Should You Call Out the Person Who Isn't in the Meeting? Here's What I Did

If you've ever been in a meeting and somebody dropped the ball somewhere that, or it looks like they did, that isn't in the meeting and you're like, should I call that out and like talk shit about them right now? Or should I pretend that nothing got screwed up? That way I'm not talking bad about someone that's in the room. Then this video is for you. I'm gonna take you into a 2-minute clip of a meeting where something didn't get done, and I was pretty sure that I'd done what I was supposed to do to make sure that it got done. And I addressed it right there in a way that I think is a lot more productive. We will see if it was actually productive at the very end of this video, uh, because I've got a surprise for you. If you don't know who I am, my name is Luke Murray. I am a former physician. I've been an entrepreneur for about 20 years. During that time, I've done about $100 million in revenue. Currently, I have a portfolio of companies that does about $3 million a year, and I make these videos because I would like to have ambition without the bullshit, and I'm guessing you would too. Let's go to this 2-minute clip, and then we'll run it back, uh, with what I learned, um, and see if what I think I learned was actually what I should have learned.

So Matt's not here. What should Matt do? Don't look at your screens. If you were Matt, what do you think the process should be? Check?

For what?

So if Matt's not here, and we just said we're gonna figure out— let's say you weren't here either, because you're like, I did it, it works. What if you weren't here? Put it in there that it's ready to go. Say that again. Note it that it's ready. Yeah. Underneath what section? The task and fix that Matt is actively working on. Yes. So under transportation announcements, he should have said as an announcement for today, which go back to your checklist.

What does it say under transportation?

Some bullshit from yesterday. Yeah. Beep beep. It is not relevant, not current. It pisses me off because I sat down and said this needs to happen every day. So there's all the shit from yesterday that should be copied, pasted into the old stuff, and checked off what he did talk about, what he didn't talk about. And then today it should say, uh, see, yeah, extra seat works for me. Or it should be in the stuff I said I was going to figure out. And in addition to it saying we figured it out, what should also be there? A link to what, perhaps?

How to use it.

How the fuck to use it. Exactly. Beautiful. That's fantastic. And if that happened, then he could be at home sleeping and I would not be pissed. And she could be at home sleeping and I would not be pissed. But I am pissed because I invested my time, my energy, my— like, this is expensive for me to wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday and try to teach you guys stuff. And I did that and you didn't—

didn't fall through.

So that pisses me off. Okay. There's some anger in there, which, and there's also some sadness because I'm like, man, I just, I really wanted that to like, it's because what I'm doing is I'm making a bet and I'm like, I bet that if I put a dollar's worth of my time in, I'll get $1.50 back of energy and help in the company. Instead, I put a dollar of my time in and I got fuck all back. And that's a shitty, no one wants to put a dollar of any type of currency in and get nothing back.

So hopefully you'll notice that I followed some of my own advice about how to criticize someone. I didn't just say, Matt sucks, or I didn't just say, this is bad. What I did is I asked the team, what do you think should have happened? And they got to respond about the difference between what, what should have happened and what shouldn't have happened so that they could tell me that they understood what good looked like. So I didn't have to coach them as well. So that was one of the things that I did. What I would've done, actually what I did do when I talked to Matt later is that I asked him, hey, why did I ask questions? I didn't say do this instead of this. I said, tell me why this didn't get done. And he gave me some answers. And the surprise I mentioned is that he is here right now to tell me how this went and how I could have done better in the future. He actually didn't know I was pulling him in. For this. So he watched the intro, watched the video, which is, you know, 8 or 9 months old, and then he's gonna go ahead and tell me how I did. All right, surprise! Here's my boy Matt. Uh, Matt was who we were bleeping out, um, so now you know who he is. He's on the grid. Um, let's get over this way a little bit. Um, so do you remember that at all? Uh, I remember.

Yeah, I do remember the wheelchair, uh, want it strapped in. And then I remember you talking about wanting everyday updates.

Uh-huh.

Um, did, did I actually come talk to you after this about that?

No, because that was a Saturday and I don't work on Saturdays.

Okay.

So did I talk to you later on Monday?

Yeah, on Monday you did. Uh, you got my ass pretty good.

Uh-huh.

Told me you wanted to punch me.

Okay.

And I said, that's fine, but I'm going to punch you back. Punch you back. Okay.

Yeah. Okay.

Um, So yeah, I do remember every bit of that. And I believe after our heart-to-heart we had in the office, things got progressively better.

Yeah, I think—

Until everything changed back up.

I think they did too. Yeah. So what, so what could I have done better on the front end, do you think? So that like, do you think I should have maybe tested? We could have tested it out a few times, like without Maybe like, hey, let me explain something and leave. Like, maybe you should have had to like mess with the document some. What do you think would have been a better way to do this?

For me personally, I think was I didn't realize how serious you were. Like, I was just like, oh, he's just not blowing smoke, but like, oh, it's not going to matter if I do this or not because I've got other things I need to focus on. So in my opinion, in my mind, like, I was like, that's not at the top of my to-do list. I had other things and we worked through that, if you remember.

Yeah, I don't actually remember. What did we say?

Well, I just like we in that big blow-up conversation we had.

Fuck it, Nick.

Like I'm not here to— Yeah, prioritizing.

Oh, yeah.

And you're like, hey, whatever Josh says is what you got to do. But I want to be on the list somewhere.

Okay.

And I want you to let me know when this stuff gets done. And I was like, oh, okay. So we had a clearing conversation about it.

Okay.

Yeah.

So if I would have—

okay, so on the front end, when you— when I was telling you stuff and you're thinking this probably doesn't matter that much, like, I should have, uh, what I could have done is I could have been like, what other things are on your list that could get— that are above this? And I guess I could have asked like, do you think this— do you think there's a world in which you won't copy and paste this over to this?

And you would have been like, yeah, might not fucking do it because it's Saturday and Sunday. I'm definitely not going to do it till Monday.

Sure, sure.

Okay. Um, but yeah, So yeah, I remember every bit of that.

Okay. So yeah, I'm guessing. So the first question is, what could I have done better on the front end? And then the second question, then we asked, what could I do better on the back end, which we kind of talked about. What about in that moment? Because I'm giving this speech about this is how you should address something. Should I have pretended that it wasn't done? Do you think you didn't get a fair shot because you weren't there to be like, hey, Luke, it's a Saturday. You didn't tell me Saturdays. I didn't think it mattered. Yeah, I don't know. Like, should I have completely ignored it or should I have dumped on you harder? Which that wouldn't have felt good.

In that case, I think because I'm always a person who says the first reaction is always the best, whether it's out of emotion or not, I think you should have sent me a voice drop saying, hey, I'm pissed at you. It's Saturday. Okay. I understand that you don't work Saturday and Sunday, but I expected this done. Okay.

And it wasn't done.

Okay.

Like, that's great.

Sometimes that's like the push I need. Yeah, sometimes. Okay, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I take the initiative and go the extra mile.

Well, I mean, but the issue here is not like— right, when you're doing fine, then there's no video, right? There's no video to make, you know? It's like, uh, but when there is an issue, so what you would like is like, I mean, I addressed it in the meeting, you would have liked whatever as soon as the thing was over, or fuck, I probably just done it in the meeting. I'm like, hey Matt, I'm pissed about this, let's talk about it.

Yeah, that's why I'll stop. We'll talk about it Monday, but this is what I expect.

Blah, blah, blah.

So yeah. All right, cool.

What about you? How have you seen people manage this well or manage this poorly in your organization? And what do you think I did wrong? Do you think what I did would work well at your business, or do you think there are other things I could do to improve, uh, or that I could help Matt improve? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for watching.