How to run effective meetings

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welcome to leadership talk
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the official waymaker podcast where we
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explore
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how your organization can achieve more
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by doing less
00:22
welcome to leadership talk the official
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waymaker podcast
00:25
i’m your host craig and with me is
00:28
ceo and founder of waymaker stuart leo
00:32
stew hello craig hey bud how are you
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yeah doing well stu you’ve just moved
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house this week so
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uh the 15th time in three months
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[Music]
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i’ve just i’ve just moved down the road
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to a different uh different underpass
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that’s all
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oh yeah oh wow hashtag startup life
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whole family uh thunderstorms and
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and and house damage and all that that
01:01
sort of stuff so you you’ll be right in
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the frame of mind to talk about
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talking about all things yeah we are we
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are blessed to have a
01:08
great new spot um and um
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uh yeah i’m not thinking straight
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because i’m like i’ve been used to
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dragging boxes and chairs around the
01:18
house but no no no it’s
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um as our kids as our kids are learning
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um life is an adventure and
01:26
um with adventure comes new things and
01:30
new ideas so how how adapt how apt
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and appropriate for waymaker i am going
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to
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derail this right up front because um my
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wife and i are watching the
01:40
ewan mcgregor um documentary on apple tv
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plus
01:45
called the long way up where they ride a
01:47
motorbike basically all the way up
01:48
through south america
01:49
through mexico yeah it’s very cool and
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there was this one line that jumped out
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of us and he said well there you go the
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journey is all about the interruptions
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and i’m like that is profound wow about
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the interruptions
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so we both you know looked at each other
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and said okay all right
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let’s just chase the interruptions so
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that’s what it’s about
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is is that a is that a kind of um
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interesting segue into today’s topic
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life is about the interruptions
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life is about the interruptions
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i was actually trying to connect it
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somehow speak
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speaking of interruptions stu today
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we’re going to talk about
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today we’re going to talk about
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effective meetings
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with no interruptions
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actually including my um including my
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random thoughts yep
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well no um sometimes interruptions are
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good
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um and you need to listen to the
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interruptions
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but um we’re talking yeah we’re talking
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today about
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operating rhythm and effective meetings
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and and the big
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idea really for today is
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about how as you begin to onboard into
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waymaker
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one of the most important things you’ll
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do
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is um not just taking the diagnostic and
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setting your first goals
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and starting to get that that habit
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rolling
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but actually building the operating
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rhythm which which is anchored with
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effective meetings with the right
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meetings yeah and
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um the the the the way meetings help an
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operating rhythm
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kind of keep moving um uh is
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is really important and and in fact if
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we get the meetings right
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then we get the operating rhythm right
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and if we get the operating rhythm right
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then we get the goals done and so
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we often think about meetings as
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horrible terrible things and by and
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large
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most of them are so if if you are having
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horrible meetings
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um uh today is just
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for you um we’re going to give you some
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toolkits and skills
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so we’ve nailed this have we have issues
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i’m just going to fess up and say i too
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am a student
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on this journey thank you thank you for
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uh
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for calling out my weaknesses
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um but uh yeah i think um
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actually i think um i’ve got a lot
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better over the years
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because i would happily let any meeting
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just go sideways into a cup of coffee
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and a good chat with mates
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um however that is not
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actually good um leadership and
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management
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and we’ve got to learn the discipline
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and we’ve got to learn the skills and
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we’ve got to build that
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muscle to to run great meetings
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and so it’s something we’ve got to learn
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to do um
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i mean there’s a in
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by the way i should say all the content
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for today’s uh podcast
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is coming from our course on waymaker
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academy called
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how to lead and run effective meetings
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so
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go check it out waymaker.io yeah that’s
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right i’ll go
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i’ll go check it out too afterwards
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because i actually you know what i have
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straight after this podcast
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i have my leadership team meeting and so
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there’s there’s nothing like um leading
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the team
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sitting standing celebrating that’s
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right
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and having your own team go that wasn’t
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in the that wasn’t in the course we’re
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just right
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um
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yeah sorry to cut you off there mate
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we’re going to talk about the four most
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effective meetings
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uh to conquer in any organization um and
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ultimately we’ll talk about how waymaker
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can help you know leaders run
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more effective meetings but yeah yeah
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you can find that content on the wake
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waymaker academy but um uh
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stu i mean there’s a book by patrick
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lencioni called death by meeting right
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um which i think is is part of every
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organizational leaders um you know
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toolkit of books to
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to read so you know the extreme is that
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you ditch them all
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right correct or that they’re all
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they’re all hallway conversations and
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all the rest of it and that’s equally
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not effective and
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um you know people are too busy and all
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that sort of stuff
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but um let’s let’s
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let’s dive into these four ways
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and um how we can actually be more
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you know strategic in our approach to
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meetings
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yeah um uh so
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we we would and also just taking a step
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back before we dive in
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um yeah one of the questions um
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certainly i’ve got asked as
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um you know we’ve been implementing
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waymaker into teams as well how many
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meetings
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how how many should we do and um and you
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touched on it you know the extreme is
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zero
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um the at one end the other extreme is
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you
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feel like you’re living your life in
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meetings and not doing anything
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and i think if we step back and go
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what’s what’s the point of a meeting
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um that actually helps bring some
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context and clarity
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to why you might be meeting and
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i actually love bill gates’s definition
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because you you don’t hold a meeting to
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decide the question you hold a meeting
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to
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determine the answer and and i think a
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lot of meetings
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end up being talkfest where it’s
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let’s come together to decide the
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question no no come together to
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let iron sharpen iron resolving and
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answering the question together
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and good pre-work helps set up a good
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meeting
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um jeff bezos uh
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who does have a few good successful runs
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on his on his board
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he does yeah um founder of amazon
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um you know he’s learned the art of the
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meeting and and
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when you read about his style and
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approach and i think we might have
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referenced this before on the podcast
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um uh he makes people write
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um a short memo um to bring background
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information
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and recommendations to a meeting and any
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and he sets up the first
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15 to 30 minutes of of every meeting for
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people to read it
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and absorb it and think about it so that
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when they actually host the meeting
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people are interacting thoughtfully
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and strategically and bringing
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the best to the table so is he making
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the assumption that
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um people are not going to do the
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pre-work
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prior to the meeting so let’s just set
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up the first chunk of the meeting to
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actually do that
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exactly yeah he is i mean how many
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meetings um
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do we turn up to going oh what’s the
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agenda again
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um and you know the first five minutes
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are spent
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um figuring out what’s going to happen
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sounds a bit like our podcast
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that’s not true that’s not true at all
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and then suddenly you’re in in and
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wasting time whereas
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if that one person who’s called people
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together has thoughtfully prepared
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something with a clear set of
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recommendations that people can agree
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with or disagree with
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but read the substantiating reasons
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behind then
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then yeah you can have a great meeting
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and and so his thinking is well
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everybody’s busy
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um nobody’s gonna most people aren’t
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gonna take the time or have the time to
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step back beforehand
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so let’s actually start with that now
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that’s one way to do it that’s great
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that’s not in our training course
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uh but go google jeff bezos and his
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meetings that might be
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what your organization needs it’s it’s
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worked for him
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what what we are establishing here
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is a platform and a set of frameworks
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that
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as you begin to set your operating
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rhythm and as you begin to say okay
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what are we going to do as we come
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together and meet
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that that what is the purpose and the
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purpose
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is to hit your goals i mean that’s the
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whole point of waymaker how do we get to
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point a from
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from point a to point b how do we help
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people hit their goals
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more easily more effectively and so
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when we come in for a meeting we
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shouldn’t come in with any other
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expectation other than we’re here today
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to help people hit their goals
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more effectively so we think
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we waymaker in our toolkit um we’ve
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stepped back and said there’s
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there’s probably four fundamental
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meetings that matter
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for every organization
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at the extreme if you’re doing zero well
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that that that’s ideal
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in fact i think it was peter drucker
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that said and this is in our course
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um that the ideal number of meetings for
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an organization is zero
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uh and and an over abundance of meetings
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is a symptom of an unhealthy
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organization
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um yeah i don’t completely disagree with
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him there but i do see value in coming
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together
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and um and coming together
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to achieve goals more effectively
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changes the structure of the meeting
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and perhaps he was referring to bad
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meetings
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if if you’re the higher up you are in
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the organization though obviously the
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more meetings you have to be a part of
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true or false
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false okay
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why yeah why
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[Laughter]
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because it was a rhetorical way in the
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year yeah yeah uh
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well in fact um a
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really beautiful guy that just had a
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wonderful turn of phrase that i’m trying
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to remember the exact turn of phrase
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because turn a phrase was this
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um uh that i used to know fact i think
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we both used to know
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always used to say this phrase why why
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have a dog and
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and what’s the phrase
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i’m not going to this is brilliant let’s
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explore this
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all right okay well if you could figure
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out the phrase it’s what all right
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you keep talking you keep talking
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tale is the point of the phrase and um
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there is a much better turn to that
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phrase the point is
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if you’re a leader manager and you’re
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stuck in meetings
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why the heck do you have subordinates um
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you know
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how have you delegated equipped and
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empowered them to get on with their own
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job
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and do they have such a lack of clarity
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of objective
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that they can’t go away and organize
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themselves to get the job done but you
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have to
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stay on top of them all the way through
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so
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the higher up you are in the
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organization the less meetings you
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should be in
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and the more effort you should be
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putting in to equipping and empowering
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others and that’s
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that actually is the thing that trips
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most people up and so
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yeah if people can’t make decisions then
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you’re going to end up in more meetings
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and if people can’t make decisions
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then there’s no accountability there’s
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no empowerment
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and there’s no ownership and so it’s
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time to step back
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so um we think there’s four meetings to
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get right
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those four meetings um number one the
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leadership team meeting
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uh which you could use for executive
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leaders or team leaders
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uh the second um and by the way and i’ll
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come and describe each one the second is
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the one-on-one session um
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which is for for managers and their team
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members um the one-on-one that that’s
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the third is the daily stand-up which is
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the the daily team or the huddle that
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could be weekly or daily depending on
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how you might run your team
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and then fourthly uh the sales meeting
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or the
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or the thing that gets in the revenue um
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and and so if we think about those four
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meetings
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leadership team meeting is all about um
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executives team leaders management
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meeting to make sure that goals get hit
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now that’s not making sure by by
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micromanaging it’s making sure by
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removing roadblocks
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so we’re going to talk about we’re going
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to go deep in detail
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the second one the one-on-one is for for
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managers or leaders in their
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and their team members and that’s about
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growing people
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so the first one’s about growing the
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organization the second one is about
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growing people
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the third one the daily stand-up is
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about growing
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teams and the fourth one sales meeting
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uh is about growing revenue so
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um growing your new station yeah
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leadership team meeting is all about
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growing the organization so moving it
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forward
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towards it towards its vision the
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one-on-one is all about growing
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people that’s the objective
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the third the daily stand-up is about
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growing the team
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and the team’s output as a unit of the
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organization
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and the and the fourth is all about um
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how we do sales together how do we grow
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revenue
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um to make uh our organization
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sustainable
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so grow the organisation grow the
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individual grow the team
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grow the revenue they’re picking up on
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the ex
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cx business model vision strategy so
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those four meetings in whichever
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way slice and dice you use them in your
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organization
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kind of the four fundamentals um and if
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you’ve got to have a set of meetings
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um have a mix of these four
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yeah that’s cool and so you can you can
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deep dive into each of those in the
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waymaker academy uh online but for the
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purposes of this
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uh episode we’re just gonna focus on the
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first one
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the leadership meeting that’s right
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that’s right and we should say
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um that the
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the content in waymaker academy um
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search for effective meetings
15:45
is free to all users whether you’re a
15:47
free or a paid user
15:48
this content is free to all users and
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what’s really cool to hear is how people
15:53
are using this content
15:55
i’m hearing how people are taking these
15:58
as foundation
15:59
frameworks and going hey that that
16:02
mostly works for us we’re going to
16:03
change this this and this
16:04
and we’re going to embed this structure
16:07
great fantastic
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um you know we’re we’re serving up a
16:11
framework and a platform
16:13
for you to adapt and mold into what
16:16
suits you
16:17
and hopefully then as new people coming
16:20
to your organization it’s quick to
16:21
onboard
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them use our content frame that up
16:25
and away you go so that’s awesome that’s
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great so
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what’s up yeah okay what’s the purpose
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of a leadership team
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meeting then we’ve talked about you know
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at a higher level but
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let’s start to deep dive what’s the
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purpose okay well the
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sole purpose for a leadership team
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meeting um and this could be a
16:44
functional team meeting so this
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depending on how big your organization
16:47
is but it’s its leaders coming together
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the sole purpose is to build alignment
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create focus or retain focus from that
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alignment around the goals
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and remove roadblocks towards those
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goals
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it’s not to talk about what you have
17:04
done
17:05
or what you might do uh it’s
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it’s to come together to make sure that
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we’re moving towards our goals
17:14
and to remove any roadblocks that are
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between us
17:18
and those goals getting done does that
17:20
make sense
17:21
yeah as a lower level uh employee
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over the years uh i would think that the
17:27
removing roadblocks would be
17:29
the most important as as someone who’s
17:32
say reporting to a senior leader like to
17:35
actually have a senior leader come and
17:36
say okay here’s the roadblocks that
17:38
we’ve removed
17:38
um or that to me would almost be the
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most important
17:42
one of those absolutely um it is
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uh why do we bring the alignment and the
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focus so that we can remove the
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roadblocks
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so um and that’s why
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um in the waiting of time um
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you know and some people might say well
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how long should should the meeting last
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well i don’t know somewhere between
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between zero roadblocks
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through to you know two or three big
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roadblocks so that could be somewhere
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when we look at the agenda in a minute
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somewhere between
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45 minutes and two hours you know 60 to
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90 minutes is not a bad
18:20
structure it’s not half a day it’s not
18:23
15 minutes remember this is a leadership
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team meeting
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this is a group of leaders coming
18:27
together to work together
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and so if there’s three four five six
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seven leaders around that table
18:33
sometimes more um just do the do the
18:35
head count
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um you can very quickly go wow
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um this this weekly leadership
18:43
team meeting if we did a opportunity
18:45
cost on head cost hours
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could be costing us each year anywhere
18:49
from 80 to 160 thousand dollars
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and i’m just talking about a normal
18:54
standard you know
18:56
small to medium enterprise with 15 to 25
18:59
people
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that’s an enormous amount of money that
19:03
should get
19:04
a 10x return which means we ought to be
19:08
solving
19:08
multi-million dollar issues when those
19:11
five six seven people come together
19:12
does that make sense it’s not it’s not a
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place for ceo
19:16
information share like this is not the
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place for that
19:19
um no although there is a role
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for some of that um right and so if
19:26
if we quickly look at look at a base
19:28
agenda um
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okay uh um base agenda that you’ll read
19:34
in in waymaker academy on effective
19:37
meetings
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is come together and start off with
19:40
talking about your wins
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secondly talk about the strategic
19:46
business health
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if it’s a leadership team meeting of a
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functional division or a team
19:52
further down the line you may skip that
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and just go to goal health
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so item one wins item two business
19:58
health item three
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um okr health item four roadblocks
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and if and if this were a 90 minute
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meeting we’d break up the time to be
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five to ten minutes on wins yeah five to
20:10
ten minutes on business health
20:12
five to ten minutes on goal health which
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is
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individual goals sitting underneath the
20:16
business health and
20:19
circa 50 to 60 minutes on roadblocks
20:23
does that make sense yeah but would you
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besides wins would you emphasize wins
20:29
more in other
20:30
in other meetings so you like your
20:32
one-on-ones or your um
20:35
you know team meetings and that sort of
20:36
stuff like would you would you change
20:38
the
20:38
ratio uh well um jump into the academy
20:42
and
20:42
look at those one-on-ones because um the
20:45
one-on-ones are more
20:47
designed around a coaching model
20:51
which is around awareness of
20:54
progress towards desired goals and
20:57
bringing that awareness out and that’s
20:59
that’s about wins and losses at the
21:01
individual level
21:02
strengths and weaknesses but wins
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wins do something to a team there’s
21:09
actually
21:09
a lot of people coming into a meeting
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and and unless you’re that one percent
21:13
of the world that’s just naturally
21:15
chirpy happy and
21:16
i don’t know you don’t have blood in
21:17
your veins but you’ve got coffee
21:20
most people come in with a negative
21:22
disposition
21:24
uh towards this interruption to their
21:26
day yeah
21:27
and yeah and and what the winds do
21:30
is they start to reframe your mindset
21:33
they start to
21:34
go oh hey jim from sales they had a big
21:38
win last week
21:39
um i mean product design i actually
21:41
didn’t know that how cool is that
21:43
um
21:46
and it’s about um it’s about a group of
21:50
people
21:51
sitting around a table acknowledging the
21:53
progress that’s being achieved
21:55
regardless of what the health of the
21:58
organization
21:59
is saying and yeah and
22:03
and what that does in any circumstance
22:06
it reaffirms that as a team we know how
22:08
to win together
22:10
because teams that don’t know how to win
22:12
together
22:13
will try and win on their own which will
22:16
lead to
22:16
dysfunction and so the very first thing
22:20
we’re doing
22:21
is reaffirming how we win together
22:24
and and that’s not positive mindset
22:27
bs that that’s just hey we we know how
22:30
to make the plays
22:32
that’s also part of alignment right it’s
22:34
also going okay cool
22:36
everyone’s kicking goals exactly
22:40
or gee whiz um uh poor stew you know
22:43
he’s
22:44
he’s he’s having some wins but gee he is
22:47
struggling
22:47
let’s get around him what’s going on um
22:50
how do we help him have that next win
22:53
because
22:54
i mean you and i both know and every
22:56
listener knows
22:57
you put a win behind somebody
23:00
and their next week is just
23:04
better it’s just better and
23:07
it’s like the wind is the wind beneath
23:09
your wings
23:12
[Laughter]
23:15
barbara what’s up uh not barbra
23:18
streisand
23:18
we’ll go with it thank you thank you
23:21
thank you 1980s pop guru
23:27
you know when you do that you just
23:28
change your mindset and
23:31
we don’t want to be ignorant
23:35
of the problems and the negativity in
23:37
fact um
23:38
two-thirds of the meeting is being spent
23:40
on problems
23:42
um but we don’t want to have those
23:45
problems
23:46
overarch the context and what’s going
23:50
on so emphasizing i know we’re
23:53
overemphasizing wins here but there’s
23:54
that book by um chip and dan heath
23:56
uh called the power of moments which
23:59
is kind of i was prompted i was reminded
24:02
of just then
24:03
um and how important it is to like to to
24:06
take time out to celebrate those things
24:08
yeah we should that is a good setup we
24:11
should do a bit more on some
24:12
chip and dan heath’s work because
24:14
they’ve got some great books um
24:16
yeah okay well we could just so go down
24:18
a rabbit warren right now but we won’t
24:20
all right
24:20
let’s let’s emphasize roblox because
24:22
that that is that is where
24:24
we want the majority of time to be spent
24:26
in these leadership
24:27
meetings correct yeah so what are we
24:29
doing we’re coming in
24:30
um share the wins go around the table
24:32
how did you win
24:33
some people struggled to to bring those
24:35
wins alive i didn’t have a win
24:37
but actually when you stop and and kind
24:39
of draw it out of them they
24:40
they’re there and i can attest
24:44
in in all different circumstances how
24:47
powerful that is
24:48
then we jump into business health so
24:51
we talk about needle shifters in
24:52
waymaker and we have a needle shifter
24:54
dashboard
24:57
when you go to that annual or quarterly
25:00
needle shifter dashboard
25:02
you can see the goals that matter most
25:04
that’s what we’re talking about in
25:05
business health
25:07
so it’s a quick survey of those and and
25:09
it’s a survey to go where are we at
25:11
it’s a reminder um if there’s a problem
25:15
in those
25:16
then then we do we surface that as a
25:18
roadblock and go yeah we’ve got a
25:19
problem in
25:20
ops or sales or tech or systems or
25:24
and it goes to the roadblock list we
25:26
actually don’t talk about it right there
25:28
and then
25:28
we just raise it um
25:32
and then we jump into okr health which
25:35
is the same thing but at an individual
25:37
level so instead of looking at the
25:39
business as a whole which
25:40
those goals will be owned by individuals
25:42
um we’re now looking at individuals and
25:45
we’re going hey
25:46
craig any roadblocks how are you
25:49
traveling
25:50
and you are free to answer no
25:54
all on track this is what’s happening
25:56
this is where we’re going
25:57
and this is where waymaker comes to the
26:00
surface
26:00
if you’re using the explore dashboard um
26:04
which allows you to filter and
26:08
look at the the goal data by user role
26:12
team state
26:16
in like two clicks i can see craig’s
26:19
goals
26:20
confidence progress i can quickly see if
26:24
there’s any issues
26:26
i know if you’re bsing me which does
26:28
happen
26:29
in these meetings let’s be honest
26:33
and if you’re saying no life’s perfect
26:35
happy days everything’s going to be fine
26:37
but your confidence is at 10 and your
26:38
progress is at 15.
26:40
well you know everybody’s entitled to go
26:43
hey craig
26:44
life’s happy why is it you know two
26:46
weeks till the end of quarter and your
26:48
confidence is at 10
26:50
now hopefully before two weeks the end
26:51
of quarter would have covered this issue
26:53
but you get what i’m saying um uh the
26:56
data is there
26:57
to correlate a line um and
27:00
and in fact you you can go no um
27:04
updated my data um confidence is this
27:08
progress is that smooth sailing um
27:12
let’s move on boom ten seconds um
27:15
yeah we don’t need to spend time talking
27:18
about what craig did last week or last
27:20
month and we don’t need to spend time
27:22
talking about what craig might do this
27:23
week or next week and what promises
27:25
craig wants to make
27:28
because that’s a waste of time we
27:30
actually need to go hey craig you know
27:32
your goals yeah i know my girls cool
27:34
you’re on track you’re on track great
27:35
fantastic
27:36
any roadblocks do you do you need
27:38
anything no
27:40
great move on make sense can you can you
27:43
give me an example
27:44
uh of just something like every day that
27:47
you would face that would be a classic
27:49
roadblock that only a leadership
27:51
executive would be able to remove
27:54
okay um i’ll give you two or three
27:56
different examples
27:59
i had one recently um where
28:02
uh lisa in our team uh said i have a
28:05
roadblock
28:06
um and she was working on a on an ex
28:09
strategy which we’ll
28:10
we’ll talk about our ex toolkit at some
28:12
point on this podcast
28:14
and i said what’s your roadblock and she
28:16
said i need
28:18
two hours with you to sit down and go
28:21
through
28:22
the talent strategy and how we’re hiring
28:24
and some of the different skills
28:26
um because until i get that from you i
28:28
can’t move forward
28:30
i was like ah okay i’m the roadblock
28:33
right now i actually need to give you
28:35
some of my time and input onto that
28:37
great that was an easy one scheduled
28:39
some time sat down
28:41
met at the coffee shop for an hour or
28:43
two and talked it through remove
28:45
remove the roadblocks that’s a classic
28:47
one
28:49
another one is and i’ll do with the easy
28:52
ones budgets
28:55
head of sales and marketing goes
28:58
actually you know what
29:01
we’re growing at this rate i’ve only got
29:03
approval for this budget
29:05
i don’t think i’ll achieve my goal
29:07
unless i get x more
29:09
okay that’s a roadblock that’s a genuine
29:11
roadblock
29:12
they don’t have authority to spend more
29:14
money but but they’re saying if i don’t
29:16
spend more money
29:17
i’m not going to hit the goal um okay
29:20
who can sign off on that um that’s where
29:23
the roadblock sits that’s another
29:25
classic
29:26
now the more complex ones and they’re
29:28
easy ones that you know
29:30
what we’re doing as we’re moving through
29:31
this agenda wins business health okay
29:33
our health
29:35
is we’re we’re surfacing those
29:37
roadblocks and we’re triaging them
29:39
um we’re using a classic little triage
29:42
system
29:45
and triage often works in the way of
29:48
um and triage comes from the field
29:50
hospitals and the battlegrounds
29:52
how severe is the wound you know how how
29:54
bad is this who gets attention first
29:57
first and so a really easy way of
29:59
triaging is going you know
30:01
a is really important one is really
30:04
important and really urgent so an a1
30:06
cool give it a little a1 it could be a
30:08
b1 it could be a c3
30:10
and you know as a team you’re starting
30:12
to get a bit of a language
30:13
um you only need a bit of paper by the
30:15
way you don’t need to have complex
30:16
medium agendas and structures for this
30:18
using waymaker and and five or six
30:21
roadblocks might emerge
30:23
um as we’ve got through winds business
30:27
health okr health
30:28
there might be five or six items there
30:30
with another two or three from last week
30:33
pick the a1s pick the most urgent and
30:36
the most
30:37
important that need to be resolved and
30:39
go great
30:40
now we’re going to spend the next 15 to
30:43
20 minutes
30:45
resolving this because it might be more
30:47
complex
30:48
it might be we’ve got to make a change
30:50
of strategy or we might need to
30:52
um hire or fire or we might need to you
30:56
know
30:56
things that have some gravity and
30:59
importance that deserve
31:00
leaders to talk about objectively and so
31:04
we’re surfacing those we’re then at the
31:06
end of goal health okay health
31:08
setting a quick agenda for the the next
31:10
50 to 60 minutes
31:11
to go let’s talk about item one two and
31:13
three
31:14
items three four and five do we agree we
31:17
can resolve in five minutes at the end
31:19
yes awesome to the end does that make
31:21
sense
31:23
yeah and i think that you know you can
31:25
put them in broader
31:26
terms like we’re talking about sometimes
31:28
it’s about clarity
31:29
um so i just actually just need some
31:32
clarity of vision or direction or
31:34
um or permission right around series
31:37
uh it’s personnel and it’s yes and it’s
31:40
finances
31:41
you know like that’s pretty much it
31:43
isn’t it yeah yeah um
31:45
and so these are times where as a team
31:48
i know as we’ve been going through
31:50
startup we’ve gone
31:52
um let’s attack our vision statements or
31:55
here’s a document i want you to read
31:58
i’ve got a roadblock on partnership
32:00
agreements
32:01
um guys go away and read that come back
32:03
to the table
32:04
um i’m not comfortable with xyz
32:08
um let’s resolve it and so so there’s my
32:11
roadblock
32:12
i want to bring my team in to resolve
32:14
the detail um
32:16
uh remove that roadblock and so they’re
32:19
good agenda items
32:20
um to to actually bring to the table and
32:24
um and i’m not suggesting everything’s
32:26
off the cuff in these meetings there are
32:27
times when
32:28
you might want to plan ahead and go we
32:30
know we’ve got a significant roadblock
32:32
we know our leadership team’s coming up
32:34
next week
32:36
here’s the one pager on this issue it
32:39
could be
32:41
it could be a security issue it could be
32:43
a health issue it could be a
32:45
um a protest issue you know there’s just
32:48
thousands of these things going on
32:50
um we need to resolve how we think about
32:53
this
32:53
um yeah and and use that in the
32:55
roadblock session
32:57
it may also be stew that people aren’t
32:59
buying lava lamps anymore
33:02
that’s right damn
33:05
it goes my side hustle so
33:09
so there’s a there’s a market issue
33:11
there right as well
33:16
i mean these are these are great moments
33:18
to to come to the team meeting and say
33:20
hey we’ve got a blockage in this funnel
33:22
um
33:24
we’ve got a problem with this service or
33:26
product or
33:27
we you know how do i how do i move
33:29
forward trying to resolve this
33:31
um yeah and the the resolution
33:34
in talking through that roadblock may be
33:37
okay let’s
33:38
put aside some time for the next week or
33:40
fortnight
33:41
um to run a process to remove the
33:44
roadblock
33:46
you don’t have to resolve everything in
33:48
that meeting
33:49
but the point is that we’re spending the
33:52
bulk of our time
33:53
identifying and surfacing the barriers
33:56
between us
33:57
and our goal us and our vision and we’re
34:00
putting the best people around that
34:02
to remove them and and that’s that’s not
34:05
weakness that’s strength
34:07
people often come to meetings trying to
34:09
hide what they have or haven’t done
34:11
um they need to surface it um and go
34:14
actually got a roadblock here
34:15
um i thought this i thought wrong
34:18
the the market or this circumstance um
34:22
uh proved me wrong uh i don’t know why
34:25
i’m wrong
34:25
um help and and the quicker we surface
34:29
that as a roadblock the faster we get to
34:31
our goal
34:34
great so just to recap the four most
34:36
important meetings
34:38
the leadership team meeting the
34:40
one-on-one session
34:41
the daily stand-up the sales meeting we
34:44
focused on the leadership team meeting
34:45
uh
34:46
and there’s probably four sub key points
34:48
there
34:49
let’s focus on the wins but you know
34:51
maybe 10 minutes
34:52
business health okay our health and then
34:54
finally let’s spend a big chunk of time
34:56
identifying and removing roadblocks
35:00
correct yeah yeah that’s it yeah that’s
35:03
awesome yeah
35:03
if you wanna uh if you wanna find out
35:06
more about that then you can uh
35:07
jump on effective uh meetings
35:11
on the waymaker academy and that is free
35:14
you don’t have to pay for that one good
35:17
uh and you can um
35:18
you can find out just a little bit more
35:20
information lastly just you
35:22
uh with the changing of uh technology
35:25
and all the rest of it
35:26
do these have to be face-to-face
35:28
meetings um
35:30
are you preferencing one format over
35:32
another
35:33
these days in terms of how you i mean
35:35
we’ve built a platform
35:37
to empower people to work centralized or
35:39
decentralized
35:40
from home hybrid in the office
35:44
at the end of the day um i think we live
35:47
in a world
35:48
due to talent due to health due to
35:51
lots of different reasons where it’s
35:53
going to be rare that everybody is
35:54
always in the same meeting
35:56
same space at once so sure um
36:00
teams hangouts if that’s what’s still
36:02
called
36:03
zoom whatever your poison of choice is
36:05
for a digital meeting
36:07
make it effective make sure everybody
36:08
can get access
36:10
actually let people learn how to use um
36:14
these platforms send them out the couple
36:16
of youtube videos that each of these
36:18
platforms have on how to use them so
36:19
that they’re comfortable
36:20
they can use the chats and the
36:22
whiteboards and the notes sections
36:24
that’s really important ideally
36:28
sure big meetings important meetings
36:30
face to face there’s nothing like
36:32
sitting across the table
36:34
breaking bread talking sharing working
36:37
together
36:38
you can’t beat that um but don’t let
36:41
distance beat you
36:42
use some tech heck that’s that’s what
36:44
it’s there for awesome
36:46
and and what we’re actually also finding
36:48
is that coaches and colton
36:49
consultants are actually taking this
36:51
framework that we’ve just talked about
36:53
um and adapting it in their own
36:55
consultancy businesses right so
36:57
for their clients that’s all right this
36:59
is a template this is a template a
37:01
framework a way of
37:02
approaching you know meeting strategy
37:07
yeah yeah the the point of the meeting
37:09
the leadership meeting
37:10
um and really any meeting is to remove
37:13
roadblocks to either grow the
37:14
organization grow the individual grow
37:16
the team or grow the revenue
37:18
and as long as we keep the that
37:21
as the main idea then you know who
37:24
really cares
37:25
how you structure it the point is to set
37:28
the context
37:29
structure it for your organization and
37:31
your team and
37:33
be consistent in delivery awesome
37:36
hey stu we need to wrap it up uh i’ve
37:38
got a i’ve got a meeting to get to
37:40
you guys very good a very effective one
37:44
um so um it’s it’s great to chat
37:48
um as always and um yeah if you want to
37:52
sign up for when you know if you if
37:54
you’re not already on waymaker waymaker
37:56
dot io
37:57
is the place to go sign up for a free
37:59
trial
38:00
jump on the waymaker academy do this and
38:02
other courses which are free
38:04
for users whether you’re a paid user or
38:06
not and
38:08
and you can find out more about how to
38:10
achieve more
38:12
by doing less
38:21
[Music]
38:23
[Applause]
38:26
[Music]
38:32
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