberg Podcast is Alec McCabe. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week. Bye bye bye. Get the most from your people and send your business soaring with corn Ferry. From executive search to talent strategy, leadership development, rewards and succession planning. Corn Ferry knows up is more than a direction, it's your future. Learn more at corn ferry dot com. Slash up Bye bye Bye Up Chap coup