10: Effective Meetings with Elise Keith

Meetings have a bad rap, but they're critical to how work gets done. Today's guest, Elise Keith is the co-Founder of Lucid Meetings, which helps organizations run day-to-day meetings to power their organizational success. Elise and I discuss the 'bad meeting doom loop', different types of meetings and how to string together a series to optimize how the team collaborates, and the most important thing to do when planning a meeting.   Key Takeaways: Stop the bad meetings doom loop in which we expect meetings to be a waste of time so we don't prepare for them properly which leads them to being unproductive which reinforces our belief that meetings are a waste of time. Try this mindset instead: Meetings are a place where people come together to get work done. The word meeting is loaded. Try reframing your meetings by calling them something else like a weekly huddle or team crush. Keith identifies 16 types of meetings which she discusses in depth in her book. Separate meetings by their work purpose. Rather than compound meeting types, create a sequence of meetings that work together. In general, the more frequently you meet, the shorter the meetings can be and they are likely to be more productive. In contrast, the less frequent you meet, the longer the meetings need to be, and the less productive they typically are.    Read the article based on this episode: Effective Meetings = Effective Business   Join the Modern Manager community for additional resources to support your learning journey.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox.   Get my book, Momentum: Creating Effective, Engaging, and Enjoyable Meetings at: www.meeteor.com/momentum   KEEP UP WITH ELISE Where the Action Is: https://www.lucidmeetings.com/book Website: www.lucidmeetings.com Twitter: @lucidmeetings LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisekeith/ Goodreads Booklist on Improving Meetings: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/117713.Better_Meetings_Better_Business   Check out Episode 21 - Managing Meeting Follow-Through - for more on effective meetings.   Get the free mini-guide for episode 21 to help improve your meeting follow-through.