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Don't go (E)

Don't go (E)

Released Wednesday, 27th November 2024
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Don't go (E)

Don't go (E)

Don't go (E)

Don't go (E)

Wednesday, 27th November 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

Twenty years ago, I was invited

0:02

to the big meeting. Every

0:05

week on Mondays at

0:08

JPMorgan Chase, there was a meeting

0:10

of the team that

0:12

was responsible for one-third of

0:14

the bank's profits. This

0:16

meeting consisted of 42 people sitting

0:21

around a long table, 20 on

0:23

a side, one at the head and

0:25

one at the foot, surrounded

0:28

by 30 other people sitting

0:30

in the second row. That

0:33

meeting cost the bank more than $50,000

0:35

an hour. And

0:38

as far as I know, they're still having

0:40

it. Konnichiwa, it's

0:43

Nick in Fukuoka, Japan, and this

0:45

is a special archived episode of

0:47

Akimbo. I got this

0:49

question from a reader and

0:54

decided to do an entire episode of

0:57

Akimbo about it. It explains why

0:59

I don't go to meetings and how I avoid

1:01

going to meetings. Here we go. Hey,

1:04

Seth, this is Thomas from Ireland, a proud

1:06

Golden Ice. And I have a question

1:08

about meetings. You said previously that you

1:10

save a ton of time daily by not attending meetings.

1:13

And I was wondering, could you tell us how you

1:15

work without meetings? For example, what do you do when

1:17

you need multiple people to discuss something at the same

1:19

time? Also, do you have

1:21

any tips for how to stop attending meetings

1:23

in the meeting-centric culture? Meetings

1:26

are a culture, a specific culture,

1:28

a specific act that

1:31

industrialized organizations engage in

1:33

on a regular basis.

1:36

Meetings are expensive, meetings are

1:38

debilitating, and most people who

1:41

go to meetings for a living will

1:43

tell you it's one of the worst

1:45

parts of their job. Why

1:47

would something like this persist for

1:50

so long? One of

1:52

the most famous paintings in the world, something

1:54

that's been painted over and over again by

1:56

many artists, is a

1:58

painting of a meeting. the Last

2:01

Supper. Meetings are

2:03

central to many spiritual

2:05

and religious observances, but

2:08

we're talking about a very specific sort

2:10

of meeting right now, the

2:12

meeting that you might have gone to just

2:14

before you listened to this, or the one

2:16

that you have scheduled later in the day.

2:19

This is the meeting that might happen on a

2:21

regular basis. This is the

2:23

meeting where you recognize all the people

2:26

who are there. This is

2:28

the meeting that takes place in person. This

2:30

is the meeting that starts

2:32

on the half hour and ends

2:35

on the half hour. This is the meeting

2:38

where not very much gets done. There

2:40

are, of course, a whole slew of other

2:43

sorts of meetings, one-on-one meetings,

2:45

which I would rather call

2:47

conversations, brainstorming meetings that match

2:49

a specific format. But I'm

2:51

talking about the general meeting,

2:53

the all hands-on meeting, the update meeting,

2:55

the meeting where we go around the

2:58

room and everyone chimes in, the meeting

3:00

where the people in the back row

3:03

are demonstrating that they belong in the back row

3:05

and taking notes, and the people

3:07

in the front are speaking up, the

3:09

meeting where people talk to hear themselves talk, the

3:12

meeting where many people don't talk so

3:14

they don't have to risk hearing themselves

3:17

talk. If you know what

3:19

I'm talking about, you're familiar with

3:21

this sort of meeting. This sort of

3:23

meeting is probably costing the world economy

3:25

a trillion dollars

3:27

a year, not

3:29

just in the lost time, in the

3:31

hourly wage multiplied by the number of

3:34

people, but in

3:36

the deadening effect, in

3:38

the idea that it is pushing us to

3:40

phone it in. But now, of

3:42

course, we live in a world where we don't have

3:44

to do this because we can just hop on a

3:47

Zoom call, and yet, and

3:50

yet they persist. We live in

3:52

a world where we don't have to start the meeting at half

3:54

past the hour. Outlook will let

3:56

us start it at any time we want,

3:59

and yet we do it. the way we've

4:01

always done it. Why is this?

4:03

Okay, so a bunch of reasons. Try

4:05

to remember a typical big company office in

4:08

1965. Here's the way it

4:10

would work. A vice president, usually a

4:12

guy, would want to contact

4:14

and discuss something with another vice

4:16

president. This other vice president might

4:18

have an office 30 feet away.

4:22

The first executive would

4:24

call his secretary into his office

4:26

and dictate a memo. The secretary

4:28

would type the memo, hand

4:31

it to the inter-office delivery

4:33

person who would bring it three desks

4:35

down and give it to

4:37

the secretary of the other executive who

4:39

would then bring it into his office

4:43

and the memo would be complete.

4:46

This idea of dueling memos,

4:49

a slow moving cover

4:51

your ass, papered over system for

4:53

who said what when was

4:56

at the heart of how

4:58

big companies got or didn't get

5:00

things done. So you could

5:02

shake things up if you were Robert

5:04

McNamara or Mike Bloomberg. You could have

5:06

a bullpen. You could create a meeting

5:08

culture where people come together face to

5:10

face and speak their mind. Part of

5:12

it is an exchange of

5:15

pheromones. Being able to see

5:17

and smell and engage with someone right in

5:19

front of you. This can't

5:22

be underestimated. Mirror

5:24

neurons are belief that we

5:26

can judge other people. The

5:28

thought of eye contact, our

5:30

perception of how people dress or sit,

5:33

the idea of close talkers or interrupters,

5:35

people who can bring power into the

5:37

room. All of these things,

5:39

these very human things, things

5:42

that go back millions of years,

5:45

come to the fore in an in-person

5:47

meeting and they lead

5:49

to displays of power. Who

5:52

gets to sit where? Who comes

5:54

to the meeting first? Back when

5:56

I worked at Spinnaker in the early 80s, we

5:59

regularly had meetings. with seven or eight

6:01

MBAs all coming to the same meeting.

6:04

And what we discovered pretty soon is

6:07

that it was understood that the

6:09

person who came last was the

6:11

busiest, was the most important, was

6:14

the person who couldn't possibly drag

6:16

themselves away from what they'd been doing to come to the

6:18

meeting on time. And so, you

6:20

guessed it, people came later and

6:23

later. And it wasn't until the chairman of

6:25

the company, Bill, put a big bowl on the

6:27

table and said, this person in has

6:30

to put a $20 bill in the charity bowl

6:32

that the problem was solved. This

6:35

power display then

6:37

reflects back to the idea of fealty, of

6:40

bowing to power. That

6:42

if you are going to get on a plane, fly

6:45

across the country and sit in

6:47

a windowless conference room for an

6:49

hour because your boss

6:51

asked you to, you're

6:53

not doing it because an exchange of

6:55

information is about to occur other

6:58

than information about who's in charge. Because

7:01

back to the executive with the secretary, if

7:03

all you wanted to do was give

7:05

me information, you could have

7:08

sent me an email. Too

7:10

many meetings are simply recitations.

7:14

Recitations don't belong in a real

7:16

time environment where we are using

7:18

up our most precious asset. That

7:21

leads to fear, the fear of

7:23

missing out, the fear of speaking

7:25

up, the fear of saying something dumb,

7:27

the fear of being voted down. We've

7:30

all heard the stories of the

7:32

board meeting where suddenly the CEO

7:34

is asked to leave the room and

7:37

then the board votes to remove him or her.

7:40

These almost never happen, but

7:43

the idea that we're going to go

7:45

to the meeting unprepared can

7:47

lead to decades of nightmares. This

7:50

rehearsed in school, showing

7:52

up for the exam and going to the

7:54

wrong room, showing up for the exam being

7:57

unprepared, going to the meeting and

7:59

being called on. when you're not

8:01

ready to produce the answer.

8:04

Well, why exactly do we need to produce

8:06

the answer in real time? It's not a

8:09

game show that in fact

8:11

when we go asynchronous, not

8:13

all at once, but when we have

8:15

it ready using a

8:17

system like Slack, it's

8:20

easy to show that we could be

8:22

more productive if we want to be.

8:25

But that leads to the next idea, safety.

8:29

Because it's safer to go to

8:31

a meeting and wait for someone

8:33

else to take the responsibility. It's

8:35

safer to go to a meeting and then

8:38

punt it to the next meeting. That

8:40

one of the challenges that Slack brings to

8:42

the organization is if you write it, you

8:45

wrote it, there it is

8:47

with your name on it and everyone knows. In

8:50

a meeting there's plenty of room for deniability.

8:52

Well, that's not what I really said. In

8:55

a meeting there aren't accurate

8:57

notes of how it all went down. And

9:00

so something that could be solved in

9:02

five minutes, there are some quick backs

9:04

and fourths via email or

9:06

even a phone call, but

9:08

particularly something like Slack, isn't

9:11

even solved in an hour of a meeting. But

9:13

we're in a rhythm. And the

9:16

rhythm is this is when the meeting

9:18

happens. This is how the meeting goes.

9:21

And if the new boss showed up and said,

9:23

this 45 minute meeting is now going to be

9:25

an eight minute meeting, she could

9:27

make the meeting work in eight minutes. But

9:30

to do that, she would make people

9:32

uncomfortable because we are comfortable

9:35

with the rhythm of the meetings that

9:37

we say we hate because

9:39

it's safe in there, safer

9:42

than it would be doing something on our own.

9:46

And then commitment signaling. Commitment signaling is

9:48

part of fealty, but commitment signaling means

9:51

I dragged myself out of bed to

9:53

get here to this meeting or I

9:55

dragged myself away from my office where

9:58

I was actually doing productive work to

10:00

be at this meeting. And

10:02

these commitments in real

10:04

time combined with the

10:06

idea that we're exchanging pheromones, combined

10:09

with power display, combined with fealty,

10:11

combined with our almost Jungian connection

10:14

to the Last Supper, all of

10:16

it adds up to the in-person

10:18

meeting is super special. Rans

10:21

and Repose wrote a blog post a couple weeks ago

10:24

about how to do meetings when

10:26

two or three or four of the people in the

10:28

meeting are coming in via video

10:31

call. And his answer

10:33

was get to the meeting early, set

10:35

things up in advance, make sure

10:38

that you are welcoming

10:40

these people, these remote workers.

10:43

I don't think he went nearly far enough. What

10:46

happens if you have a meeting for eight people,

10:48

three of whom are coming in by

10:50

Zoom call? If everyone

10:54

comes in by Zoom call, if everyone

10:57

stays in their cube or their

10:59

office, one computer, one person, and

11:01

they're all on the

11:03

same footing. Now we're back to

11:05

what we were started with. We are

11:08

back to the idea that faces

11:10

on the screen are communicating

11:12

to one another on equal

11:14

footing. And in that environment, what

11:16

you will discover is that some people will default

11:19

to not speaking up. Some

11:21

people will speak more than their share. What

11:23

you will see in that setting is that some

11:26

people will work hard to make sure

11:28

that the lighting is good, that they're

11:30

using a microphone, that they're looking at

11:32

the screen, that they're not eating while

11:34

the meeting is going on, that they

11:37

are fully and emotionally present. And

11:39

some people look like they're

11:42

sitting at home watching a

11:44

football game, eating peanuts with

11:46

the lights streaming in behind them.

11:48

They have checked out. Meetings

11:52

give us insight as

11:54

to who's up and who's down, who's

11:57

being honored, and who's being

11:59

disrespected. We live in

12:01

a meetings culture. It is very

12:03

hard to change it even if

12:06

you're the boss. My

12:08

friend Toby, who is the boss, who

12:10

also knows a lot about how to program computers,

12:13

did something for his company that had

12:15

thousands of employees. One weekend,

12:18

he went in and wrote a

12:20

script for their company-wide Google Calendar.

12:23

What he did was he

12:25

canceled every single regular meeting

12:27

that was on the calendar.

12:30

And then he sent an email to everyone in the organization.

12:33

He said, I just gave you

12:35

back four hours of your life every week.

12:38

If that meeting that got canceled is

12:40

important, feel free to figure

12:42

out how to replace it with something with

12:44

more alacrity, with more agility that's going to

12:46

get the job done. If you really need

12:48

to have the meeting, go ahead and

12:50

put it back on the calendar. But for the rest of

12:52

us, we just got the

12:55

freedom to produce more, which

12:58

means that we also have

13:00

the responsibility to

13:03

do something with that time that just

13:05

got freed up. So

13:08

culture, culture is every corner of our

13:10

lives, everywhere we look. But

13:13

too often, we've ignored the culture

13:15

of meetings. And I don't think

13:17

you have to be Toby to change it. Figure

13:20

out a way to upend the

13:22

worst meeting of your week, to

13:25

replace it, to cancel it, to adjust it, to

13:28

figure out the answer to a simple question.

13:31

What exactly is this meeting for?

13:34

If you can answer that question, then

13:37

you've got a shot at making things

13:39

better. And if you can't

13:41

answer that question, don't

13:43

go to the meeting. Thanks

13:47

for listening. We'll see you next time.

13:50

Hey Seth, it's Maria. Hey Seth, my

13:52

name's Kyle. Greetings Seth. This is Steven

13:54

out in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi Seth, Alicia

13:56

from Charleston here. Hi Seth, this is

13:58

Anupa. Hi, this is Caitlin. selling

16:00

something about tomorrow. And

16:02

so when the world is even more chaotic

16:05

than usual, it's harder to

16:07

get people to plan ahead. It's

16:09

harder to get people to stick to

16:12

their schedule to focus on their habits

16:14

and their goals, which means

16:16

that disruptions happen. And

16:18

the second half of it is leverage,

16:21

that because of the stock

16:23

market, because of low interest rates, because

16:25

of banks, because of financial maneuvering, more

16:28

and more organizations are highly leveraged.

16:32

Why? Here's a simple example from real estate. If you

16:34

buy a house with cash and it goes up 10%

16:37

and you sell it six months from now, you make

16:39

10% on your money. If

16:41

you buy that same house by putting 10% down

16:45

and yet the bank to put up the 90% and the

16:49

price goes up 10%, instead of making

16:51

10%, you double

16:53

your money because

16:55

you use debt to make the

16:58

transaction work, which means you're taking a bigger

17:00

risk, but your return goes way up. And

17:03

more and more, we are seeing

17:05

businesses and organizations extending themselves, hoping

17:08

that that growth, that leverage, that

17:11

increase in staff or assets will

17:14

pay back many times over. And

17:16

one of the problems with a disruption like we are facing

17:19

now is it puts huge

17:21

pressure on organizations, big

17:24

and small, particularly small,

17:26

who were used to, who were expecting

17:29

tomorrow's returns to be what yesterday's were,

17:31

but a little bigger, to have to

17:33

weather an interruption. So

17:36

what to do about it? Well, the

17:38

first one is to sit with

17:40

it and realize stress isn't going

17:42

to help, that what we

17:44

need to do is see

17:46

the people that we serve, because

17:49

they are stressed. They

17:51

are in a tough spot and

17:53

they want to move

17:55

forward. The economy is

17:58

huge. It's bigger than it's ever

18:00

been. There are 7 billion human

18:02

beings active in this economy, all

18:04

connected all around the world. Somewhere,

18:08

somebody needs help. They might not need what

18:10

they needed a month ago or six months

18:12

ago. And that's the advantage

18:14

a small company has. Because

18:16

A, you can actually see your customers.

18:19

You know them by name. You

18:21

can see the entire list and understand it.

18:24

And B, unlike a giant

18:26

organization, you can shift. You

18:28

can shift the way you speak to people.

18:31

You can shift what you offer people. And

18:33

that's why we went into small business in the first place,

18:36

to be part of a community, to

18:38

help complete the circle. And

18:40

so there's the opportunity. The opportunity

18:42

is to figure out how to

18:44

create enough slack in your system

18:47

that you're not completely stressed

18:49

out about missing payroll. And

18:52

at the very same time, figure

18:54

out what your audience, the people who

18:56

already trust you, actually

18:58

need and give them

19:01

that. Day by day,

19:03

we will recover. Day by

19:05

day, things will get better. And

19:07

they will get better faster if we

19:09

take a deep breath and get back to

19:12

first principles, which is helping people get

19:14

what they want and what they need. Here's

19:17

to good health for everyone who's listening. Go

19:19

make your ruckus. Thanks.

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