Mastering Meeting Strategy with Chelsea Street

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for spending time with us today. It's listeners like you in 181 different countries that have made Negotiate Anything the most popular negotiation and conflict resolution podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, professor, and the director of the American Negotiation Institute. Before we get started, I have two quick questions for you. Is negotiation a critical part of what you do? Do you need to resolve conflict and persuade at? If you answered yes to both of those questions, visit our website to learn more about our negotiation workshops. We've traveled the country working with professionals just like you, and we'd love to have the opportunity to work with you, too. Check out the link in the description to learn more. One last thing before we start with this show. Our goal is to provide you with practical tools that you can immediately put into action so you can get better outcomes in your difficult conversations. So let's have some fun with this. The name of the show is Negotiate Anything. So you and me, let's make a deal. If you find anything in this episode to be useful, encouraging, thought provoking, or in any way helpful, then we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave us with a five star review. Your review will help more people just like you know that this podcast is worth listening to. So I know that deal works for me, and I hope it works for you too. And without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Chelsea, thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, my pleasure, Kwame. Thanks for inviting me.

Oh, no, I'm excited to have you. So how about you start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Absolutely. Well, first, I work at a company called Lytics. We are the leader in the video telematics industry. And what that means is that we specialize in developing fleet safety technology for fleet trucking companies, but also transportation companies and. And small local services companies. And what that means is that we're creating technology basically to make our roads safer. And what I do here is I specialize in sales training and enablement initiatives.

Fantastic audience. Chelsea and I met. Is it two years ago or was it last year?

I think it was two years ago now.

That's wild. Yes. So you were a listener and you reached out. I did a workshop in San Diego. It was a lot of fun. We had great Mexican food, and now we are amigos. So it's. It's great to be able to bring another friend on the show.

Yeah, it's fun to be here, especially after seeing firsthand everything you're able to offer to our team.

Definitely. And I remember when we first met and I had the opportunity to work with you, one of the things that I really admired was your level of organization and attention to detail, especially as it relates to meetings. So that's what we're going to talk about today, how to have an effective meeting. Because as you know, meetings are really the lifeblood of our organizations. They are a critical part of every business and there are a lot of persuasive opportunities in these meetings. This is where decisions are made. So I want to make sure that our listeners are able to get the most out of these meetings. So in this episode, there are three main things that we're going to talk about. The first one is how to use a learner first mentality. The second one is pre meeting and post meeting communication. And the last one is organization. So how about we start off with number one, developing a learner first mentality. So what does that mean to you?

As I said, I focus in sales training specifically. And so for me, everyone who I'm interacting with or who I'm serving are learners in my world. But I do believe that this concept applies to whoever your audience is. So really, if you boil it down, the mentality is how do I put the person who I'm engaging with first? How do I consider what their needs are first? How do I consider where they're coming from first and then shape my messaging and what the meeting structure will be around that?

So that's really interesting. And in your perspective, what is the benefit of, of having this type of mentality in the discussion?

I think the baseline benefit, just to start, is that if you take the time to understand where the person who you're meeting with or the various people you're meeting with are coming from, then you're better able to architect the questions that will lead you to the behavior change or the necessary change or outcome that you want from the meeting. If you don't understand where they're coming from or you don't understand what their needs are, then there really is no way for you to make sure that you're guiding the ship correctly per se.

That makes sense. And you know, it's one of those things that's when you hear it, it's almost like, oh, duh, that sounds obvious. But it's more difficult than it seems because it's one of those things that we're writing down and saying, hey, you have to do. So what Is it exactly, in your opinion, that makes it so difficult to utilize effectively?

I think that part of it is just the busyness of our everyday lives, and so making sure that we commit to carving out time to want to understand who we're meeting with prior to it happening. Part of it is just a selfish nature of wanting to make sure that our message is reached and that we get the things that we need. And also part of it's just very practically, communication is hard between people, and even when you try to ask the right questions, sometimes they might not tell you exactly where they're coming from. So it really does take intentionality and most of all, time, which is hard for all of us to give up, to really gain an understanding of somebody else's perspective.

You're absolutely right. And especially in your world, you're with a company that is growing rapidly, and your day is full of meetings. So how are you able to take the time to prepare effectively for these meetings without it encroaching on your other responsibilities?

Right. That's a great question. Sometimes it's not very effective if we're all going to be honest about it. But what I do try to do is I try to prioritize the meetings where I know I'm going to be the one running it and committing time to that. Where I put down, actually, if I'm hosting any specific meeting room, I actually book that meeting room 10 minutes prior to when the meeting starts. Number one. So you don't have people knocking on the door. You're trying to get the webex started, you feel flustered, and then your meeting just. You don't come in the right mindset. So by starting my meeting and booking the meeting room 10 minutes before, not only am I giving myself that margin for how the meeting is going to run and having the space for it, but it actually kind of forces me to say, all right, I need to be in that room. Take 10 minutes just to prep and get centered before people arrive and make sure I know what I'm going to say before they get here.

Yeah. And it's really interesting just how powerful timeliness is when it comes to persuasion and poise and charisma. Because if you feel flustered, rushed, and stressed, people can see that, and it's a distraction from what it is that you're wanting to communicate. And I was reading this book that I quote often, the Code of Trust. It's a great book. A former FBI agent, and he's saying, for counterintelligence operatives, one of the things that they are really sticklers on is not just being on time, but being early. You want to get there and scope out the area, become familiar with your environment so you can become, so you could become calmer and feel more at home where you are. So just in a myriad ways, the timeliness that you're describing, getting there 10 minutes early is really, really beneficial.

But hard to do. Hard to do. So it has to be a commitment that you.

Right.

That you yourself believe in too. You have to believe that it's worthwhile for your outcome to commit the time.

Absolutely. And one of the things that I've discovered when it comes to my negotiations or important meetings that I'm having is that even when I don't feel like I have the time, I can still take a little bit of time to prepare. So for instance, for the listeners who have downloaded the negotiation guides, so if you go to americannegotiationinstitute.com guides, get access to all of the different negotiation guides that, that we have that help you to prepare effectively for those negotiations. But those are very big, they're long, they're robust, and sometimes you don't have the time. But it's not an all or nothing type of scenario. And so even if it's just one minute, I'll try and just go through the guide very, very quickly just so I can get something down on paper beforehand so I feel somewhat prepared and oriented before the meeting happens. So even if it's 30 to 60 seconds, taking that time to be prepared beforehand could be very helpful.

Absolutely. I'm a big proponent of the two minute prep.

Oh yeah. And sometimes you just don't have a choice. But it is definitely better than nothing.

Yeah.

Well, great. And I think this segues well into the next point, which is making sure you're mindful about pre meeting communication and post meeting communication. Can you tell us more about that? Hey everyone, I have an exciting announcement for you. As you know, here at the American Negotiation Institute, we believe that the best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. In order to live the best versions of our lives, we need to negotiate to get what we deserve. But here's the secret. When it comes to effective negotiation and conflict resolution, knowing what to do is only half the battle. This is nothing without the confidence you need to execute. And that's where the Negotiate Anything online course comes into play. This isn't just a negotiation course. This is a confidence course. After you finish the course, you'll know exactly what to say, how, when to say it, and how to say it for maximum persuasion and most importantly, you'll have the confidence that you need to take action when the time is right. In other words, you'll have the skills and confidence you need to get what you deserve at work or in your business. This will help you to become the leader and negotiator that you always dreamed you could be. We were supposed to start in early January, but unfortunately the day I was planning on recording I lost my voice, so I wasn't able to do that. So the new start date is February 17th. Check out the website to learn more and there's also going to be a link in the description. And now, without further ado, let's get back to the episode.

This is huge. I recently took a course through UC San Diego where we were learning about team management practices and one of our projects was to pick something within the corporate world that we would want to change and how do we change it? And one of the women in my group is an English as a second language learner and she had said, I wish I could change meetings because I know I have a lot of good ideas, but English is so hard for me that it's very difficult for me to speak up in meetings and feel like my voice is heard. I wish that people were better at sending out communication before or giving me another option to send in my thoughts before. That way I know I'm not overlooked. And that just blew my mind in so many ways. I mean, I work in a company where we do have a lot of ethnicities and languages that are represented, which is incredible. And I was never cognizant until that moment of how someone's communication style might be impacted by the traditional meeting. So I have taken that practice into every type of meeting regardless of who I'm meeting with. What can I communicate prior? What kind of opportunity can I give for people to give their feedback prior in order to make the meeting successful, make sure they're heard and the outcome is reached.

And so when you are talking about the messages that you're sending beforehand, how much detail are you including in those messages?

Honestly, I try to aim for very little. We work on a communication structure here in the office that is a three part framework. Explain to people the core message, explain why they care and explain what you're asking them to do. So a pre communication for me would take a little bit of time on my end, but I want the email to be very crisp. Here's what you can expect from the meeting, here's why it matters to your role or here's what we're going to accomplish and here's what I'm asking you to do before us getting there. If we can meet those three things before the meeting even happens, not only do we save time in the meeting with that upfront agenda, but we also are making sure that everyone's coming in on the same page and everyone understands what kind of actions will be required of them. That way they're not focusing on in the meeting either trying to figure out what am I supposed to do or take away. Their mind is completely focused on whatever we have to cover.

I love this. This is almost revolutionary for me when it comes to meetings because I know for me, building a company, having a family and presenting in different parts of the world all the time, it just, I always feel like I don't have time to do this. But what I'm hearing and what you're saying is that it can actually lead to more time. It's like an investment. Because if you take that little bit of time and invest into communicating effectively before the meeting, then it makes the meeting run more efficiently. So you might end up having a more effective and a shorter meeting.

Correct.

Game changer.

And even if the meeting isn't shorter, then at least you get to your outcome earlier. And so the time is spent in valuable discussion rather than in the logistics. And I'd like to say too, we keep using this term meeting because that's what we relate to in our work environments. But honestly, I've used this practice in all facets of my life. I do a lot of fundraising. So when I have events, how do I prepare volunteers? How do I make sure they understand what the outline is and what our objective is before we're going to be at that event? How do I use it in my family? So how do I communicate to my family? I promise I will be there at 5:30 for dinner. That way you can start the food and we can enjoy our evening and not feel like we're all flustered, wondering when people are going to get there. It really just does help make life smoother. And again, even if it doesn't increase the time you spend somewhere or decrease the time you spend in an event or meeting, it's going to make that time you spend more valuable.

Absolutely. And so you didn't just say pre meeting communication, you also said post meeting communication. So what does that look like for you?

This is critical in my role. So again, thinking of a learner first mentality, I work with salespeople, they are on planes, they're taking taxi cabs, they are in hotels with terrible wi fi. And a lot of the trainings that I host are on a monthly basis. A lot of them are virtual or over the phone. And it is virtually impossible for me to expect that my sellers are going to be able to attend and be able to pay complete attention to every situation that we have or every meeting we send out or every training that we ask them to participate in. So for our team especially sending out a post communication has been critical. So for example, we have a monthly call where we cover business topics that relate to the sellers. All our sellers are remote. They don't have the chance to hear stuff that's going on in the office. They only have this call for those touch bases with the whole team. So after every call I send out the recording within 20 to 30 minutes is my aim. And I just high level bullet what topics we covered and what they should do with those topics. So hey, we covered this new product release. Go to our content management system, click this link to download it. Make sure you're ready. Discuss it with your manager. So two to three bullets max on each topic. And I've had several of my sellers email me maybe an hour after the call saying thank you. I just got off a plane, I missed the call today, but I really appreciated just knowing that it was going to be in my inbox waiting for me and being able to then act or ask questions with my manager as I needed after my plane flight or after my next sales call. So it's been a game changer for my own personal practices to send a follow up communication to make sure that everybody's on the same page.

That's huge because oftentimes we're not on the same page. Just last night I was teaching at the MBA's negotiation program and the students were excited about the deal that they got. And so I said, okay, tell me what the deal was. And the guy says, oh yeah, it's blah blah, blah blah blah. And then the other team says, wait, what? No, no it's not, that's not what the deal. You were just talking to each other, how did this happen? And you both wrote down different things. And so the point I made at that point was especially coming from a law background as a, as an attorney, it's critical to control drafting because you want to make sure that you can have somebody that you trust writing down the synopsis of what happens. And the person you can trust the most is yourself. Right? Because you have your best interest in mind. So it works in negotiation and works really well in these meetings as well.

I would also like to say humbly too, that it allows other people to identify gaps that you have as well. So if I were to send out a post meeting communication and have something that was missed or I misunderstood something, it then allows the team to interact together and say, hey, FYI, this isn't what was covered, or there could have been a better way to express this. And then we're all working together as a team and I openly accept if I'm wrong. I want to send it not only to keep people on the same page, but also to keep me honest and make sure that I'm tracking correctly.

You know, I like that point. When we're, when we talk about listening, one of the things that we talk about often is summarizing. And I talk about the empathy loop. So it's saying, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm understanding you to say X, Y, Z. Is that correct? So you're always asking them at the end to confirm your understanding. And I extend that not just to the actual conversation, but also to the email communication as well. Because that's just a digital summary of what's happening. And I agree, it's really important to give them the opportunity to chime in because down the road you want to be able to say, hey, remember we talked about this and you had the opportunity to chime in. So even if they don't chime in and say something different, you have some kind of record at least showing that you invited them to participate in the summarization to make sure everybody was on the same page.

Yeah, I really see that as a critical. I mean, I practice this. I see it as a critical piece of every communication. You have meetings, big, small emails, large, very detailed, not very detailed. It just, it's critical.

Absolutely. But often, often overlooked. Yeah.

Again, difficult to do. It takes time. And time is exactly what we're all told we don't have enough of.

Right. And it's, you know, this might be a bit off topic, but it's almost like busyness has become like a status symbol. How busy are you? Oh, well, I'm busier. Right. But what comes with that is also the belief that you're busy and then you kind of let yourself off the hook. Well, if I'm so busy, I'm too busy for this. And really what we're seeing here is this is just communication. Housekeeping 101. But the best athletes are the ones who master the fundamentals. And it's the Same in business. These are the business fundamentals, Communication fundamentals. But really, it's the thing that is most critical, but again, often overlooked. And you just end up making unnecessary mistakes where if you would be more like you, Chelsea, and actually take care of this, it'll lead to significant payoffs in these conversations.

I appreciate your compliment, Kwame. I also struggle taking compliments sometimes, but I couldn't agree more. I think it's a fundamental, and I think that we are looped into believing this lie, that we don't have enough time because business is a status symbol. But honestly, I'm a firm believer that we have time for everything that needs to get done. And if you're able to prioritize and stick to your priorities, then you're going to be able to fit that in. So my priority is making sure people understand what's happening and when. And that always gets done. Sometimes other things don't get done right. Sometimes I lose time elsewhere. But we all have to have our own personal priorities that we stick to.

I like it when guests like you come in and what you say challenges some of the things that I do, because I know I do believe that lie. And I say to myself, oh, I don't have time. It's like, well, Kwame, how many games of chess did you play today? Because I think you could have avoided that and did something a bit more productive with your time. So, yeah, I appreciate that. And you're 100% right. It's kind of like Parkinson's law, where they talk about time expands and contracts based on the amount of time you allot to do certain things. And that's what's happening here. The issue is that we just. We just don't allot any time to these critical parts of communication that are surrounds the meetings.

Right. Or we try to allot time to other things, or we try to allot time to too many things, and you just gotta boil it down and say, okay, what is most important to me? It might not be most important to somebody else, but what's most important to me.

Right, Exactly. Fantastic. Well, just being cognizant of time, I think we should move on to the third thing, which is organizing. And so that is a very broad topic, but narrowing it down, what do we need to pay attention to as it relates to meetings? With regard to organization?

Yeah, it. Very broad topic. I'd like to say that this is the topic, though. That kind of wraps up the first two. And when I look at my job, I've always thought that my job is to facilitate places and spaces for others to grow. And so if you were to apply that to a persuasive situation, your job is to create the space and the place for that negotiation to happen. And that takes organization. In order to do that, you need to decide when, where, how much time. I mean, in your workshop, you talked with our team very, very explicitly about booking around meetings or booking meetings around lunch times or breakfast times and being cognizant of what people are like at different points of the day. But organization is one of those things that really does require each person to do it in the way that suits them best. For me, I am very technologically slow. I hate my iPhone. I wish I didn't have it. I wish we didn't have them at all. I've learned that it's a necessary piece of communication, and so I've learned what things I can use for organizing with technology. But honestly, for me, a simple notepad and whiteboard is much better. So if you were to ever visit my office, my entire team makes fun of me. I have a giant whiteboard that sits outside of my cubicle like a door. Like, I slide it closed when I need to write things. And it has columns that separate the whiteboard into my projects that I have going on and then each activity that feeds into that. Or if you look at my agenda or my planner, everything is divided into time blocks. So I have 30 minutes between this meeting. What's the one thing I want to accomplish in that time? I have one hour in that meeting. How do I get that accomplished? So I would say for every listener on this podcast, organization is critical. I've always grown up pretty organized because I have four younger sisters and pretty much grew up managing my house. So I always needed to be organized and needed to be camp director per se. But if organization is not your strength, I would recommend finding the thing that is your strength. So if you're really great at technology, then find a piece of technology that helps you create to do lists and send reminders automatically. That way you don't have to think about it. If you're a handwritten person, commit to having a planner that you always write everything down in. There's no shame in writing everything down, and there's no shame in carrying a mini planner in your pocket or your purse if you need to. So my biggest recommendation for everyone is if you are trying to facilitate great spaces and places for actions to happen, whether that be persuasive training, fundraising, whatever it is, finding your organizational skill or leaning on people who have that organizational skill that you don't. And being open to admitting that is critical. And it's going to change every event or meeting that you host.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. When things are disorganized and you're, you're frantic, you feel that, you don't feel like you're, you're at your best. And it, let's say it doesn't even apply to the specific meeting that we're talking about. If you're, you're off organizationally throughout the day, it's still going to have an impact on your ability to focus during the meeting. And so this is critical in just life practice in general, but also direct application to the meetings. And what's funny is as you were talking about how you block off time during the day and you have it broken up into increments, there was a little bit of anxiety that washed over me because it reminded me of the days when I was practicing and I had to do billable hours. As lawyers, you could bill your hours in six minute increments. Everything you would write what you're doing every six minutes. But you know what was funny is that when I was doing that and I expanded that practice not just to when I was billing clients, but also to when I was just doing other work related to the business, I was significantly more organized. I was significantly more efficient too, because you measure what matters and if you're not measuring your time, you're not going to be using it effectively.

Right. I would say it's important not to fall into the trap though, on the opposite side of that, of thinking that every min has to be productive. So sometimes my time block on my agenda says go take a walk, go to yoga, go do something with a co worker. But in any case, being able to have it written or documented somewhere, that way your brain doesn't have to store it anymore. My dad always says our brain only has so much capacity. If you take out the things that don't matter, you have more space for the things that do. And so if you're taking something like I need to drop the mail off after work today, I can't forget. If you're constantly thinking about that all day long, then you're not going to be able to effectively process the things that matter to your work or to your family life. But if you just write it down and you know you're not going to forget it because it's written, then you can free up that space.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, you said like two of the most San Diego things to do, go on a walk or do some yoga, right? I'm sitting here in cold Columbus, just jealous because San Diego looks like the postcards all year round. But I'll let that go. But I think this, this is really helpful. And now when it comes to structuring the meeting organization within the meeting, what does that look like to you?

Yeah, to me that looks very similar. So I would say it depends on the type of meeting that I'm hosting. I'll use an example of when I'm prepping my sales managers for the next month, of what's coming up in training, what new things are happening, but also talking about best practices between them. So when we host those meetings, I time block out that meeting as well and I make goals for two minutes for us to go over the agenda and five minutes for there to be a lull in conversation or for people to catch up, and then 10 minutes for this topic, 15 minutes for this topic, and then 10 minutes for wrap up for an example. So obviously we're not going to stick to that time structure because that's so hard to do. But I think it's important for me as a meeting organizer to have that mental map. That way you don't run into something like the meeting getting derailed by a question and you not being prepared to rein it back in. I would also say that when you have that mental map organized or when you've had the time to chart it out as the organizer, then taking the opportunity to put that in the agenda up front at the beginning of every session is huge. Being able to bring everyone in line with here's the expectation for what I'd like to cover today. If we don't cover topic B in the meeting outline, that's okay, but I really am interested in topic C and so I don't want to spend too much time on topic B. And that just really gets everybody's buy in. Unless of course somebody were to say, oh, but topic B is super important to me. You say, okay, great, then we'll plan another session for us to talk about topic C later. But today we'll make sure that you get the outcome that you want from topic B. So for me it's again mental mapping of what the meeting will look like, what kind of questions might I expect, writing that down and then putting that up front at the beginning of the meeting so that everyone is bought in to the goal.

This is great. And I think the applications again to negotiation, like a traditional negotiation, are really clear because In a negotiation, you should try to establish an agenda which would make sure that the issues that you want to discuss are being discussed. And then when you come to the meeting, the actual negotiation, then you are more in control of what's going to be talked about at what time. And so if you take the second step of actually time blocking it, maybe in an actual, like a true business negotiation, you wouldn't be able to time block it. But I think the corollary is really clear because if you are setting the agenda and you're clearly the person organizing the meeting, that gives you a little bit of leverage when it comes to the structure and making sure that not only the things that you want to talk about are discussed, but you're discussing things in a, in a manner that puts you in the best position to. To be persuasive.

Exactly. And actually, one of the things you said just tacked on another idea for me, which is if you're doing that practice of actually drafting, writing it out, explicitly stating the agenda in the meetings where you can control that, then it becomes a mental habit for the meetings where you can't control that. So if you have a business negotiation where you're in a conversation and suddenly pricing comes up and you need to be ready on the fly, your mental map is automatically going to kick in to think, okay, what are the steps that need to be accomplished within the next 10 minutes? Okay, we need to establish what I want, I want to understand what they want. And then we need to discuss it, and we need to say what the outcome is. And then what you verbally say is, hey, since we were talking about pricing right now, just want to make sure we're clear on. Here are the things that are important to me. I understand. These are the things that are important to you. Is that accurate? Okay, let's continue our discussion. So when you are taking the time to practice that physically, when you have the time to do it, it's going to automatically kick in when you don't necessarily have the explicit time to do that.

This is really cool. So think about the term metacognition, which is thinking about thinking. I think what you just created was a meta agenda, an agenda within agenda. That's great. I really like that. And again, it gives you an element of control, and not just control in the traditional sense, but control over your mind and your emotions, because you've clearly outlined the expectations for what's going to come next. So now, even though this is a new topic that kind of just was sprung on you, you can get some kind of idea of what's coming next and get a, like you said, a mental map of the direction you need to go to be successful in this new issue that just popped up.

Correct.

I love it. This is great. I have to keep an eye on the time, but this has been fantastic. And I think this means that we're going to have to have you back on again because I want to go deeper into this because this is the first time, I think, on this show that we've gone so deeply into structuring a meeting and there is much more to explore there. So I'm looking forward to that. But in the meantime, before you go, can you tell the listeners again about what you're up to and if they're. If they can connect with you on LinkedIn and whatnot?

Absolutely. So I am on LinkedIn. My name is Chelsea Street. I'd be happy to connect with you. I'm currently working on entirely revamping our sales training structure at Lytics. So if you are someone who is a specialist in adult learning strategies or LMS building or training content structure, I would absolutely love to connect with you and pick your brain and vice versa. If you are someone who's also learning how to build training at your company and you want to swap some ideas, I would love to connect and just share some best practices between us.

That is fantastic. Well, thank you again, Chelsea. We really appreciate it.

My pleasure. Thank you again so much, Kwame. It was really fun chatting with you again.

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