Inside JLC: Using "Plan Do Study Act" to Enhance Meeting Effectiveness

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to JLC Media. It's just me and Colleen today, and Colleen is very excited because she is recording this event to her new computer. She's really thinking, this is a cool thing. So. And actually, I'll use that as an example of today's very concrete use of. Many people have been given credit for this, Dr. Deming. Lots of people have been given credit for plan, do, study, act. Our little company still believes this is one of the tools that is really useful as we are designing anything. So Colleen, in order to have this conversation with you guys today, had to plan how to use her new computer. Then she designed the methodology by which she was going to make it work and record. And afterwards, we're going to study how it worked and see if we have to change or revise what we've done. So that's why we're talking to you today, because not just using her computer effectively, today we want to introduce the idea that if you practice pdsa, you can increase the quality of your meetings dramatically. You can include diversity. You can make sure that people are included in the meeting and that there is an equitable distribution of the voices in the room. And when we became very involved with dei, our client base said, array, Colleen, you're already teaching us how to do this. And all I said was, I think so. And do your best to highlight the fact that we're using a method, a process that includes as many people as wish to be included in the meeting, that provides space for folks to have access to what's going on and to maintain a space where the diversity of thought and ideas matters. So today is one of those examples. We're going to use that PDSA model to talk about how to construct a meeting. And it could be with two people, one on one, one on three, or it could be one on many. And by the time we're done, each of you'll have a chance to think about this little caveat. People say, should I do this for every meeting? Is this really what I should be always doing? And my answer is, that's really up to you, because Colleen and I would never tell another human being what to do. We invite people into a space, we show them the space, and it's their decision. So we sometimes might make a recommendation, we might invite people to try something, but that's what we do. We do invitations, we make some recommendations, and it's up to you as the listener to decide whether or not and how you're going to use this particular practice. So today's Practice, we're going to open the door to using PDSA for every meeting that you might have. Colleen, what are you hearing?

Sure, yeah, I'm hearing, well, my PDSA in the context of my challenges in recording my computer and as a way to also organize your meetings. And so we offer this as a way, not the only way, but something for people out there really to consider. So they cover really all of the key components. I think many times, you know, Ray, we work with, we work with some of our clients and they just focus on what they're going to say. Right? That's it. What's on my agenda Here it is, let's roll forward. And we are encouraging you to consider a different way because then many times those clients go, well, there was no follow through, it didn't get done. And so this PDSA is a way to enhance the quality of your meetings. Especially, as you mentioned, we talk a lot about dei. This is a way to really embrace some of those core key components in your meetings. Consistently every time you meet, I love it.

And I think it's part of the planning. So when we go through the planning place, the very first thing I say to a potential client or a client, do you need a meeting? And boy, do I get strange responses from that. What do you mean? We meet every Thursday at 2 o'. Clock. I'm like, okay, good. If you want to build community, I suppose that's a good thing to always show up and do that. The real question is, what's the intent? What are you trying to accomplish in this meeting? And we have experienced tremendous variation in the way people show up and have meetings. One of the ways they do it is they simply want to download some information. Here's a briefing. Here's the bottom line up front. A bluff, as some of the military folks that we work with talk about. And. But it's still just a briefing. So here's information for you. And what we work on so hard in the planning process is how do we bring a significant set of ideas into the meeting so that people can personally and collectively understand the intent. So the planning part of the meeting is really critical so that we say, well, what are our significant intentions? What are we trying to accomplish in this meeting? Before we even decide to have the meeting, even though it's scheduled, we can always say, sorry, you know, you can go and do your work. We're not going to have the meeting this week. You can do that. And there are some people that would say, oh, thank God. Because sometimes when I say, hey, we're going to have a meeting, people's eyes would roll and they would do a big huff. And like, unless in the planning process, you are very, very, very clear on one or two or three intentions for that particular meeting. Colleen, what are you hearing about this? P. The planning process for our meeting?

Yeah, well, what I'm hearing is the planning process is very important. And I think sometimes when people have those, you know, we meet every Tuesday, they skip that part. They just show up and, okay, let's have our weekly meeting. So I think that planning piece is really critical because you're thinking about what are those three key pieces of information we want to bring forward and develop a common understanding about. And I think that's what really the other edge is in the planning piece is not only what are you going to talk about is how will you develop a common understanding? How will we facilitate a learning conversation within our meeting? And I think, you know, Ray, looking at all the clients we've been working with for years and years, many times they only focus on one part of that. And I think both aspects are critically important.

I love that. And in fact, Colleen, we've seen this where people say, yes, we think the intention's important, so we create a context, purpose, and outcome. They put it up on a slide and they go, any questions? And they move on. They don't take a moment to what we call closing the loop to be sure that once we plan that very first agenda item, the intention is clear, and we make sure that we close the loop so that people understand this is truly the intended meaning that we're trying to get out of this. First, pick any one that you want to have three, four agenda items. So it's almost like each agenda item by itself needs to have a clear intention. Not just the whole meeting, whole meeting should. But each agenda item should be planned in such a way that it has a very clear context, a very clear purpose, and a very clear outcome. Without that, I think we run into one of these places where someone talks for a while and 20, 30, 40, 100 sentences, and then they move on to the next agenda item.

Right.

So, Colleen, talk a little bit about how you've seen that in the past when you do a lot of observing meetings, especially for new clients.

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I think one client in particular. Senior leaders in an organization. I was observing their meeting. Everyone was sitting around the table. They got to the end of the meeting, and they adjourned. And they were right about to get up and walk away. And. And a participant, not even the meeting leader said, you know what? Could we wait just a minute and pause? I just want to ask the group, what did we just agree to do? Nobody said anything. They didn't know. So I think to your point, in that planning piece, and you know, even as you start to visualize what it's going to look like in the room, how are you keeping those feedback loops in place to invite. Create the space to invite all of the voices in the room? Because otherwise, to your point, Ray, I'm just putting out my thinking. 50 sentences, 100 sentences. Okay, are we good to go? Yep. Move forward. And we move forward without the committed actions. And that truly is where that accountability lives. But it's also in that space where you invite everyone's voice into the conversation. It's where we can really touch on diversity, including especially alternative perspectives and also engaging people. Right. We know the literature shows if we don't get people's voices in the room within the first two minutes, they begin to lean back and check out a bit. This is Ray's meeting, not mine. I'm going to see what he has to say.

Yeah, it's fascinating to me, actually. One of the things that I remember someone teaching me is to ask the meeting participants, what are you going to do to stay engaged? How will you stay engaged in this meeting and get rid of whatever distractions are in there right now for you so you can go forward? That's part of the planning that we actually ask that question. Say, what's top of mind for you? What's distracting you? How are you going to put that aside temporarily? Temporarily. So that you can engage completely in this first agenda item that we have moving forward. This is all part of the planning process. And if it's just information, then I urge you to send a memo. I urge you to send a set of slides. Please don't put your slides up and read them. There's so many opportunities for us to recognize you've done your homework, you've done your due diligence. We know you've worked on this particular piece, and we really don't want to see everything that you did to get here. What we want to do is understand what is the bottom line. What do you want us to understand and what do you want us to do at the end of this particular agenda item? There's just so much opportunity for us to get lost in the meeting just because we have agenda items. Here they are. We even know who's going to talk. We even know how long we want to give them and we don't complete the exercise of making sure there's common understanding and making sure each participant has the opportunity to say what they are committed to do. As a result of this particular agenda item, planning is critical in order to have a great meeting. We always get asked, how do we have a hard meeting when we have to practice our leadership and tell someone not what they want to hear, but something that they need to hear? The planning part allows you to build that opportunity by immediately or as soon as possible engaging in a quick conversation. This is why we're here. This is what I want to understand together. This is what each of us will do. We skip that sometimes, Colleen. The next thing is to hold a meeting. So how many agendas do we need for a meeting?

Well, we need one with not a lot of items on it. I think that goes back to, you know, practical application of what we're really talking about. What we're talking about in the do part is really ensuring when I create my agenda, and this is kind of the planning, but what's the purpose of the group? What is our group charged and intended to do? How do I ensure only those things that are in our group's narrow focus get on the agenda? And then really when I'm in the room, when I'm facilitating, and this is really the do part is how will I almost be so intentional about not rushing through? So I get to the end of each agenda item, but how can I really stay focused on? To your point, right, Is beginning with a focusing statement, ensuring I consistently close the loop and always focused on developing a common understanding and committed actions before I move forward to the next agenda item. And I think many times I've seen people, they're so focused, oh, what time is it? How many more minutes? Oh, we're not getting there. So they get little bit confused in the do section when they're executing their meeting agenda. They forget they think the do is get to the end of the agenda item versus really thinking about this as we're here to develop a common understanding. Without that, we don't get alignment in the system. Because I think I know what you want me to do, Ray, but I don't know. So now I'm guessing. So using these meetings, and that's once again really, really having that self awareness and self regulation to just kind of ensure that I am going through the meeting protocols and processes, not rushing to get to the end of the agenda.

Itself or even to the next item. For God's sake, let's just get to the next Agenda item. So there is an agenda that the participants will see. And then the person that is leading the meeting or facilitating the meeting, same thing. They have with them some provocations. They may use the intended understandings. They actually have a little bit broader picture of the agenda so that when the meeting starts and they get those voices in the room, they can move smoothly through the agenda items by making sure that. That they consistently stop at the end of that agenda item and make sure there is common understanding and aligned action. I think this. Everybody's always talking about alignment, and I think we hurry so much, we don't give ourselves an opportunity. So we plan the meeting. There's one agenda with there may be three items. The meeting leader will have their own little agenda to make sure that they have their provocations in place. They know what they're going to say. They clearly identify the intention, context, purpose, outcome. So people have sometimes that are leading the meeting, facilitating the meeting a slightly enlarged agenda. Colleen makes these up on the fly. I've seen her. She just calls them facilitator agenda. That's not what the participants see. That's what she sees. And if there's a leader working with her, where she is supporting the leader in the meeting, they both will have that facilitator guide in front of them as the people are looking at the agenda and working their way through it. So we're planning, planning, planning critical. And then we actually do the agenda item. And this is something that is, for me, very interesting. So assume we'd had three agenda items at the end of the three agenda items, when all the committed actions are collected and identified, the next thing to do, and I like doing it with the whole team, but I can do it by myself or with the facilitator. I say to myself, okay, my intention for the first agenda item was this. This is what I did to achieve that agenda item. And this is what I learned, and this is what I will do differently next time. I have a similar opportunity to facilitate an agenda item similar to the one that I did today. Plan, do. This is study, where we're actually going to study what we did and make some adjustments. And notice what I said. What was my intention? What did I do? What did I learn? What will I do differently next time? That is so important to study the process that was used to produce that common understanding and committed actions during the agenda item. Colleen, am I missing anything?

No, I don't think so. I think that study piece is really important. It's almost like providing a space to reflect. So you're not continuing to meet. To meet. So if you do embrace some of the theories, methods and tools and they don't land on people. Well. Or it's not producing the desired result, it gives you, as a meeting leader, an opportunity to go, wow, maybe I need to, you know, look at that particular agenda item again. Or maybe my, you know, what I chose to do, my provocation, how I closed the loop didn't work as well as I thought. So it once again is a great opportunity for feedback for you as the mean to continue to refine your skills and abilities as a meeting facilitator. And also the team their ability to think about from their perspective, being a participant. Because I think looking at both, studying. Sorry, both kind of edges is really, really important.

Yeah. So you really hit something. I think I got you right. So it's important to look at this and use that study time as a reflective process. Correct?

Mm, yeah.

Did I get that right?

Yeah.

So as I'm reflecting personally, I need to be find. Is there a space, is there space where I can actually reflect collectively with the people that were in the meeting? All of a sudden, the level of engagement and the refinement of the meeting goes way up. Like, if I said to you, Colleen, what should I do differently next time we meet on a podcast, which I do, which is what we do, this will be over. And then Colleen and I will do an after action review, which is a study. This is the intention. This is what I did. This is what we did. What did we learn? What can we do differently next time? There's something about that is powerful. So it's plan, do, study. We just were working on study. The a. Is this plan, do, study, act again? So I don't want the meeting, the next meeting to behave as though we didn't learn anything. In the ways in which we held that last meeting, we're actually going to hold the next one and be even better at it. Plan, do, study, act. This is. And I had many people say to me, I don't have time for that. Okay, I get that you may not have time for that. And therefore you may end up in a funny position of having exactly the same meeting next time. And it'll have exactly the same issues and problems that popped up in this particular one. Plan, do, study, act. Quickly, I need to add, all too often, our clients are pressed for time. Time is an asset. And so what they do is they say, I'm going to have a meeting from 9 to 10, and then 10 to 11 and then 11 to 12, then I'll have a quick lunch or, you know, a little bio break, and then I'll do it again. 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, 3 to 5, I go home. I am inviting you strongly to close those meetings out best as you can, plan them to go about 45 minutes in a scheduled hour. So you have 5, 8, 10 minutes to do that reflective process, the study process, so that you make a commitment to yourself about what changes you'll make to the next meeting that you hold. Talk us through that one, Colleen. I know you've seen that time and time again where they're scheduled minute to minute for the entire day.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and then once again, we're talking about rushing. And then I'm rushing to the next meeting. I'm rushing to the next meeting. And yet how many times do people walk away and go, wow, that was such an impactful meeting. I think that the one key thing when you were sharing really the ACT piece, I think it really is focused on continuous improvement. We work with so many of our clients, and they talk about continuous improvement as something that's separate. This is such a great way where you're embedding it in your conversations that you hold with your team in the meeting. And the next piece is you're modeling it consistently. And guess what? You can say, hey, team, my expectation of you is you bring plan, do, study, act to your team meetings. So you are also modeling what it looks like, what it feels like to really develop that sense of process improvement. Everyone with the change initiatives, we work on teams where we're a subcontractor. People are in virtual teams all the time working with other companies because they need those people to collaborate. And what a great way to ensure everyone's feeling included. Everyone's voice is coming in, and you are constantly pausing to study how you're doing and then intentionally designing ways to act and behave in an enhanced way so you can produce the desired results. Otherwise, you just keep having those meetings, having those meetings, and perhaps you're moving in the right direction, and perhaps you're not. Because if you're only focused on the agenda and getting through these things that you believe to be important, you're missing out on the collective wisdom of everyone else in the group.

And that's where the diversity and inclusion kicks in, where you get everybody's thinking. So you behave upon the collective wisdom in the room, not just one or two people who tend to be somewhat louder than others or tend to cut off other people. Those things happen all the time. So that you're always working on improving the quality of the collective wisdom in the room. Colleen also made an allusion to the idea of process improvement. We work hand in hand with black belts and green belts in the process improvement world. A meeting is a process. And if we don't treat it like a process, we just treat it like a set of agenda items that have to be covered. We will waste people's time. I have visited. Well, you know the literature. The literature is 80% of the meetings on the planet are a fail to meet objective. When people don't want to go, they didn't like them, they didn't want to go in the first place, and their expectation was fulfilled. I'm not going to like this and I didn't. So there's some, you know, self talk involved in this place of process improvement. But when you think about the meeting as a process where you need to plan it, do it, study it, and act next time with what you learned from the study part of that PDSA cycle, all of a sudden the meeting process keeps getting better and better. It's iterative, it's immediate. If you plan this way and then you truly get better from meeting to meeting to meeting, the process just gets better and better. Last piece, I think that really matters. And we've had a couple of clients that do this elegantly. So the meeting of each agenda item has some, you know, we have a common understanding, we have some committed actions. The greatest leaders we've ever worked with write those committed actions down. So when they plan the next meeting, they start by reviewing how well people accomplished what they promised. Not from an I'm going to get you thing, but more from, did you have the necessary resources? What got in your way? Tell us what happened. And some will be just a celebration. Yes, I did accomplish what I said I was going to accomplish. I met my promises. This allows the meetings not to live in isolation, in virtual space or in the ether. So the meetings actually have much more significance. There's far more engagement when you know your leader is going to say to you or the facility is going to say, how did you do on your promises from the last meeting? And you have them right in front of you. Promises are right in front of you in your notebook or in your, your plan agenda, and you close the loop on how well people did things otherwise. And I know I have experienced this forever in my life professionally, where people just have a meeting and at the end of the meeting there are sometimes some promises made, but we never talk about them again. It's almost like they're not connected to the next meeting. From the system standpoint, it almost looks like every meeting lives in total isolation. Colleen, what are you thinking about that?

Yeah, well, it makes me think because, you know, we've been doing a lot of work with clients, with strategic planning and annual planning. And so it's the same thing if you want to achieve your annual objectives. However, you're not making promises as one meeting and then closing the loop about those promises in the next meeting, they tend to just push off to the side. And so we always say, what are you talking about in your meetings? Where do you have conversations about those annual goals, the progress of those? Because if you're not talking about it, who knows if anybody's working on it? Right. Who knows if people are focused on those things that you took? Time. We know time is the greatest commodity in the 21st century. People sat down and took the time and effort to create these annual plans. And yet, many times you go six months into it, oh, wait a minute, where's that thing again? Let's brush that thing off. Well, if it's important, are we consistently talking about it and connecting those agenda items to our annual goals, inspecting our. What we're doing? And I think that's part of the act that you mentioned, bringing it forward to the next meeting so we don't forget.

Yeah, I think anything that. And this is too hyperbolic, so let me first apologize for that. I did actually learn about myself that when I took the time to see what I was doing all day long, each of the things I did all day long in my day to day operations, at whatever position I held in the planet, was related to some initiative or some project. It took me years to start to recognize that. And once I did, I said, oh, my God, I need to pay attention to that because this could happen again next year. So this whole sensibility about paying attention to the initiative, the project that I'm working on, and how it relates to the annual objective is absolutely critical. Plan, do, study, act. Again, even better than I did the last time. It is a way to think about process improvement in a very practical, very practical way that you can apply immediately. You don't have to wait to do this. It could be the next conversation you have on the telephone or your next virtual meeting or your next in, you know, in person meeting. This is something you can do immediately. It's not something you have to wait until I learn more. Wait until I decide if I like it. It's actually something you could put into place immediately. Plan, do, study, act. What would you tell our listeners right now, Colleen?

You know, I think that my invitation to them would be to pause and reflect and think about the last meeting you had and think about where might opportunities be to use the plan, do, study, act. This process, how easy might it be for you to use this in your meeting and how might it possibly impact you and your team's ability to get results? Because I think sometimes people go, where do I start? Well, how do I do this? What about this? And to me, it's always just pause. If your meetings are amazing, they're developing quality relationships, they are laser focused on producing results, and you're hitting the results consistently, then you're probably already doing some of these things. So congratulations. If you feel like maybe there's opportunity to enhance, just think of a way you might be able to use this in an intentional, focused way to really develop those relationships. Get the voices in the room and stay focused on what you need to stay focused on.

That's beautiful. You know, one of the things Colleen and I have been studying now for some time is the fact that people are always after success. And what we've learned, that success will find you when you work on yourself. So the more I work on myself, especially for the next meeting I'm going to have, which again, could be a phone call, a virtual meeting, face to face meeting, could be two people or a hundred. When I work on myself and how I'm going to plan it, how I'm going to do the meeting, how I'm going to enact each of the agenda items and then take the time to study how well those intentions went and then refine my next set of actions in my next meeting. I love her. Pause, pause and reflect. And if you can reflect as a team, even better. Pleasure to be with you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Connie and I thought about this for a long time and we decided that everybody we're working with right now, including us, the two of us included, we need to remind ourselves about this incredible Shewhart loop, Deming loop, pdsa. Plan, do, study, act. I've also heard it. Plan, do, check, act. I like the study or check because that's the place I really take the time to find out, did I hit the intention and what can I do next time to better hit the intention, have a better process for my agenda items. Thank you for being with us. We urge you to, when you turn us off, wherever you are, right, sit still, think reflect. How can you improve the process of your next meeting? What a pleasure it is to have you guys online with us. Take care. Thank you. This is Ray Jorgensen and Colleen Solofin from JLC Media. Take care. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations Podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.