Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader.

We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development, and I want to become the leadership BFF you didn't know you were missing until now.

Hi, and welcome to this episode of the influence and impact podcast for female leaders, which is all about meetings and how to do them well. Whether you are leading the meeting or participating in a meeting. We spent so much time in meetings and there is definitely room for improvement. And in this week's episode, I'm joined by Mamie Kanfer Stewart, who's a coach or consultant who trains teams and organisations to develop a healthy and productive meeting culture now mainly learned all about organisational culture and management from her family business Gojo Industries, which is the inventor of Purell hand sanitizer, and then she went on to launch her own business Meeteor. Her company builds an organisational culture in which people thrive, and she holds degrees from New York University's Stern School of Business and Kansas City Art Institute. Now, we talked about how to establish whether you even need a meeting and the alternatives to holding one. And that discussion alone could save many, many hours of your life.

We talk about how both leaders and participants can prepare for meetings effectively, so that they work really well, how to chair meetings, inclusively for different personalities and thinking styles. And we also explore hybrid meeting some of the challenges and some tips on how you could run them successfully. This episode is packed full of practical tips. So make sure you note them down and put them into action in your team. Now, I have just re recorded this introduction because when I first recorded it, we were planning to do my Kindle book launch on Monday, the 19th of September, I have been drilling that date into your mind for months. But life happens, sad things happen. And the Queen's funeral is being held on Monday the 19th of September. So we moved the Kindle launch forward. And as I record this on Thursday, the 15th. It's happening right now. So I am super excited. It is incredible to see so many women supporting me in this, women who've been in my programmes, women that I work with, friends, I have an amazing network of fellow coaches, consultants, trainers that I have got to know over the years and just that female solidarity means the world to me, because I like to think I'm a champion of others. And it's wonderful to be championed by others to know we're going for best seller. By the time you listen to this, I'll know whether it's best seller or not on Amazon. And honestly, it's a bit of a vanity metric, but it's one that will help build the business. But as I went to sleep last night, I really recognised that my focus had shifted too much towards that best seller status the either side of things, I guess, because I've got impostor feelings like everyone else. And whilst I can recognise them and deal with them now, there's still a part of me that is like, is this book any good? Is it going to help people do people want to hear what I have to say? And so I'm looking for that validation and reassurance. But also, I have, to some extent, bought into that very masculine way of doing business and the world of work where it's about status and being number one. And I was falling asleep last night thinking actually, I really want to redirect my attention today because I didn't write the book to become a best seller.

I wrote the book to help people just like I run my courses to help people just like I have the podcast to help people. The idea of the book is that it's going to reach so many more people and I wrote it for the version of Carla that thought she was unmanageable. In her early 20s, the version of me that was promoted and doubted myself all of the time and had no idea how to set boundaries or manage a team, the version of me that was promoted above my peers and found And it really, really hard to deal with the reaction of some of them. The version of me that was a stressed out burned out director. Because I know that whilst I felt alone in all of those things at the time, I wasn't actually alone, because I know that you and the rest of the listeners have experienced or are experiencing moments like that as well. And the book is primarily about helping you feel less alone, and helping you realise that what you feel is completely normal and you're not broken, you don't need fixing, naturally, you're pretty flipping amazing. And I hope that anyone reading the book starts to see their own brilliance a bit clearer, and gets tools and strategies so that others in the organisation can see your brilliance can see the value that you add to organisations. So my intention for the book that I set this morning is that it will really bless anyone who, who purchases it, who reads it, who puts it in to action. And putting it out there with a lot of heart, basically, and I really hope that anyone that reads it will feel supported, and encouraged. I may not know who you all are, I may not get to chat to you all personally. But trust me, I care. And sometimes it helps to just know that there are people out there that care. So that's enough on the book, but I just wanted to share that with you. Because I think it's good to catch ourselves. We live in a very masculine dominated world when it comes to the media when it comes to the world of work and business. And you know, we have to survive and thrive in that world. But wouldn't it be great to shift him a bit as well? And wouldn't it be great to focus as much on our hearts and our intuition and our wisdom as we do on our heads because you know what, we've got all three of them. And they all have different wisdom. And to be able to bring all three of them into our work is incredibly powerful. I get to do that when I remember most of the time, and I'd love for more people to get to do that, too. Okay, so, enough about me. Let's talk about meetings and roll this episode with the wonderful Mamie Canfer Stewart.

Oh, hang on. Before I do that, I should also say the paperback isn't out until Tuesday the 20th. So this this episode is coming out the beginning of that week. If like me, you love a book, a physical book that goes on your bookcase that you can pick up and flick through whenever you need it. That is available on the 20th you can preorder now and it will get sent to you as soon as it is ready. Brilliant. Okay, now let's roll the podcast episode.

So I'm delighted to welcome Mamie Kanfer Stewart to the podcast. Hi, Mamie, how you doing today?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 08:12
I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me, Carla.

Carla Miller 08:15
No problem. I have so many questions about meetings. But let's start by finding out a little bit more about you and how you've come to focus on making this really important part of the workplace much more effective.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 08:29
Yeah, so I have a very windy path. So I come from a family business. And I went to art school for college. But after college, I, like many artists didn't really know what I was going to do with my life and started working sort of in the family business, a little bit with some of our senior leaders trying to figure out what was interesting to me and what I wanted to do. And I learned a lot about how to run a meeting just by observing and being next to these people who are running meetings all the time in our business. And once I decided I don't want to be in the family business, I actually want to go have my own path. I went out to what I call the real world. And I was shocked by how terrible meetings were. In all these other organisations. I just couldn't believe that people were showing up to meetings without planning them. They were having windy conversations that led to nowhere, people would leave the meeting and not know what we were supposed to be doing next. I was like, This is not what is supposed to be like and I know that there's a better way. So I started talking to other people about their meetings. And inevitably, any networking event I went to any party, any friends I was seeing if I asked them about a meeting, inevitably they would say oh my gosh, I wasn't the worst meeting today. Everyone had a story about a bad meeting. And that's what gave me the insight that this was a problem that needed to be fixed.

Carla Miller 09:56
Completely right. I mean also we spend such a large percentage Should you buy time in meetings as well don't wait.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 10:02
Yes, it is considered one of the most inefficient aspects of business today, because we spend so much time and often the higher up in the organisation you go, the more time you spend in meetings. And when you spend upwards of 40 hours a week in meetings, because you're working 60 hours a week at your job, right, you actually don't have a lot of time to do anything else. Because it's not just the time you spend in the meetings, it's also that kind of staggered time or those short clips of time we have between our meetings that become less productive. And it's there's just there's so many challenges with how we have our meetings and how much time we spend in meetings with the way those meetings are run. I could just talk about this for days.

Carla Miller 10:47
And you've written a book on this subject, is that right?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 10:51
Yes it's called Momentum - creating effective, engaging and enjoyable meetings. And it's, it's really designed to be a hands on guide to help you transform your meetings and your company meeting culture. Because as leaders, it's not just up to us to impact our own meetings. But we can really actually change the culture of meetings within an organisation by role modelling and talking about meetings as a challenge that can be solved for all of us.

Carla Miller 11:20
I love that. Now, one of the things we were chatting about before we started was that there are alternatives to holding meetings on there. What do you recommend as alternatives to holding a meeting?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 11:34
Yeah, so I feel like it's the you know, hammer in your toolbox. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And we have come to rely on meetings in that way, we have a problem with schedule a meeting, we need an update, schedule a meeting, we need to build relationships, schedule a meeting, whatever it is, we just turned to meetings as the easiest solution, especially when email is just completely overrun. And Slack messages or Microsoft Teams are just like pinging us, and it's just too much meeting somehow still feel like a good solution, even though, for a lot of things. It's not the best medium, it's not the best format for us to be using. So before you can figure out what you should be using or what the alternatives are, you need to know, why are we having this meeting? And I would even say it's not really why are we having this meeting? It's what are we trying to accomplish in this meeting? And those questions are slightly different. And most people kind of do an intuitive why do we need to have this meeting? And the answer is, well, we have to have an update, or we have to check in on something or we need to make a plan or we need to have a discussion or review the document. And so we kind of naturally have some inkling about why we want to have a meeting. But what we don't often do is get to that answer of what are we trying to accomplish in this meeting. And we call that that desired outcome. And if you can clarify what is the outcome of this meeting we're trying to achieve. And that outcome could be an approved document, or kind of a finished version.

It could be to have stronger relationships within the team. It could be a decision is made or the committee has determined a recommendation to serve up to a board. Or it could be clearer next step. So everybody knows exactly what they're doing. Or it could be a shared understanding of some complex situation or complex information. If you can get to that outcome, then you can decide is the meeting a best way to get there? And the answer might not always be yes. So a couple of other tools you can have in your toolbox, some of which we use regularly anyways, and some of which might be a little bit new or different. One of them is to create a PowerPoint, or write a memo that just puts all the information in one place. If you are trying to share information one way, you don't need a meeting for that, unless it's a sensitive topic, or the information is really complicated. And you need to check for understanding, or you need buy in you need people to really like get excited about this information, or you need them to come along with you. If you don't need those three things, don't have a meeting. And people always tell me they're like, but wait a second, if I send it as an email, or I put in a memo, then how do I know people are going to read it because our emails are overflowing and it's just going to, you know, fall through the cracks. And they'll all read it at some point.

So here's my trick. At the end of the email, when you send it over, or if you attach it into a Slack message, put a question that says, I need you to respond to me by this date with the answer to this question. And if you give them a question that requires them to read the material, then you've given them a deadline. So now they have to do it by a certain time and you're going to check in on them if they don't. And you've given them a way to signal to you that they have read the material so you know exactly who to follow up with. If, if they haven't gotten back to you, and now you can be sure that they actually read the materials, or at least skimmed it enough to be able to answer your question. So I'm gonna pause I said a lot. And there's still a lot more to say on alternatives. But that's one of my favourites. Because it's it's a common problem that we have meetings to just share one way information.

Carla Miller 15:18
Yeah, I love that tip. And you're so right about the hammer. It is it's just a meeting of the default and and that just repeats with every generation, doesn't it because you come into the workplace, and that's happening. And then you perpetuate that as you move into management and leadership as well. And what is I do like spending time with people in person in a room, I don't want to spend all of my time doing that. And that's what people end up doing. And other alternatives, one of the things I saw one of the larger tech companies doing was like a one page summary that they were asking people to read beforehand. Is that an approach that you would recommend? Or are there downsides to it?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 15:59
Yeah, I would put that into the category of pre work not as a meeting alternative, it can become a meeting alternative, right? If you're just giving people some information, and you want to confirm that they've consumed it and answer any questions, then it's great, you don't even need to have the meeting. But if you want to then have a meeting to discuss it, then it's great, we love pre work, we are huge fans of pre work, you can shorten a meeting time, from maybe an hour to 45 minutes or 45 minutes or half an hour, by giving people that material ahead of time to consume, which does a lot of things. One, now it's just easier to schedule, because you have so many different moving parts and pieces to a meeting and you're trying to find the time, sometimes it's just easier to schedule half an hour than an hour. Second, you give them people time to think they can now read that material, or one of my favourites send an audio message, or even a screen capture of you walking through a presentation or a video message.

It doesn't have to be just a written document, we have all kinds of tools that we can use to capture information and share it with our colleagues. And they can then consume it on their own time, process it, think about it come together into the meeting ready with our best thinking. And this is particularly important around inclusive practices. Because we know that our introvert friends, they do better when they have time to think beforehand. So usually 24 to 48 hours is the optimal time. And it gives them that chance to think to read to process. And that way you'll get their best thinking into the room. And it's also really helpful for people who have different kinds of audio processing, right to be able to provide something in writing ahead of time might work better for some folks than trying to listen on the spot. For others having it in a video format. And being able to listen to it two or three times might be better than having a live presentation. So we can actually tap into all kinds of different learning modes and personality types. If we send materials ahead of time, and then jump right into the discussion, once we get into that meeting. And as you mentioned, those pre work pieces, some of those things that can actually be meeting alternatives, you can actually have a whole conversation through video chat, where you don't ever actually live together, you're just sending messages back and forth. And that can also be an acceptable form of collaboration.

Carla Miller 18:21
Yeah, asynchronous. Is that how you say it communication is growing? Isn't it the popularity that I guess because a lot of people are using slack and teams to communicate with each other, and a lot more people are working internationally now, as well. I like that idea of being able to deliver the information in different ways and used to be some kind of software doesn't where you can deliver it, you can put in input into the software, your preference, and then it comes out in all the other preferences as well. Because I need things written down. If I get video an audio message, I'm like, oh, not only can I not scan that, very quickly, I'm going to have to make notes so that I remember it whilst other people will be exactly the opposite. So yeah, we need some kind of tool that just automatically populates it in different forms, I think.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 19:09
Yeah, you may think there was a single tool and right now there are a couple of different tools that you can use for different preferences. So transcription services are really affordable. So if somebody sends you a video or audio message, it's really easy to have it transcribed within like minutes or hours at the latest. So you can, you know, just upload their file and then get the script from that and be able to read through it as fast as you want. And the opposite is true. But we now have great apps for live reading. So it'll actually read the text out loud for you. So you know what your preference is. You just need to do a little bit of looking and you can find good free or inexpensive tools and then you know, match whatever it is to your needs.

Carla Miller 19:52
Brilliant. Yeah, I use Otter for transcription that works really well for me. I didn't realise it who gets them to read to you as well. So going back To the idea of sorry, going back to the idea of preparing for the meeting, what else do you think people need to do to prepare for a meeting,

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 20:09
I'm going to divide this into two different groups.

First is what meeting leaders need to do. And then second, we can talk about what participants need to do. Because it's not just on the meeting leader to have a good meeting. It's really about everybody contributing. So meeting leaders, the first thing you need to do I already mentioned, which is figure out your desired outcome, what do you want to accomplish in this meeting, because everything else is going to fall in line with that goal. And if you know what you want to accomplish, now you can figure out who needs to be there. And I cannot tell you how many meetings, I have sat in that other people have constructed, and I'm a participant. And at the end, they realise that a key decision maker isn't in the meeting. And so we can't actually make the decision, or there's a bunch of information that we need. And the person from a different department wasn't invited, because nobody thought ahead of time to say, what information are we going to need in this meeting, in order to make this decision or to make an accurate plan? So you got to know what you're going to accomplish? You can figure out who actually needs to be in this meeting and make sure the right people are there? And then what are we going to do with our time? How are we going to spend it so it drives us towards that outcome. And if your outcome is relationship building, that's really different than if your outcome is dropping to a decision, or your outcome is generating ideas. And one of the challenges that we have is when we don't know what the outcome is, we end up just going into a meeting and having a discussion. And discussions are fine. But it's much better. And it's more engaging.

If we can plan some activities that will lead us to that outcome. So meeting leaders plan your agenda, figure out how you're going to start your meeting. So get everybody into the room, what you're going to do during the meeting. And again, it can be more than discussion, it can be different kinds of activities, it can be using sticky notes, or virtual mindmaps. It can be doing small group or parish shares, and then coming back together, there's just so many different activities you can lead. And then at the end, holding time for your closure for what we call your wrap up. And if you have your agenda plan, then what can people do to prepare this is now that pre work. So you know what your agenda looks like? What do people need to know or do ahead of time, so that they can come in ready to engage? And that's where you figure out? Is there a memo that already exists that I just need to send to people? Or is there an article I want them to read? Do I need to make a little voice capture just sending some context so people know, kind of what the background is, whatever that pre work is, figure that out, put it together, don't spend forever on it, it doesn't need to be a big to do, it can literally be something you throw together in 10 or 20 minutes, just pulling things that are pre existing or, or recording yourself or writing up a little memo. And then send that off to your colleagues. Give them you know, minimum 24 hours, ideally more like 48 or 72 hours, so that they have time to fit that pre work in and do that thinking and that processing ahead of time and know what the meeting is all about. So that's what meeting leaders should do ahead of time.

And then meeting participants. If you don't know what the meeting is about, if you get a calendar invite, and the day before the meeting leader hasn't sent you an agenda, they haven't told you what the desired outcome is they didn't give you any pre work. It is your responsibility to reach out to that meeting leader. And very kindly say, Hey, I saw this meetings coming up on the calendar, I'm just wondering what you intend to accomplish in this meeting and how I can best prepare. And by doing that, you have now planted the seed for that meeting leader to do that thinking, because maybe they they didn't know they were supposed to do that thinking or maybe they just got caught up in life and work and haven't had time. And you've now prompted them to get clear on what they're trying to accomplish. And is there something people should do ahead of time? And why are you particularly invited? So all those questions that you can ask as a meeting participant can really help your meeting leader do their part, and help you be prepared because now that meeting there, hopefully will respond and send you here's what we're trying to accomplish.

Here's what you could do to prepare. And oh, by the way, like, here, you know, I can tell everybody to in the meeting now. So we're all on the same page, and we can all come in together. And then lastly, if you get that agenda, if you get pre work, please do it. This is again, as participants, it's so hard for meeting leaders, when participants show up, and they haven't done the pre work. And you're trying to have a conversation and you're trying to get everybody to you know, come in prepared so that you would have that rich discussion. You could do those activities and get the best thinking in the room. And it's so frustrating when one or two people just haven't done it. And it's then you get in this pickle of do I repeat what I told people before and then waste everyone else's time. Do we just keep moving forward knowing that these people are going to be lost? And it's very frustrating so we can talk about what to do with that but my plea is to tell everyone please, please, you get pre work, please do it. It makes everyone's life and the meeting so much more effective.

Carla Miller 25:07
I imagine that's related to the culture of your team or your organisation. Isn't it like that it's not acceptable to turn up having not done the pre work, for example?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 25:19
Yes, the way I think about it is, you wouldn't show up to a meeting half an hour late. So why would you show up to a meeting unprepared? Right, you wouldn't miss a deadline that your boss gave you for a project without talking to them first. Why would you not do this other tasks that they'd asked you to do? Right, but we don't think of it that way. It feels kind of like, an extra thing, or like an optional thing. That's a nice to have. And if we shift how we think about meetings, and pre work from being like, this kind of nice to have our oh, you know, it's just a little thing into actually, this is what it means to be a professional. It's actually what it means to do your job is to show up to meetings prepared and on time and ready to engage. And we hold people accountable to that either through our general practices around accountability. And also I explaining to people why we have pre work in the first place. So sometimes it helps to have a meeting about your meetings, and bring your team together and say, let's talk about our meetings, what's working, what's not working, what do we wish was different. We know what would make our meetings feel like a good use of everyone's time. And to talk about rework is a key piece of that it has all of these benefits to it. And so let's all agree that we're going to do pre work when it's sent to us. And we're going to show up to meetings on time and prepared. And if that doesn't happen, then you can have an accountability conversation, because other everyone else on the team has already agreed that this is how we're going to approach meetings that we're not going to treat these as a nice to have, we're actually going to treat it as part of our meeting culture as part of our accountability and a part of what it means to be a professional in this role.

Carla Miller 26:58
Yeah, you might want to when inviting people to that meeting, provide lots of cakes and biscuits to come to a meeting about meetings.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 27:05
Yes, food always helps. And if you're doing it virtually, one of my favourite tricks is to send people a gift card to their local coffee shop and have them go out and get their own treat at some point. So either in that meeting, they can enjoy it or after hours, if that's their preference.

Carla Miller 27:22
That is a good plan. It's funny, I would quite often bring in a drink to a in person meeting, but I wouldn't sit at home and drink a cup of tea or coffee in a meeting that feels rude as well.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 27:34
Yeah, so funny. I have my coffee right here.

Carla Miller 27:37
I've got water. But it's really weird. I hadn't thought of it like that before. And two things from an influencing perspective, I want to add to your things that people can do to prepare for meeting.

One is to think about what do you want to get from the meeting? So not just what is the purpose of you being there, which is a very useful thing, like you say, to establish, because otherwise, you're just wasting your time. But actually, what do you want to achieve? So it might be that you want to be seen as credible in a particular area, it might want to further a relationship.

And then the other thing I talk about as well is being really intentional about how you want to be perceived in meeting. So how do you want people to describe you, when you leave the room, for example, because I think setting that retention can act as a really fantastic subconscious filter for your communication. So I always encourage people to just take a minute to do that. And if you're flustered, coming from another meeting, take a minute to just ground yourself, feel your feet on the floor, take a couple of deep breaths, because I don't know about you. But sometimes I'm rushing from thing to thing. I'm not really fully focused, and prepared. And it's just nice when people allow you to not be back to back in meetings, isn't it so that you've got that five minutes to collect yourself? I imagine that generally improves the quality of meetings in an organisation.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 28:55
Yes, well, first of all, I love those ideas of thinking about for yourself, how do you want to be perceived? And how do you want to show up? And I mean, that's, that's so wonderful. And I think, especially for participants who are coming into a meeting with their colleagues, and they want to elevate themselves, or for meeting leader who's really trying to create an inclusive environment, right. Sometimes it's hard for us as meeting leaders to make space for others because we're holding the container so strongly. And so I love that getting yourself into the right mindset. And when it comes to the like the back to backs. So yes, first of all, I don't know why whoever created Google Calendar, or Outlook or any of those things, thought that scheduling things in a full hour or a full 30 minutes should be the default.

That makes no sense to me because we physically can't get from one space to another in zero seconds. So even before we were online, it was just impossible to get from meeting room a over to meeting room B or Up the stairs, when were you gonna go to the bathroom, or we're gonna fill up your water like these things just don't make any sense. So having meetings be 30 minutes or an hour is an unfortunate default of our technology. But really, we don't want our meetings to run that full length really giving ourselves five minutes. So ending five minutes early. And creating that practice building your agenda to be 40 minutes or 45 minutes, not a full hour or 55 minutes, can give people that space to transition. And even if you don't have that space, I want my practices after I have a Zoom meeting, every time I get off a zoom, meaning as I stretch for 30 seconds, I just like move my body, get myself re centred and focused. Even if I'm jumping into the next Zoom meeting, that, you know, it's jumping from one thing to another, but I always take 30 seconds just to breathe and move and recenter myself. And sometimes that means I show up to the next meeting a minute or two late. And I think that we now have to just come to accept that meetings are not going to start on the on the hour, they're always going to start a few minutes late, because people need some time to shift to get bio needs filled and all of those things. So we just need to build some of those acceptable practices into our, into our rhythm. And lastly, on the mindset shift, every meeting, that you start, should always start by re grounding on why you're here. It's easy to think that people know what you're here for. It's easy to kind of, especially if you're the meeting leader. And so you are you have the agenda in your head and you are ready to run. But everybody's coming from something else. Even if it wasn't another meeting, even if it was just heads down work that they were doing. Or they just drove in and arrived in the office, whatever was or just, you know, sent their kids off to school that morning. There, everyone's coming from something else. So you need to start your meeting with thank you all for coming. Here is what we are here to do today. Here's what we're trying to accomplish. And I'm really love the practice of a check in giving people a chance to go around and share what's on your mind. How are you feeling? It can be fun, or creative. Or it can be very simple and straightforward. It can be done verbally, which is my preference. Or it can be done in a chat if you're using zoom or Microsoft Teams. But giving everyone a chance to just do that transition and to be present will then set you up for the rest of the conversation.

Carla Miller 32:31
Yeah, I love doing that on virtual calls, even when I've got lots of people on a call just to do that check in at the beginning. I think it's just really useful to for us to take a moment, isn't it and to get well how actually am I feeling and what is going on. So we will have some people listening who chaired lots of meetings and some people who are moving into management roles or organisational leadership roles, and are suddenly going to have to start cheering, bigger meetings. What are your top tips when it comes to chairing meetings? Obviously, the pre work and the structure are absolutely key. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 33:09
Oh, yes. I mean, it gets into now, this gets into now the like managing the meeting, right? Like when we're in the conversations and we're leading these activities. And you know, there's a million things that can go right and a million more things that can go wrong, right? Somebody is hogging the microphone, and it's hard to get a breath in, someone's getting really emotional. And it's like just making the whole room start to get tense. You ask a question, you open up the group and nobody responds. And you're like, is anybody listening? Are they all like just off in their own heads because I'm being really boring, right? There's just so many dynamics, right? Somebody's being really quiet, and you want to draw them out, but you don't want to put them on the spot.

There's so many things that can come up for us as meeting leaders once you're actually in the in the room. So a couple different things that I suggest many leaders do. So the first is if you know that there are people who tend to be problematic, have a side conversation with them. It's hard to call people out in the meeting, right? It makes people look bad, it makes you feel bad. It creates a sense of awkwardness. Nobody really wants that. But if you have a side conversation with someone separately and say, Hey, Mimi, I love how much you engage in our meetings, I know that you have so many great ideas, and you have such a great perspective. And you always have so much to say. I also want to acknowledge that we have four other people in the room. And we're really trying to create an opportunity for everyone to contribute.

So I'm wondering if maybe in our next meeting, you could hold back a little bit, make some notes, you know if that helps you to remember some of your thoughts. And then let's have a follow up afterwards where you can tell me everything else that you didn't get to say. And if it's okay with you, I might facilitate a little bit in the meeting to make sure that there is space for other people to contribute, but just know I'm gonna follow up with you afterwards. And I want to hear everything you have to say. And sometimes just helping people see their own behaviour will be enough to get them to hold themselves back, if they're a person who talks a lot. Many times people aren't trying to be rude, but not trying to suck up all the air, they just don't realise that they're doing it. And they don't realise the impact it's having on other people. So just let them know, same thing, if somebody's really quiet, and you want to draw them out, talk to them before the meeting, hey, Mamie, I know you, you seem to be a little quieter in meetings or something I've noticed. But I really think that you've got great ideas. And that's why I you know, I'm including you, and I would love to hear them. So if it's okay with you, I may ask you some questions in the meeting to try to, you know, make some space for you, because I'd really love for the team to hear from you. If that doesn't feel good for you totally fine.

Just say someone that meeting and I'll follow up with you afterwards. And you can share anything else you want with me then. But let them know that you intend to ask them to participate in a way that's not putting them on the spot, because now they can say, okay, maybe he's going to ask my opinion, I want to be ready for that. And then in the meeting, right, it's all about though, the way to create that space. So it can either be to someone who's talking a lot. I mean, I'm sorry to interrupt. i We just we only have 20 minutes. And I want to make sure that we get to hear from everyone. So can you put a pin in your thought make a note? And I just want to open them up to hear from other people, right? And then not be like, Oh, yes, maybe told me that they were going to do that? Right or the opposite. Before you know, here's our next topic I want to get into but before we move on, maybe you haven't spoken yet in this topic. And I just want to see if there was anything you wanted to add before we move on. Right gives them a chance to say like, No, I'm good. Or actually thank you. Yes, I would like to add this little bit in. So you're creating opportunity for people to either step back or step forward. Keep going, I have so many more, more tips. But those are some of the big ones.

Carla Miller 37:00
I love that. And I think what I'm increasingly learning, so I think like an extrovert, I'm actually an ambivert. But I think like an extrovert. And so I like to do things on the spot. But what I'm increasingly learning from my introverted clients is if they can have those questions and thinking points beforehand, that really allows them to have the time to reflect and feel even more prepared. So I think if you're able to, when you're giving them the heads up, you're gonna call on them. If you're a if you've already framed in your head some of the questions that you are going to ask people in that meeting, it's really useful to be able to share those, isn't it?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 37:38
Absolutely. And that's one of the great things about that pre work, right? If you've told people, this is what we're trying to do in the meeting, this is what we're going to talk about, here's some materials to look at. You can also give them here are some questions I want you to think about, so that we can have a discussion about them. So you can give it to everyone. It doesn't have to be just for your introverts, you can actually just build it into your process of pre work to give everybody those questions, so that everyone can start doing that thinking, and it's a good skill for us extroverts to also practice.

Carla Miller 38:07
Absolutely, yeah, I think it's discipline for all of us, isn't it to think it through? And how do you find the time? So you mentioned for both of those sorts of people who find it challenging to manage their interactions in meetings that you said, are off, you can follow up with me afterwards? How often do people actually take you up on that? Because you could end up I guess, having to pre meetings or meeting into post meetings if you're not careful?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 38:35
Honestly? Not that often. At least that's been the experience that my clients have said is they will send someone an email and say, Hey, is there anything you wanted to share that you didn't get to say in that meeting? And they they'll do it by email or slack first, before actually scheduling a meeting to have it to have that conversation? And oftentimes, people will either respond and say, like, no, actually, that was a great meeting, nothing to add, or, here a couple of thoughts, and they'll write it out into a few bullet points. Occasionally, they'll say, actually, yes, can we meet I have, like, I want to discuss something. But most of the time, nobody else wants to have another meeting about it. They just want you to demonstrate that you're following through on your promise, and to feel that they have an opportunity to share if there's something that they want to contribute. So most of the time, it's very simple. You can even like pre sent, reschedule your emails to go out. So you can just write them write that and have it scheduled to go out the day after the meeting and say, hey, just want to see if there's anything else you wanted to share after that meeting. And most people again, well make well not require an extra meeting for it.

Carla Miller 39:37
Brilliant, and is there anything else that anyone sharing needs to think about when it comes to being inclusive in meetings?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 39:45
Um, there are a few other things. This one's not totally about being inclusive, but it's one of the other kind of core challenges that meeting leaders have, which is when people take the conversation off track. I want to talk about that, and then throw in a few more inclusive practices. So when the meeting seems to be going off track when people are taking the conversation way deep into the details in the weeds, or it's on a tangent, that seems unrelated. And you're just kind of feeling like what is happening here, this meeting is not going the way that I wanted.

The easiest way to course correct is to ask the group. Hey, I've noticed that the conversation has evolved on to x topic. And I'm wondering if that is the best use of our time right now, given the objective we have for our meeting to do XYZ. So can we is it okay, we put this conversation aside, we need to have a follow up meeting we can, or maybe, you know, so and so you can be on point for figuring out what to do with that conversation that still needs to be resolved. And if it's okay with you, I'd like to put his back onto the agenda for x. And just offering it up to the group helps kind of create oh, yes, that wasn't what we should be talking about, we really should be talking about this other thing. It's a lot easier when you ask it as a question. Is it okay? If we put a pin in this? Is it okay, if maybe you take responsibility for following up on that conversation, any next steps, so that we can get back on the group back onto our agenda. And by doing that, it feels less like an interruption or less like a scolding of you took the conversation off track, we need to get back over here, and more of an invitation to return to the original plan. Okay, so now let's talk about inclusive practices.

So one of the ways to make a meeting more inclusive is to not require everyone to speak, but to actually use other forms of engagement. Because when we're talking right, only one person can talk at a time. So if you have five people in a meeting, and you have 15 minutes of actual meeting time, each person if it was totally equable, would get 10 minutes, 10 minutes is actually not that much time for each person to contribute, and in some ways, kind of a loss, because I'm sitting there for 15 minutes, but I only get to share for 10. So some of the practices that are activities that can engage people in different kinds of ways. And using different modalities, not only get us more of each person's thinking, but create a more equitable space where we don't have to take turns, we can actually all contribute to the best of our ability. So some of those things are like using sticky notes and having people write things down. Instead of only sharing verbally, it also helps for those quiet processors who want to have just quiet space to think before sharing verbally.

So similar to how you might do a brainstorm, you can ask people to write their thoughts down first, and then share verbally or do a cloud cluster. You can also do things with mind maps. So if you use virtual tools, having people go into a mind map and put their ideas put their questions, you can use different kinds of voting tools, or cloud creators online. One of my favourite practices is using a fist of five as a decision tool or as a way to kind of gauge where people are at with something where you ask people to hold up how many fingers represent where they are on a scale. So five fingers is I totally agree. Zero is this is I completely disagree. And three is I'm totally neutral. And by doing that, you can gauge who's already in alignment with this or who feels like they're good to go. And who still has questions or who's uncomfortable. And if you ask people to do it at the same time, and not like okay, maybe what's your score, but just all of us at the same time, hold up your fist. Then you can see oh, maybe was a two? Let's start with her questions versus Carla who was a four whose questions might be really important. But she Carla's already feeling good about this. So let's focus in on Mamie's questions, because those she's feeling a little more unsettled about this. So you can help orient the conversation to the people who need to be more, have more attention into their questions or their ideas, compared to the people who feel like they're already invested.

Carla Miller 44:10
Brilliant, I've not thought of using that tool. I'm going to start integrating that into some of my meetings. And I love a post it note I used to do a lot facilitation. And before we would do any kind of group work with a large group or small group, I would ask people to spend some time with post it notes just thinking for themselves to avoid that. group think just give people a chance to think rather being put on the spot. Now, you talked a little bit about technology, there hybrid meetings seem to becoming an increasing reality, even if they don't start off as hybrid than someone's at home with COVID or something else and it becomes a mix of the two and most of us have learned some of the basics of virtual meetings now over the last couple of years and we were doing in real life meetings for a long time.

What do you need to know to be able to run a good hybrid meeting, do you think where are the distinctions or differences?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 45:05
Yeah. So hybrid meetings are still kind of in their infancy, right, we were not great at virtual meetings, and then we kind of became better at them, I don't think we're still, we're still not great at them. But we became better at them over the past couple of years with a pandemic. And now we're in this new space of virtue of hybrid meetings. And, again, we're in the infancy of it. So we're still trying to figure it out. And I don't think we've cracked the code. But there are some practices that seem to be working better than others. So one of them has to do with how we use the zoom or the Microsoft team's cameras. So when you have a group of four or five people who are in one room, and you have one camera, on that group, everybody's face is tiny on the screen for whoever is the virtual participants. And then the people who are sitting in virtually, their faces are huge for everybody else. So that imbalance creates kind of an unfortunate dynamic, where the people in the room tend to just talk to the people in the room. And the people on the screen can't really see the facial expressions can't really see the energy in the same way, because the angle of the camera doesn't kind of convey that so easily. So what I've been doing with my own team, and what I've seen worked with other teams, is even when you're in a room together, and there's one or two people, or three people who are attending virtually every person sits with a laptop, and the camera on their face, so that if you are a virtual participant, you still see, whatever it is eight boxes with individuals, you don't see one directional camera with a room of four people. And that instantly creates a more equitable experience for people who are participating virtually. And it makes it much easier for the people who are talking to each other in the room to also be talking to the people who are right in front of them, because your physical space is now oriented towards your laptop, and not towards the people in the room and also sideways towards the camera at the end of the table. So that is one of the easiest things to do. And if you have a good conference phone that you can put on the centre of a table so that you don't deal with like, multiple microphones, that helps a lot. So that's kind of the first thing is just get your room set up, get your tech set up and get your laptops so that everybody can be on the screen. And in those little boxes nicely. And then the second is to lean into the technology, it's almost as if you plan every meeting like it's going to be totally virtual. And then it just happens to be that some of us are in person. So instead of using little sticky notes, do it on a Google jam board, right?

Do it with a mind map, do it with a mirror board, just lean into the tech side, because that will make the virtual participants feel most included. And we're all becoming so comfortable with those tools. And there's so many other benefits to them, you get everything documented right away, you don't have to type up notes afterwards, you have options for things to be anonymous. Whereas even if you're writing sticky notes, everybody knows whose handwriting is who's right. Like, that's the reality. But if you're typing into a little note online, nobody has to know who that note came from. So you can actually just take advantage of all the things we've learned about good virtual meetings, and apply them into the hybrid space.

Carla Miller 48:39
So that's like a virtual meeting in the physical space, I guess.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 48:45
it is, it kind of is, which is ultimately, at least at this point, kind of the best we can do. Because anything that you do that is specifically for the physical people who are physically present, is going to automatically exclude those who are virtual. There are some really creative things. I've heard of groups where they put somebody like on a chair, and then they can move around the room. But there are all kinds of other technical problems that come with that people can't hear so well. So they get lost in the conversation. If you have more than one, one person and you're trying to do small groups. And then the audio isn't Greg, it just it becomes there comes other challenges that we haven't yet figured out how to solve. So I think there's hope I think there's opportunity, as technology gets better, as our spaces get designed differently to accommodate hybrids, I think we can get there. But at this moment in time when we're making this recording, the best that I have seen is to lean into the virtual and kind of accommodate the in person along the way.

Carla Miller 49:48
That makes sense. And then to finish up it would be good. I know you think that what happens after a meeting is important as well and how you close a meeting. So what should people know about that?

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 49:59
Yes, okay, so big insight meetings are not an event, we think about them as an event because they're on the calendar and the diary as like from noon, until 1pm. Done. But really, they're a cycle we have before the meeting, which we talked about how to plan and prepare, we have during the meeting, and then we have after the meeting.

So the way you should end, every meeting is with a wrap up, put it on the agenda, schedule five minutes and use that time to bring the meeting to close. That includes acknowledging if you achieved your desired outcome, did you do what you said you were going to do? Did you get there? And if not, then what are the next steps? What do you need to do? Do you need to have another meeting? Are you going to have a subcommittee take some things off? Is one person going to drive it forward? What needs to happen? What are the next steps just in general? Who is going to do what so everybody is really clear on what is going to happen? And by when? And what are the decisions that were made, and capturing them in writing. And I like to do this as a round robin, so that each person has the opportunity to say, here's my next steps instead of the generic.

Okay, so someone is going to do this, or we need to do that, or let's have this happen. People are actually saying, This is my next step, I'm taking ownership over this. And here's how I get it done by and you can type those things up in real time in the meeting. So each person knows exactly what they're going to do. You write down the decisions that were made, I like to also include the key reason why that was the decision. So if you were considering different alternatives, what was the deciding factor that made this the decision so that if you need to revisit it, or you need to share it with other people, they have a little bit of context for why that decision was made. So do that in those five minutes real time, type it up and then hit send, so that everybody has a copy. And anyone who wasn't in the meeting can be immediately informed. So if you've had somebody who was out sick that day, or you had colleagues who don't need to be in the meeting, but they just need to know, the meeting outcomes, they can immediately know what's going on, there's no lag and time, there's no expectation that the meeting participants are going to go off and share and then some of them do, and some of them don't. And then you end up with all kinds of discombobulated things where you're like, wait a second, why didn't what happened, just immediately send it out.

So everybody has that information is on the same page. And then the follow through phases. You know, the, you know, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one's there to hear it didn't make a sound right. Like, we come out of meetings, and then we have, okay, here's what we're gonna do. And then nothing happens. Because nobody follows up. So we're like, wait a second, why do we have that meeting? Why do we generate those next steps, if they were literally just going to sit there on a page and nothing happened with them. So be really judicious about what is going to happen. And then follow up, just like you would on any other product and any other tasks, if something's supposed to happen, make sure it gets done that on your to do list, make it part of your next meeting and your accountability, whatever it is that moves so that the meetings create that movement, they create action, and they derive your record.

Carla Miller 53:08
So important, I'm sure lots of people won't have thought of that before. Super helpful. Hopefully, people are listening, feeling inspired to go and run some meetings differently and have some conversations with their teams. If people want to find out more about you and how they can work with you and what you offer, where can they go? How can you help them.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 53:30
So, if you're interested in all things, meetings, go to Meeteor.com. We have a free online resource centre, you can find my book, I do workshops, and all kinds of support for meeting leaders and for teams to help them create effective meetings. And if you are interested in all the other things I do around effective people management, you can check out the modern manager.com where I have podcasts on my own, and a whole bunch of other supports for people leaders.

Carla Miller 54:01
Fantastic. And we will link to those in the show notes for people as well. Well, thank you so much, Mamie, it's been lovely to meet you. I'm sure you're great to be in a meeting with because you're so sick. It's brilliant. You've really bright that my energy on this very grey Thursday afternoon in the UK. And what you're doing is so important. I know this is just a part of the many things you're doing to improve the workplace. But thank you and I recommend people giving your book a read.

Mamie Kanfer Stewart 54:28
Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to talk with you today.

Carla Miller 54:37
If you've listened to the podcast and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look.

First of all, I've got a couple more freebies. I've got a free PDF on increasing your leadership impact at work, and I've also got a free masterclass on becoming a more influential leader without letting self doubt hold you back.

So head on over to the website to book yourself a place on the masterclass or to download that PDF.

There are my open programmes Influence and Impact for women at management and leadership level and Be Bolder a four week live assertiveness and confidence course for women at any level, you can preorder my book closing the influence gap, a practical guide for women leaders who want to be heard. You can also work with me one to one particularly if you're a senior leader, and you can hire me to work in house to do talks for awareness weeks, one of workshops, a series of workshops, or to run my Influence and Impact programme or Be Bolder programme in house as a women's leadership or women's empowerment offering.

If you want to talk about any of those on my website, you can drop me an email or you can also book a quick 15 minute chat so we can talk about what you need and how I might be able to help you or your organisation. So I look forward to chatting to you. Take care