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Number one mistake I've always made many
meeting. Probably still like today's talk too
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much. Welcome to the ED epley
experience. Twenty minutes that simplifies the complex
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job of managing and leading people and
inspires you to take action on what you
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probably already know to build and sustain
a smart and healthy business. Here's your
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host Ed Epley to introduce this week's
guest and business leader. Welcome everyone to
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the Ed Epley experience, your opportunity
to learn from successful, seasoned prose about
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different things that will help you run
a more successful, sustainable, profitable business.
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These gentlemen that are joining me today
are no stranger to the ED epley
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experience. You've heard them before,
but never together. Maybe they were on
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once before together. there. I
can't remember, but there Dan and Sam
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Wiley. Is this the first time
I've had you guys on at the same
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time? Yeah, yeah, first
time. Yeah. So one of the
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things that's interesting about you, guys, is you're about as curious as anybody
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that I know. You're constantly learning
challenging yourselves. You have gone on to
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different things since we were last together. So, Sam, what what's the
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latest in your life? Where are
you? What are you doing today?
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Well, I'm busy working for myself. I'm an entrepreneur. I run a
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small little firm that's just myself and
a few others called Sky Sale Foods.
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We do consulting, so we do
commercial solutions for the food and supplement industry
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and then we also do some new, brand new consumer brand development and food
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and supplements and a lot of cool
projects there. But nothing I can talk
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about yet. Nothing has been announced. You have to kill our audience looking
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forward to looking forward to the future
and now. All right, so,
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so you kill our audience if we
told them now. So we don't want
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that. There's there's about twenty eight
people out there that we want to continue
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on with their lives. Dan,
what's the latest with you in your world?
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Yes, I'm with a company called
Katie Farming Group. That's a European
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based contract development and Manufacturing Organization in
the R C DMO firm and the Pharma
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Space. Active in the Pharma Space. They are the largest producer of pharmaceutical
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omega, three products that are sold
in two pharmacies around the world. So
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I am a VP of special projects
there, which means they have a very
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multifaceted role right now I'm focused on
trying to help commercialize some cannabinoid extracts and
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some algae, Omega three extracts that
we produce is also working with some of
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their consumer products. So it's been
a lot of fun. So the reason
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I like having I like having Dan
and Salmon podcast is because they're very smart
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guys, that you can tell,
and they are in a space that I
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know virtually nothing about, and yet
they humor me and let me pick their
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brains and I think they're going to
have some information for you today that I
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think is important because this is the
second of two podcasts all about maximizing meeting
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performance. The whole idea about meetings
is one that, as the audience has
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heard me say before, I've come
to way too late in my career to
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understand the importance and critical nature of
it. I have gotten to the place
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now where I think I know a
little bit about what people can do to
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run affected meetings. But guys,
when did when did you become aware of,
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one the importance of meetings? And
then when would you say you got
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a line of sight as to some
kind of strategy for the kinds of meetings
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you wanted to run? And and
what works and doesn't. So I don't
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care who goes first. So you
know, I started my career at a
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fortune company and meetings were just part
of life and you kind of went through
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them. And I think as I
continue to go in career and I start
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to under stand, like this is
where we're doing things, I would say
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it was not until you introduced us
to the advantage by Patrick Lyncioni that I
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really started to see like, okay, here's this structured model for meetings.
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Okay, this resonates with me.
I get it now. You know,
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happened twenty years too late, but
now I understand why we're having meetings.
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Sam, how about for you?
But you know, it's interesting as a
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as a leader. It was my
exposure to lots of failures or working with
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a team and just being so frustrated. I can't get I can't get results,
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I can't get things to happen and
in meetings and people don't seem like
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they're engaged to paying attention. And
you know it's you come from a place
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of how do I solve this?
Right, so I need to figure out
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how to be better at doing this. Activity are clearly Um. I'm not
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good at or it wasn't good at
Um as a as an employee. I
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remember many years ago when I worked
in UM inside sales for a mortgage company.
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I remember doing a very disciplined,
you know, less than ten minutes
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daily check in to review our sales
pipeline and it's probably one of the most
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effective meetings I've ever been in because
it was on time, it was quick.
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We looked at maybe a hundred or
a hundred and fifty items of a
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pipeline, talked about them all,
talked about the roadblocks, made decisions about
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today and moved on. But I
was just one of the team members working
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for sales manager soon and knew what
they were doing. It was only years
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later, trying to run my own
meetings that I realized, wait a second,
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that was actually a good model for
effective meetings. Is especially that that
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that, you know, keeping to
the almost the impatience of the you know,
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it's like we need to have this
conversation, but it needs to be
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over. You're both educated gentlemen.
You both went to universities. I am
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assuming nowhere in that curriculum was a
class on meetings. Is that? Yeah,
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and I've I've I've begun wondering why
would a university that's teaching educating individuals
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to be successful, it's a business
degree, business curriculum of some sort,
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why there is nothing about meetings as
as fundamental. So so what's the assumption
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that that's being made there about education
and effectiveness and meetings? It's the assumption
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that because you have a degree,
because you've understand finance or marketing or strategy
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or any of those disciplines, that
therefore your prepared to run meetings and know
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what kind of meetings to conduct.
I just don't think it's something that,
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even it's the radar screen of your
average professor like that, you have to
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train your students, uh, for
this aspect of their professional careers. Yeah,
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yeah, professors are focused on being
technical experts and I've had the benefit
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of some really amazing professors and mentors. But meetings are about collaboration and,
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you know, empathy and trying to
work with people that sometimes don't want to
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work with you. or It's the
professors or you know, when they come
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into their classroom, their God in
their classroom and and that's not the way
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a meeting works. I mean professor
talks, you listen, you take notes.
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But you know, even if you're
the boss and a meeting, it
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doesn't work like that. If you
try to make it work like that,
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if you try to be professor and
all your employees or students, you're failing.
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I don't know that we've done enough
to warrant you guys going this far,
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this fast, to make yourselves vulnerable. But what would you say are
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some of the biggest mistakes you've personally
made in your you know, the way
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you've conducted meetings, the way you've
attempted to meetings or even participated, if
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that's where it is. I'm just
curious about your if you had some doovers,
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what would they be? How much
time do we have? We got
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about we got about twenty more minutes. Yeah, it's it's UH. You
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know, I think the biggest thing
is is having meetings be too long,
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maybe not having a strategic focus or
a goal for the meeting. Those are
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those are kind of some of the
things. Really coming into a meeting and
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just not being ready for it,
not being prepared to actually think about the
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conversation. Yeah, those are some
things. What about you saying talking too
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much? I mean it's always number
one mistake I've always made any meeting,
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probably still make today's. I talked
too much. Other people need to talk.
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You gotta ask questions, not tell
people. I think there's I think
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the the other one, and it's
probably a huge pet peeve of me,
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but it's one I've worked really hard
to not do and don't do anymore.
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But many people still make this mistakes. Not Give your full attention, I
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mean give of your attention to a
meeting or, you know what, just
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leave the room, don't be there, tell people you can't come, you
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got something else to work on.
I'll tell you one that I think I
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was most guilty of. Having made
them all, and and not that I
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not this is the only thing I
did wrong, but I think one of
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the biggest problems I had when I
was the person in charge, whatever title
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I had at the time, calling
a group of people together was having already
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made up my mind about something and
holding a meeting to act like I wanted
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their input. I'm not suggesting you
guys did that, but that that is
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one. That is one where,
in hindsight, if I knew what I
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know today, back then I would
have either just announced the decision or I
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would have said look. You know
I would have, I would have been
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more vulnerable and more transparent. Said, look, I think I've made up
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my mind about this topic now I
want to run it by you and if
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you can persuade me otherwise, great, but, but, but not trying
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to act like I was serious about
their inputs when I wasn't. I'm embarrassed.
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We have to admit it, but
I know I've done that. I've
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done it a time or two or
for yeah, yeah, how much,
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Dan, in your time with large
organizations did you see meeting stew and my
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my definition of meeting stew is when
one person is trying to be strategic and
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and somebody else or the meeting might
be about tactics and and, you know,
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a staff meeting and somebody wants to
argue strategy. Do you see that
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a lot, or or did you
see that a lot in the organizations of
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which you were part that were big
ones? I would say when I when
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I was at a fortune aspace company
that they were pretty focused meetings, but
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that's you know, you're working with
a bunch of engineers. They're single minded
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on their focus. You know,
working in a family business, we had
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a lot of meetings to a lot
of who knows what we're gonna talk about.
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Meetings go too long, Um,
and it covers every topic known.
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Deman, I have to admit I've
got to witness a little of that.
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Yeah, yeah, Um, you
know, my current organization like there's I
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think there's a mix. It's not
a giant company, but it's very fast
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moving and so sometimes you're you do
get a little bit of I don't know
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if it's meeting Stew, but it's
uh, you know, maybe a poopare
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or something more than one course.
Yeah, yeah, there's sometimes there's there's
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a couple of different focuses, but
you know, overall I think it's I
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just see a mix. I think
Sam entrepreneurs are are notorious for following the
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shiny object, being taken off topic
pretty easily by something that either angers them
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or excites them or interests them when
it comes up in the meeting and and
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pivoting. Are you guilty of that? Oh, probably, almost every day.
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Hey, I mean it's it's it's
hard, Um. You know,
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I think, for instance, typically
when I have a meeting with people,
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I like to go first to make
sure that I have the presence of mind
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to model the behavior that I want
to see, because if I get too
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focused on what other people are saying
and I start reacting to it further in
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into the meeting, I I lose
my focus. I mean I I want
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to stop and have a micro meeting
right and you know it's totally inappropriate to
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have this rabbit trail right now and
I just can't help myself. Yeah,
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when we got to do work together
and I introduced introduced you to the table
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group's model for meetings, they really
are focused around four kinds of meetings,
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the daily stand up or huddle,
the weekly tactical, the monthly strategic slash
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ad hoc, if if you need
something that warrants just its own meeting by
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itself because of the scope of it
or the size of it, and then
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a quarterly off site. Are you
using, still using those meetings as as
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your kinds of meetings in your organizations, or are there others that you're using
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besides those four kinds of meetings?
Yeah, I stick pretty close to to
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that. You know, I think
if I had to choose one, I
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just choose the daily stand up.
I think that's the most important of them
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all. Why? Well, I
think you know, if you think about
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you got a team of five or
ten people, Um, if they can
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accomplish one thing, you know,
you talk about what you're going to accomplish
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that day to drive some peer to
peer accountability. And if you can get
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ten people doing one thing every day
for a month, it's a lot of
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things and you know, you just
are in this constant flow of of communicating
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about what the business needs. The
challenge, I think, is kind of
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the more strategic meetings, you know, having off sites so, or quarterly
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strategic reviews or things where you have
to really step back from that day to
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day and think and think about the
business. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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extract, extract yourself from the day
to day is really hard for most executives
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and executive teams. Sam, how
about you? Well, and I think
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it's I think it's really challenging for
leaders and for team members to make the
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jump from a weekly tactical it's monthly
strategic. Yeah, it's you get,
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you know or fifty or or whatever
the number is, weekly tacticals and never
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any monthly strategics, even if you
have one that you delegate, you assigned
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to be the monthly strategic. It's
it's it winds up being tactical. It's
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hard for everybody to downshift and say, okay, yes, but we need
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to think strategically here. Do you
think where you hold the meeting matters?
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Do you think? In other words, I'm wondering if, if, like
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when you just suggested that it's hard
to pull yourself out of the operational way
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of thinking to be strategic, I'm
wondering if you went to a different meeting
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room, where other than the one
you normally meet in, i. for
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your weekly tactical as if that would
make a difference. It does. Yeah,
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I mean the I've been on the
side of like trying to decide if
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it's worth it to go to an
outside location or trying to justify that,
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and I always feel that it's worth
it. You get better communication. Everybody
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changes the scenery that change their mind
when they change where they are. You
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know, I think I heard on
one of your recent mini blogs the you
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know, like slightly more than half
of the people and organizations are introverted,
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and you know, I think that
you know, if you're always in this
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daily, weekly tactical flow, you
never tap into the talent of an introverted
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person who's actually going to sit there
and think, and you know. So
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when you do have these sites or
strategics, you give space to actually make
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make a little deeper thinking happen around, around the business and on what our
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choices are. Sam You have any
thoughts about different location? Yeah, I
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mean almost anybody I've ever interacted with, whether it's I'm giving advice to a
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business leader or I'm trying to coach
a reluctant employee, there's often pushed back
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about do we really have to go
to this off site? Is it really
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going to make a difference? That's
a long way. Isn't this going to
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cost a bunch of money? You
know, I've heard it said hiring is
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the most important work we do.
I don't know that I agree with that.
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I think leadership is the most important
work we do. Leadership is really
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hard to do without communication. It's
two way. If it's just one way,
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it's the professor and the student.
It's got to be too, these
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meetings where you can lead and develop
and listen and ask. It needs that
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space. So setting aside time that's
special different, you know, not the
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day to day, not the conference
room where, you know, I said,
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always sit in this corner and you
always sit over there and you have
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to get out of that environment.
There's there's psychology like about how it unlocks
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you know, it evokes Cathartic responsive
and locks your mind to learning, to
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thinking about new things. I couldn't
underscore it enough that when you need to
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think strategically, you need to get
out of your day to day. Yeah,
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totally agree. All right, that's
that's good stuff for our audience.
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I know people are going to be
thinking differently maybe about leaving the premises for
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some of their meetings. When you
are in your meetings, how often do
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you remind people the purpose of the
meeting, where you would say that we're
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here today to make decisions about what
we're gonna do in the next week to
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operate the business more effectively? Or
in a huddle, the reason we're doing
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a stand up, that the daily
stand up or huddle. The reason we're
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doing this is to remain aligned so
that we we are more likely to be
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aligned as an executive team and show
up that way to the rest of the
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organization. Do you ever do that? Do you ever feel the need to
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do that? I'm I feel like
there are times where people forget why we're
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here in the room together or,
you know, on the on the virtual
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meeting together. What's your thoughts about
that? Yeah, I um, I
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think that that's one of my big
pet peeves is is when I get,
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when I get a meeting request that
doesn't have a good title or an agenda
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or a purpose and and it's it's
hard to know like well, should I
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even go to this meeting? Um, what's it about? Um? And
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so I try to be pretty clear
with with the meetings that I lead that
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like, here's what the goal is, here's what the purpose is. I
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don't do it perfectly, don't do
it all the time, but I try
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to be pretty pretty rigorous about this
is why we're meeting, we're going to
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talk about this. Hopefully we can
get to a decision about this. And
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and now let's start. You go
ahead. Yeah, it's always saying the
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purpose of this meeting is to do
what? What is the outcome that we're
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looking for? Just, you know, scheduling a meeting that says we're going
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to discuss this project. What a
ways of time? It needs to say
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this is the purpose of meeting.
I think when you go into the standing
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meetings, you know it's it's easy
to identify the purpose of an ad hoc
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meeting. It's like this is a
problem we need to meet to talk about.
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It's the standing meeting. It often
often forgotten. I mean I love,
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I love to trot out the phrase
or or the statement, you know,
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in a daily check in. Is
the most important thing, my number
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one priority that I'm going to do
today to drive the business forward in the
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next twenty four hours is still in
the blank, whatever it is. You
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fill in the blank right. So, because that we we have to we
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sometimes have to be overly obvious,
because people forget why they're there, to
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forget why we're we're even talking,
I think the more I mean I've run
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all hands meetings with, you know, thirty or forty people and Um,
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those really, I mean every time
you know would do an all hands meeting,
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you really have to spend the first
couple of minutes just reminding everybody why
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we do this. Why did I
drag you to this room or make you
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get on a zoom call or a
team's calling? Why are you here?
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What are we what are we talking
about? What's the purpose of this communication?
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You know, what do we want
from you? Those kinds of things.
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They they you know, the larger
the audience, the more obvious you
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have to be. Yeah, I
can see that. One of the disciplines
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that I see lacking in almost every
organization, regardless of size, kind type,
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geographic location, it doesn't matter,
is at the end of meetings,
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especially tacticals and strategic or ad hocs, is the failure to make clear and
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agree upon whatever decisions the meeting has
produced where it's really it's written down in
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front of everybody, where they can
see it and we can agree. Did
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we just make this decision in this
meeting or did we not? In other
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words, there is no there is
no ambiguity when the meeting is over about
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whether decision it was made. Do
you see that, Dana? Have you
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seen that in the larger organizations of
which you've been a part, or or
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even now? I think it's I
don't see it as often as I would
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like him. To be frank,
I don't do it as often as I
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should. You know, it's hard
because a lot of times you've got another
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meeting that's backed right up to this
one and I can't there's no time or
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we didn't make space to actually you
know, hey, there's five minutes left
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in the meeting. Let's align on
what we decided those those those things are
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sometimes they just disappear into the next
team's call and now you're on to the
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next one after that and nobody wrote
anything down from the last four Sam how
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about you? What have you seen? Yeah, I mean I think.
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I think making sure we all agree
on. What do we just decide,
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you know, as a result of
this discussion? What actions are outcomes are
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we going to take? It's important, um, it's most important in those,
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you know, longer weekly tactical meetings, having the running list that you
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can refer to. Most meetings will
generate three or four, five, you
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know, decision points. It's important
to write those down. I think the
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other thing I've really learned as a
result of those discussions is a certain percentage
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of all the decisions you'll ever make
in a business or become obsolete. You
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write them down, you decide that
we need to take an action, you
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go out and you explore a little
bit and then you decide that's not worth
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doing. Often more, junior employees
hold on to something you decided in a
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meeting three months ago that is totally
irrelevant to the business today. There needs
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to be more of a discipline process
for most people. I find this to
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be one of my top challenges is
to go back and say, I know
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we decided in April that this was
important, but not only what we know
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today. We're deciding not to work
on this. This isn't important. I
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00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:37.200
need you to let it go.
This doesn't mean we're dishonest or inconsistent,
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it just means we're being smart to
current business. Yeah, I frankly,
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I never see that and it needs
to be done. So I agree with
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you. When you've been part of
any organization, how often have you seen
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them actually try to change their meetings? Um, go ahead, and I
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think I mean I think fairly often. I mean I've been been blessed to
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work with some pretty pretty awesome people. Um, I would say if I
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think about where in organizations I've worked
with, whether directly inside or coaching and
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advising. Um, if I think
about what I know to be the ideal
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of meeting performance and versus their willingness
to reach the ideal, I think it's
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pretty low. If I think about
how willing they are to improve or change
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at least some aspect with a bit
of coaching and leadership and guidance. I'd
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say pretty common. Okay, how
about you, Dan? Yeah, I
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mean I I have tried to do
a lot of change leadership, I guess,
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be an agent of change, for
changing meetings. So Um, I've
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always felt like it's been kind of
this uh Sciphian task, just like I'm
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just trying to get somebody to do
something slightly different. You know, not
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that I'm going to quit, but
like it's I get kind of frustrated and
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impatient with the unwillingness to just make
some simple changes. I love the reference
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to Sysiphis. I've had a lot
of guests on my podcast. Not many
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00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:26.839
times do we get the mythological character. SYSIPHIS was part of the the examples
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00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:29.519
that. I love that because that's
exactly what I was thinking of when you
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started with your conversation. It's that's
what it feels like so often. You
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guys know the route. The routine
is always to ask my guest, or
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in this case, guess, what's
the one thing that they would suggest to
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the audience if they're going to do
anything to be more effective in the running
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of their meetings. What would it
be? I would say I would say
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say no to a meeting you know, there's a decline button on all these
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meetings. Just ask yourself, like, is this really necessary? Do we
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need this meeting, or does it
have to be an hour? Can It
335
00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:07.359
be twenty five minutes? I would
just would say say no to meetings more.
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00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:11.000
Give your people and yourself time to
work and time to think. Beautiful
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00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:18.839
Samuel, I struggled to think of
whether it would be. Is it more
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00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:23.079
important to listen and ask questions in
the meeting? That's pretty important, but
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I think maybe even a higher priority
if I really really think about the to
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00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:33.119
me, what's the most important thing
that I could ever think of doing with
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00:26:33.119 --> 00:26:40.039
with a meeting? CADENCE is how
a cadence, how to schedule. Stick
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00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:42.799
to it, Chisel it and stone, don't ever deviate from it. If
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00:26:42.799 --> 00:26:48.960
you can't make the time, cancel
the meeting, because people need to plan
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00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:53.640
their lives. Somebody has got kids
to pick up from school, you know,
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00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:59.680
somebody else has a lunch appointment.
It's this, you know, a
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00:26:59.799 --> 00:27:03.160
day before the morning of Hey,
I know we normally have the Tuesday meeting
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00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:07.160
at eleven, but can we have
it at we started eleven because so and
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so is not here yet. That
kind of scheduled chaos. I think accepts
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huge amounts of energy from organizations.
Build a schedule for your meeting cadence,
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stick to it, Chisel it on
stone, don't ever deviate from it.
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Yeah, I agree with that.
That's that's a good number one. Number
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two. Number One, I love
him. There's Sam Wiley, Dan Wiley,
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friends of mine and executives for whom
I have a tremendous amount of respect.
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Gentlemen, if, if people want
to reach out to you for for
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more information or to have, you
know, discussions about meetings, what's the
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00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:49.839
best way for them to reach you? You can find me at SKYSALE FOODS
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00:27:51.319 --> 00:27:56.440
DOT com. All one word Skysale, skysale, all one word, SKYSALE
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00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:00.599
FOODS DOT COM. Yeah, I
probably linked in. Is the best way.
359
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:06.240
I've got my my phone number and
email up there, but linked an
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00:28:06.279 --> 00:28:10.720
search for Daniel Wiley and it is
under Daniel. Okay, good. These
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00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:14.960
guys are worth the effort to talk
to folks. So thank you for helping
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00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:18.759
us do the second of the of
our three meeting maximizing meeting performance podcast.
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00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:22.279
Guys, it's always a pleasure.
I hope to see you as soon.
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Okay, guys, yeah, thanks
for the opportunity. Thank you. Thank
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00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:34.920
you for listening to the ED epley
experience. For more information on building a
366
00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:42.839
more sustainable, smarter and Healthier Business, visit www the epley group dot com
367
00:28:42.920 --> 00:28:49.319
for resources, tips and ED's latest
blocks. That's the epley, E P
368
00:28:49.319 --> 00:28:56.920
P L E Y group DOT COM. Plus, take a free assessment at
369
00:28:56.039 --> 00:29:02.359
the epley group Dot Com. Slash
assess meant to find out how you measure
370
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:07.279
up as a highly skilled and accomplished
manager and where to focus on improving your
371
00:29:07.400 --> 00:29:08.799
skills. H
1
00:00:04.120 --> 00:00:08.039
Number one mistake I've always made many
meeting. Probably still like today's talk too
2
00:00:08.119 --> 00:00:18.440
much. Welcome to the ED epley
experience. Twenty minutes that simplifies the complex
3
00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:24.120
job of managing and leading people and
inspires you to take action on what you
4
00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:30.679
probably already know to build and sustain
a smart and healthy business. Here's your
5
00:00:30.679 --> 00:00:39.799
host Ed Epley to introduce this week's
guest and business leader. Welcome everyone to
6
00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:47.359
the Ed Epley experience, your opportunity
to learn from successful, seasoned prose about
7
00:00:47.399 --> 00:00:51.880
different things that will help you run
a more successful, sustainable, profitable business.
8
00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:55.439
These gentlemen that are joining me today
are no stranger to the ED epley
9
00:00:55.439 --> 00:00:59.200
experience. You've heard them before,
but never together. Maybe they were on
10
00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:02.520
once before together. there. I
can't remember, but there Dan and Sam
11
00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:04.439
Wiley. Is this the first time
I've had you guys on at the same
12
00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:08.760
time? Yeah, yeah, first
time. Yeah. So one of the
13
00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:12.640
things that's interesting about you, guys, is you're about as curious as anybody
14
00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:18.519
that I know. You're constantly learning
challenging yourselves. You have gone on to
15
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different things since we were last together. So, Sam, what what's the
16
00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:25.239
latest in your life? Where are
you? What are you doing today?
17
00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:30.120
Well, I'm busy working for myself. I'm an entrepreneur. I run a
18
00:01:30.159 --> 00:01:34.400
small little firm that's just myself and
a few others called Sky Sale Foods.
19
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We do consulting, so we do
commercial solutions for the food and supplement industry
20
00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:46.879
and then we also do some new, brand new consumer brand development and food
21
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and supplements and a lot of cool
projects there. But nothing I can talk
22
00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:53.959
about yet. Nothing has been announced. You have to kill our audience looking
23
00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:57.560
forward to looking forward to the future
and now. All right, so,
24
00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:00.719
so you kill our audience if we
told them now. So we don't want
25
00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:04.280
that. There's there's about twenty eight
people out there that we want to continue
26
00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:07.080
on with their lives. Dan,
what's the latest with you in your world?
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00:02:07.719 --> 00:02:14.000
Yes, I'm with a company called
Katie Farming Group. That's a European
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00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:20.039
based contract development and Manufacturing Organization in
the R C DMO firm and the Pharma
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00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:24.319
Space. Active in the Pharma Space. They are the largest producer of pharmaceutical
30
00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:30.199
omega, three products that are sold
in two pharmacies around the world. So
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I am a VP of special projects
there, which means they have a very
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multifaceted role right now I'm focused on
trying to help commercialize some cannabinoid extracts and
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some algae, Omega three extracts that
we produce is also working with some of
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their consumer products. So it's been
a lot of fun. So the reason
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00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:58.800
I like having I like having Dan
and Salmon podcast is because they're very smart
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guys, that you can tell,
and they are in a space that I
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00:03:01.159 --> 00:03:06.680
know virtually nothing about, and yet
they humor me and let me pick their
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brains and I think they're going to
have some information for you today that I
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think is important because this is the
second of two podcasts all about maximizing meeting
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performance. The whole idea about meetings
is one that, as the audience has
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heard me say before, I've come
to way too late in my career to
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understand the importance and critical nature of
it. I have gotten to the place
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now where I think I know a
little bit about what people can do to
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run affected meetings. But guys,
when did when did you become aware of,
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one the importance of meetings? And
then when would you say you got
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a line of sight as to some
kind of strategy for the kinds of meetings
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you wanted to run? And and
what works and doesn't. So I don't
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care who goes first. So you
know, I started my career at a
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fortune company and meetings were just part
of life and you kind of went through
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them. And I think as I
continue to go in career and I start
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to under stand, like this is
where we're doing things, I would say
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it was not until you introduced us
to the advantage by Patrick Lyncioni that I
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really started to see like, okay, here's this structured model for meetings.
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Okay, this resonates with me.
I get it now. You know,
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happened twenty years too late, but
now I understand why we're having meetings.
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Sam, how about for you?
But you know, it's interesting as a
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as a leader. It was my
exposure to lots of failures or working with
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a team and just being so frustrated. I can't get I can't get results,
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I can't get things to happen and
in meetings and people don't seem like
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they're engaged to paying attention. And
you know it's you come from a place
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of how do I solve this?
Right, so I need to figure out
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how to be better at doing this. Activity are clearly Um. I'm not
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good at or it wasn't good at
Um as a as an employee. I
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remember many years ago when I worked
in UM inside sales for a mortgage company.
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I remember doing a very disciplined,
you know, less than ten minutes
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daily check in to review our sales
pipeline and it's probably one of the most
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effective meetings I've ever been in because
it was on time, it was quick.
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We looked at maybe a hundred or
a hundred and fifty items of a
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pipeline, talked about them all,
talked about the roadblocks, made decisions about
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today and moved on. But I
was just one of the team members working
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for sales manager soon and knew what
they were doing. It was only years
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later, trying to run my own
meetings that I realized, wait a second,
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that was actually a good model for
effective meetings. Is especially that that
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that, you know, keeping to
the almost the impatience of the you know,
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it's like we need to have this
conversation, but it needs to be
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over. You're both educated gentlemen.
You both went to universities. I am
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assuming nowhere in that curriculum was a
class on meetings. Is that? Yeah,
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and I've I've I've begun wondering why
would a university that's teaching educating individuals
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to be successful, it's a business
degree, business curriculum of some sort,
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why there is nothing about meetings as
as fundamental. So so what's the assumption
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that that's being made there about education
and effectiveness and meetings? It's the assumption
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that because you have a degree,
because you've understand finance or marketing or strategy
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or any of those disciplines, that
therefore your prepared to run meetings and know
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what kind of meetings to conduct.
I just don't think it's something that,
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even it's the radar screen of your
average professor like that, you have to
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train your students, uh, for
this aspect of their professional careers. Yeah,
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yeah, professors are focused on being
technical experts and I've had the benefit
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of some really amazing professors and mentors. But meetings are about collaboration and,
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you know, empathy and trying to
work with people that sometimes don't want to
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work with you. or It's the
professors or you know, when they come
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into their classroom, their God in
their classroom and and that's not the way
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a meeting works. I mean professor
talks, you listen, you take notes.
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But you know, even if you're
the boss and a meeting, it
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doesn't work like that. If you
try to make it work like that,
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if you try to be professor and
all your employees or students, you're failing.
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I don't know that we've done enough
to warrant you guys going this far,
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this fast, to make yourselves vulnerable. But what would you say are
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some of the biggest mistakes you've personally
made in your you know, the way
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you've conducted meetings, the way you've
attempted to meetings or even participated, if
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that's where it is. I'm just
curious about your if you had some doovers,
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what would they be? How much
time do we have? We got
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about we got about twenty more minutes. Yeah, it's it's UH. You
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know, I think the biggest thing
is is having meetings be too long,
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maybe not having a strategic focus or
a goal for the meeting. Those are
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those are kind of some of the
things. Really coming into a meeting and
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just not being ready for it,
not being prepared to actually think about the
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conversation. Yeah, those are some
things. What about you saying talking too
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much? I mean it's always number
one mistake I've always made any meeting,
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probably still make today's. I talked
too much. Other people need to talk.
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You gotta ask questions, not tell
people. I think there's I think
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the the other one, and it's
probably a huge pet peeve of me,
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but it's one I've worked really hard
to not do and don't do anymore.
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But many people still make this mistakes. Not Give your full attention, I
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mean give of your attention to a
meeting or, you know what, just
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leave the room, don't be there, tell people you can't come, you
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got something else to work on.
I'll tell you one that I think I
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was most guilty of. Having made
them all, and and not that I
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not this is the only thing I
did wrong, but I think one of
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the biggest problems I had when I
was the person in charge, whatever title
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I had at the time, calling
a group of people together was having already
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made up my mind about something and
holding a meeting to act like I wanted
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their input. I'm not suggesting you
guys did that, but that that is
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one. That is one where,
in hindsight, if I knew what I
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know today, back then I would
have either just announced the decision or I
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would have said look. You know
I would have, I would have been
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more vulnerable and more transparent. Said, look, I think I've made up
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my mind about this topic now I
want to run it by you and if
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you can persuade me otherwise, great, but, but, but not trying
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to act like I was serious about
their inputs when I wasn't. I'm embarrassed.
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We have to admit it, but
I know I've done that. I've
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done it a time or two or
for yeah, yeah, how much,
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Dan, in your time with large
organizations did you see meeting stew and my
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my definition of meeting stew is when
one person is trying to be strategic and
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and somebody else or the meeting might
be about tactics and and, you know,
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a staff meeting and somebody wants to
argue strategy. Do you see that
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a lot, or or did you
see that a lot in the organizations of
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which you were part that were big
ones? I would say when I when
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I was at a fortune aspace company
that they were pretty focused meetings, but
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that's you know, you're working with
a bunch of engineers. They're single minded
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on their focus. You know,
working in a family business, we had
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a lot of meetings to a lot
of who knows what we're gonna talk about.
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Meetings go too long, Um,
and it covers every topic known.
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Deman, I have to admit I've
got to witness a little of that.
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Yeah, yeah, Um, you
know, my current organization like there's I
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think there's a mix. It's not
a giant company, but it's very fast
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moving and so sometimes you're you do
get a little bit of I don't know
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if it's meeting Stew, but it's
uh, you know, maybe a poopare
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or something more than one course.
Yeah, yeah, there's sometimes there's there's
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a couple of different focuses, but
you know, overall I think it's I
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just see a mix. I think
Sam entrepreneurs are are notorious for following the
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shiny object, being taken off topic
pretty easily by something that either angers them
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or excites them or interests them when
it comes up in the meeting and and
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pivoting. Are you guilty of that? Oh, probably, almost every day.
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Hey, I mean it's it's it's
hard, Um. You know,
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I think, for instance, typically
when I have a meeting with people,
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I like to go first to make
sure that I have the presence of mind
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to model the behavior that I want
to see, because if I get too
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focused on what other people are saying
and I start reacting to it further in
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into the meeting, I I lose
my focus. I mean I I want
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to stop and have a micro meeting
right and you know it's totally inappropriate to
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have this rabbit trail right now and
I just can't help myself. Yeah,
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when we got to do work together
and I introduced introduced you to the table
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group's model for meetings, they really
are focused around four kinds of meetings,
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the daily stand up or huddle,
the weekly tactical, the monthly strategic slash
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ad hoc, if if you need
something that warrants just its own meeting by
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itself because of the scope of it
or the size of it, and then
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a quarterly off site. Are you
using, still using those meetings as as
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your kinds of meetings in your organizations, or are there others that you're using
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besides those four kinds of meetings?
Yeah, I stick pretty close to to
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that. You know, I think
if I had to choose one, I
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just choose the daily stand up.
I think that's the most important of them
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all. Why? Well, I
think you know, if you think about
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you got a team of five or
ten people, Um, if they can
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accomplish one thing, you know,
you talk about what you're going to accomplish
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that day to drive some peer to
peer accountability. And if you can get
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ten people doing one thing every day
for a month, it's a lot of
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things and you know, you just
are in this constant flow of of communicating
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about what the business needs. The
challenge, I think, is kind of
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the more strategic meetings, you know, having off sites so, or quarterly
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strategic reviews or things where you have
to really step back from that day to
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day and think and think about the
business. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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extract, extract yourself from the day
to day is really hard for most executives
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and executive teams. Sam, how
about you? Well, and I think
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it's I think it's really challenging for
leaders and for team members to make the
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jump from a weekly tactical it's monthly
strategic. Yeah, it's you get,
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you know or fifty or or whatever
the number is, weekly tacticals and never
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any monthly strategics, even if you
have one that you delegate, you assigned
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to be the monthly strategic. It's
it's it winds up being tactical. It's
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hard for everybody to downshift and say, okay, yes, but we need
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to think strategically here. Do you
think where you hold the meeting matters?
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Do you think? In other words, I'm wondering if, if, like
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when you just suggested that it's hard
to pull yourself out of the operational way
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of thinking to be strategic, I'm
wondering if you went to a different meeting
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room, where other than the one
you normally meet in, i. for
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your weekly tactical as if that would
make a difference. It does. Yeah,
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I mean the I've been on the
side of like trying to decide if
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it's worth it to go to an
outside location or trying to justify that,
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and I always feel that it's worth
it. You get better communication. Everybody
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changes the scenery that change their mind
when they change where they are. You
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know, I think I heard on
one of your recent mini blogs the you
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know, like slightly more than half
of the people and organizations are introverted,
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and you know, I think that
you know, if you're always in this
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daily, weekly tactical flow, you
never tap into the talent of an introverted
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person who's actually going to sit there
and think, and you know. So
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when you do have these sites or
strategics, you give space to actually make
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make a little deeper thinking happen around, around the business and on what our
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choices are. Sam You have any
thoughts about different location? Yeah, I
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mean almost anybody I've ever interacted with, whether it's I'm giving advice to a
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business leader or I'm trying to coach
a reluctant employee, there's often pushed back
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about do we really have to go
to this off site? Is it really
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going to make a difference? That's
a long way. Isn't this going to
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cost a bunch of money? You
know, I've heard it said hiring is
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the most important work we do.
I don't know that I agree with that.
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I think leadership is the most important
work we do. Leadership is really
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hard to do without communication. It's
two way. If it's just one way,
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it's the professor and the student.
It's got to be too, these
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meetings where you can lead and develop
and listen and ask. It needs that
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space. So setting aside time that's
special different, you know, not the
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day to day, not the conference
room where, you know, I said,
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always sit in this corner and you
always sit over there and you have
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to get out of that environment.
There's there's psychology like about how it unlocks
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you know, it evokes Cathartic responsive
and locks your mind to learning, to
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thinking about new things. I couldn't
underscore it enough that when you need to
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think strategically, you need to get
out of your day to day. Yeah,
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totally agree. All right, that's
that's good stuff for our audience.
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I know people are going to be
thinking differently maybe about leaving the premises for
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some of their meetings. When you
are in your meetings, how often do
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you remind people the purpose of the
meeting, where you would say that we're
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here today to make decisions about what
we're gonna do in the next week to
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operate the business more effectively? Or
in a huddle, the reason we're doing
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a stand up, that the daily
stand up or huddle. The reason we're
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doing this is to remain aligned so
that we we are more likely to be
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aligned as an executive team and show
up that way to the rest of the
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organization. Do you ever do that? Do you ever feel the need to
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do that? I'm I feel like
there are times where people forget why we're
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here in the room together or,
you know, on the on the virtual
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meeting together. What's your thoughts about
that? Yeah, I um, I
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think that that's one of my big
pet peeves is is when I get,
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when I get a meeting request that
doesn't have a good title or an agenda
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or a purpose and and it's it's
hard to know like well, should I
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even go to this meeting? Um, what's it about? Um? And
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so I try to be pretty clear
with with the meetings that I lead that
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like, here's what the goal is, here's what the purpose is. I
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don't do it perfectly, don't do
it all the time, but I try
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to be pretty pretty rigorous about this
is why we're meeting, we're going to
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talk about this. Hopefully we can
get to a decision about this. And
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and now let's start. You go
ahead. Yeah, it's always saying the
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purpose of this meeting is to do
what? What is the outcome that we're
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looking for? Just, you know, scheduling a meeting that says we're going
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to discuss this project. What a
ways of time? It needs to say
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this is the purpose of meeting.
I think when you go into the standing
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meetings, you know it's it's easy
to identify the purpose of an ad hoc
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meeting. It's like this is a
problem we need to meet to talk about.
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It's the standing meeting. It often
often forgotten. I mean I love,
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I love to trot out the phrase
or or the statement, you know,
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in a daily check in. Is
the most important thing, my number
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one priority that I'm going to do
today to drive the business forward in the
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next twenty four hours is still in
the blank, whatever it is. You
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fill in the blank right. So, because that we we have to we
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sometimes have to be overly obvious,
because people forget why they're there, to
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forget why we're we're even talking,
I think the more I mean I've run
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all hands meetings with, you know, thirty or forty people and Um,
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those really, I mean every time
you know would do an all hands meeting,
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you really have to spend the first
couple of minutes just reminding everybody why
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we do this. Why did I
drag you to this room or make you
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get on a zoom call or a
team's calling? Why are you here?
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What are we what are we talking
about? What's the purpose of this communication?
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You know, what do we want
from you? Those kinds of things.
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They they you know, the larger
the audience, the more obvious you
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have to be. Yeah, I
can see that. One of the disciplines
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that I see lacking in almost every
organization, regardless of size, kind type,
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geographic location, it doesn't matter,
is at the end of meetings,
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especially tacticals and strategic or ad hocs, is the failure to make clear and
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agree upon whatever decisions the meeting has
produced where it's really it's written down in
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front of everybody, where they can
see it and we can agree. Did
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we just make this decision in this
meeting or did we not? In other
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words, there is no there is
no ambiguity when the meeting is over about
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whether decision it was made. Do
you see that, Dana? Have you
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seen that in the larger organizations of
which you've been a part, or or
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even now? I think it's I
don't see it as often as I would
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like him. To be frank,
I don't do it as often as I
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should. You know, it's hard
because a lot of times you've got another
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meeting that's backed right up to this
one and I can't there's no time or
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we didn't make space to actually you
know, hey, there's five minutes left
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in the meeting. Let's align on
what we decided those those those things are
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sometimes they just disappear into the next
team's call and now you're on to the
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next one after that and nobody wrote
anything down from the last four Sam how
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about you? What have you seen? Yeah, I mean I think.
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I think making sure we all agree
on. What do we just decide,
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you know, as a result of
this discussion? What actions are outcomes are
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we going to take? It's important, um, it's most important in those,
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you know, longer weekly tactical meetings, having the running list that you
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can refer to. Most meetings will
generate three or four, five, you
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know, decision points. It's important
to write those down. I think the
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other thing I've really learned as a
result of those discussions is a certain percentage
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of all the decisions you'll ever make
in a business or become obsolete. You
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write them down, you decide that
we need to take an action, you
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go out and you explore a little
bit and then you decide that's not worth
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doing. Often more, junior employees
hold on to something you decided in a
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meeting three months ago that is totally
irrelevant to the business today. There needs
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to be more of a discipline process
for most people. I find this to
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be one of my top challenges is
to go back and say, I know
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we decided in April that this was
important, but not only what we know
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today. We're deciding not to work
on this. This isn't important. I
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00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:37.200
need you to let it go.
This doesn't mean we're dishonest or inconsistent,
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it just means we're being smart to
current business. Yeah, I frankly,
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I never see that and it needs
to be done. So I agree with
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00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:55.799
you. When you've been part of
any organization, how often have you seen
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them actually try to change their meetings? Um, go ahead, and I
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think I mean I think fairly often. I mean I've been been blessed to
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work with some pretty pretty awesome people. Um, I would say if I
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think about where in organizations I've worked
with, whether directly inside or coaching and
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advising. Um, if I think
about what I know to be the ideal
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of meeting performance and versus their willingness
to reach the ideal, I think it's
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pretty low. If I think about
how willing they are to improve or change
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at least some aspect with a bit
of coaching and leadership and guidance. I'd
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say pretty common. Okay, how
about you, Dan? Yeah, I
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mean I I have tried to do
a lot of change leadership, I guess,
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be an agent of change, for
changing meetings. So Um, I've
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always felt like it's been kind of
this uh Sciphian task, just like I'm
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just trying to get somebody to do
something slightly different. You know, not
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that I'm going to quit, but
like it's I get kind of frustrated and
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impatient with the unwillingness to just make
some simple changes. I love the reference
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to Sysiphis. I've had a lot
of guests on my podcast. Not many
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00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:26.839
times do we get the mythological character. SYSIPHIS was part of the the examples
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00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:29.519
that. I love that because that's
exactly what I was thinking of when you
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started with your conversation. It's that's
what it feels like so often. You
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guys know the route. The routine
is always to ask my guest, or
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in this case, guess, what's
the one thing that they would suggest to
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the audience if they're going to do
anything to be more effective in the running
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00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:49.559
of their meetings. What would it
be? I would say I would say
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say no to a meeting you know, there's a decline button on all these
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meetings. Just ask yourself, like, is this really necessary? Do we
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need this meeting, or does it
have to be an hour? Can It
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00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:07.359
be twenty five minutes? I would
just would say say no to meetings more.
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Give your people and yourself time to
work and time to think. Beautiful
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00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:18.839
Samuel, I struggled to think of
whether it would be. Is it more
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00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:23.079
important to listen and ask questions in
the meeting? That's pretty important, but
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I think maybe even a higher priority
if I really really think about the to
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00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:33.119
me, what's the most important thing
that I could ever think of doing with
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00:26:33.119 --> 00:26:40.039
with a meeting? CADENCE is how
a cadence, how to schedule. Stick
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00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:42.799
to it, Chisel it and stone, don't ever deviate from it. If
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you can't make the time, cancel
the meeting, because people need to plan
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00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:53.640
their lives. Somebody has got kids
to pick up from school, you know,
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00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:59.680
somebody else has a lunch appointment.
It's this, you know, a
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00:26:59.799 --> 00:27:03.160
day before the morning of Hey,
I know we normally have the Tuesday meeting
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00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:07.160
at eleven, but can we have
it at we started eleven because so and
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00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:11.880
so is not here yet. That
kind of scheduled chaos. I think accepts
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huge amounts of energy from organizations.
Build a schedule for your meeting cadence,
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00:27:18.880 --> 00:27:22.359
stick to it, Chisel it on
stone, don't ever deviate from it.
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Yeah, I agree with that.
That's that's a good number one. Number
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00:27:27.559 --> 00:27:33.599
two. Number One, I love
him. There's Sam Wiley, Dan Wiley,
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00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:38.240
friends of mine and executives for whom
I have a tremendous amount of respect.
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00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:41.119
Gentlemen, if, if people want
to reach out to you for for
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00:27:41.160 --> 00:27:45.400
more information or to have, you
know, discussions about meetings, what's the
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00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:49.839
best way for them to reach you? You can find me at SKYSALE FOODS
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00:27:51.319 --> 00:27:56.440
DOT com. All one word Skysale, skysale, all one word, SKYSALE
358
00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:00.599
FOODS DOT COM. Yeah, I
probably linked in. Is the best way.
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00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:06.240
I've got my my phone number and
email up there, but linked an
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00:28:06.279 --> 00:28:10.720
search for Daniel Wiley and it is
under Daniel. Okay, good. These
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00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:14.960
guys are worth the effort to talk
to folks. So thank you for helping
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00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:18.759
us do the second of the of
our three meeting maximizing meeting performance podcast.
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00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:22.279
Guys, it's always a pleasure.
I hope to see you as soon.
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00:28:22.359 --> 00:28:30.680
Okay, guys, yeah, thanks
for the opportunity. Thank you. Thank
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00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:34.920
you for listening to the ED epley
experience. For more information on building a
366
00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:42.839
more sustainable, smarter and Healthier Business, visit www the epley group dot com
367
00:28:42.920 --> 00:28:49.319
for resources, tips and ED's latest
blocks. That's the epley, E P
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00:28:49.319 --> 00:28:56.920
P L E Y group DOT COM. Plus, take a free assessment at
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the epley group Dot Com. Slash
assess meant to find out how you measure
370
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up as a highly skilled and accomplished
manager and where to focus on improving your
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skills. H
