The Tea’s Ready!

After I graduated college, I left town and spent the summer in Tanzania, Africa. Carrying only a backpack filled with enough clothes to last me a few days — and an even smaller set of expectations— I flew off to find adventure, to find a stronger purpose – and maybe, partly, to find… myself. During those months, I taught English to the Maasai children, built structures that would become schools in neighboring villages, and spent much of my time learning and understanding a culture very different than mine.

I’ll never forget the first day ‘on the job.’ Our group of 9 (mostly ‘westerners’) teamed up with 80 workers from the village to dig a deep trench for the foundation of one of the future schools. After a few hours of digging on a hot, humid day, I could see that the end was near. Maybe 15 more minutes and we’d be done with our first major milestone. Whew. But just before that happened, I hear a loud whistle followed by an almost religious-like, repetitive chant hailing from a woman in the village:

“CHAI TAYARI! CHAI TAYARI!” (tie-ah-ree)

English Translation: “The Tea’s Ready.”

Just like that — a synchronized drill performed probably hundreds of times—every single Maasai worker dropped their shovel and headed toward the prepared urns of Chai. Each grabbed a nearby cup, poured their beverage, and sat down in the shade under the tree canopy enjoying a leisurely afternoon tea and conversation among friends.

I couldn’t believe it. We were SO CLOSE—we were NOT at a good stopping point. I wanted to call out and convince everyone — “let’s just plow through! We’re almost done — then we can rest AFTER.” But there was no point in raising my voice. This culture knew something I had yet to learn:

REST IS PART OF THE WORK.
BREAKS ARE NECESSARY FOR PROGRESS.

#Take10 - Join the Meeting Revolution

If you’re new here — welcome to “The Leader Prompt” Newsletter — a science forward discussion on leadership. We’re glad you’re here — Each newsletter will focus on an area of Leadership Research and highlight practical tips for you to take back to your teams.

As many of you know, my recent post on Microsoft’s research behind taking breaks between meetings … gained some attention. With over 6 million views and 20k reposts, it’s safe to say the global workforce is looking for answers to a new kind of pandemic. But why did this go viral? Why did this resonate with SO MANY people?

 After combing through all of the responses and diving deep into the scientific research, I think this went viral for 3 main reasons:

• The way we do MEETINGS MUST CHANGE

• BURNOUT is only getting WORSE

• We need ACTIONABLE, doable steps (e.g., #Take10MinBreaks)

So, I want to break these down a bit more — and I will dive into the science behind rest — but first — Let’s talk about this Meeting Epidemic

1. “Do We REALLY Need to Have This Meeting?”

Meeting Compulsion has only gotten increasingly worse. We’re meeting more often — and seeing less results. The data shows that managers believe meetings are mainly unproductive (70-83%), work against creativity and efficiency (64%), and prevent true connection in the workplace(62%). And while we’ve doubled the hours we spend in meetings over the past 50 years (from 10hrs to 23hrs), the pandemic only accelerated this stat. Today, the average employee attends 13% more meetings than they were before the pandemic.

Leaders, if we’re honest, we may have allowed this to happen —all in the name of “accountability.” After all, if we’re going to work from anywhere, the only way to truly know if everyone is “working” is if they are scheduled for some kind of “meeting” every minute of the work day. Right? Almost like a virtual way to make sure everyone is ‘on the clock’ — like a virtual ‘butts in the seats,’ if you will. And while this may have subconsciously made sense at the time, the data shows that 68% of employees believe that the overwhelming amount of meetings is preventing them from completing their actual work. Oh The Irony. 

That in the name of ‘accountability’ and ‘productivity’ companies may have allowed ‘back to back’ meeting culture to happen, preventing those very same employees from doing their actual work.

So here we are - in the meeting rut - overwhelmed by ‘back to backs’ and no clear path to make a policy change. (If only we had some data to shed some light on best practices to recapture a more reasonable way to work — one that is productive and sustainable.) Well I posted some of that data - millions of you saw it, thousands of you posted—and many tagged colleagues and several (ahem) executives. The good news - the executives took note. I have hundreds of messages from leaders who are committing to this simple policy change - “breaks between meetings.” Done. But what if there’s more? What if there’s data that shows we can reduce exhaustion even more by what happens IN the meetings, too?

(Enter…. Science)

2. What HAPPENS in the Meeting MATTERS

A few years ago, a team of researchers (Management Research Review) wanted to know what kinds of meetings increased engagement — and which ones led to exhaustion. Their peer-reviewed study of over 400 participants showed that while there are many elements that lead to exhaustion, there are basically only 2 main actions that promote engagement and prevent exhaustion: Idea Generation and Action Planning.

Effective Meetings = Idea Generation & Action Planning

Strategy and Execution. These aren’t novel concepts — and when they are carried out well - we know it. We feel it. See, if we’re engaged in a highly productive strategy session where we build off the ideas of others, create new pathways to existing problems, and then make a plan to delegate and execute on these new initiatives, it’s not exhausting. It’s gratifying. “Great meeting everyone!” 

Long meetings don’t make us exhausted, unnecessary meetings do.

3. Meetings Need Rules

So, why aren’t more meetings focusing on the elements that energize us? Because we’re stuck. Our default is to “meet now” and “meet often.” We skip over the fact that 2/3 of our teams view meetings as productivity blockers. So, if you’ve decided a meeting is necessary - here are some rules you might use for you and your team.

Rule 1: No Agenda, No Attenda

If a meeting has no agenda, we can almost guarantee that there will be unnecessary long status updates and irrelevant topics discussed. Blaise Pascal famously said, “If I had more time, I would’ve written a shorter letter.” (paraphrased). When leaders begin a meeting without a clear direction, the path will almost always take longer. Commonly called, “Verbal Processing” - when there aren’t clear talking points, individuals will talk as long as they need until they feel their point is made. So, instead of ‘riffing’ until enough heads nod, we must send out an agenda so we can help ourselves and others form early thoughts before the meeting. Here is an effective sample agenda:

1. Check-In (1-5 min) Create Connection

2. Status Update (1-5 min) Summary Only - Share Lengthy Updates Asynchronously Days in Advance

3. Strategy (10-30 min) Generate Ideas, Brainstorm, Divergent Thinking

4. Action Planning (10-20 min) Synthesize, Delegate, Agree on Actions

Rule 2: Meetings Need a Moderator

Okay, so we’ve decided it’s necessary to hold a meeting - we’re gonna focus on idea generation and execution. We have an iron clad agenda. Now, we need an agenda enforcer—a moderator. This person will be tasked with two major goals:

1. Keep the Time

2. Keep the Topic

Remember, it’s necessary to minimize status updates and irrelevant info to save time for strategy and execution. So, give moderators the authority to “gatekeep” irrelevant issues from popping into the conversation, and “expedite,” (if necessary) the action planning stage where the team begins to close the loop on a fruitful discussion by synthesizing, deciding, delegating, and then agreeing on parts to own within a clear timeline.

I can’t stress this enough — meetings need closure, and a moderator can help facilitate this.

Your brain does not enjoy “unfinished business.” 

Much of our compounded stress from back-to-back meetings is from the lingering thoughts from the prior meeting as the new meeting starts. So, if you’ve been participating in higher-order thinking (e.g., strategizing, problem-solving) your brain will not simply shut off just because the meeting is “over.” Abrupt endings while your brain is still strategizing will keep stress levels high until you reach an acceptable solution or conclusion for the time being. So, grant the moderator with the authority to close the strategy session with ample time for execution. This will give your brain permission to stop ruminating about the meeting before the next one begins.

RULE 3: #TAKE10 - Rest Before Meetings

Meeting fatigue? Exhaustion? Burnout? This issue is layered and while I will dive deep into the science of burnout in a later newsletter, I want to make sure that we all hear this:

The brain must rest to function properly.

The Microsoft study I shared examined beta wave activity. These are the same waves that appear when someone is doing an advanced math problem — or an impromptu speech among strangers. Their presence indicate mental exhaustion, or stress. While exhaustion only represents one of the 4 dimensions of burnout, it could serve as a sign of early burnout symptoms if not cared for. When the brain is in a perpetual state of exhaustion it will fail to brainstorm and create properly. It won’t handle conflict well. Your ability to empathize and listen to teammates will suffer. It is near impossible to create a healthy and thriving culture for you or your team if you’re at an elevated cognitive stress state. This means, you must rest not only for you, but for your team. In a rested state, your resilience returns to normal and the leadership skills you’ve developed over the years are at peak performance. So, take your 10 minutes to allow your lingering thoughts to land. Go for a walk. Reset your brain to begin its next activity. Be kind to yourself and your team. And don’t forget to #Take10.

Leaders, Here’s Your Prompt:

Each newsletter, I want to leave you with a few prompts — questions/ideas— to implement with the teams you lead, so here they are:

1. With the meetings you’ve scheduled, how many of them need to be synchronous meetings (meet together at the same time)? Could some of the ‘information sharing’ be done offline?

2. What is my process for creating and distributing meeting agendas? Should that be modified?

3. What is the typical ratio of status updates/info sharing vs. strategy and action planning? Should that be modified?

4. Is it time to designate a meeting moderator? Which teammates could play this role well?

5. How am I modeling REST for the teams I lead? Should that be modified?

What’s Next? - Courses are Coming!

In addition to our next newsletter in 2 weeks, I wanted to let you know that I will be bringing all of the workshops I do for organizations to you all VERY SOON. Having developed over 20 different workshops and leadership development programs over the past 10 years for many different companies, I believe now is the right time to begin offering them to you.

I will be working with MAVEN - an online synchronous classroom platform - and launching several courses focused on leadership development, communication styles and strategies, and team collaboration. BUT FIRST - I would love to hear from you on what would be the most valuable to you. So, if you are willing, I would love for you to take a quick survey to get your feedback on course topics. There is ZERO obligation to take part in these courses if you do fill out the survey, but your feedback is critical for me. I truly want to create a space for conversation — a conversation about what good leadership looks like — how good research might inform that — and how your experiences can help sharpen others on this journey. CLICK LINK BELOW

Cheers,

-josh

THE LEADER PROMPT

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