How to Run Successful Meetings | 7 Core Values

So look, I've gone to a lot of meetings and a lot of them have sucked. But as I've started to become the person that runs meetings, you know, I've got 11 businesses, 12 businesses depending on how you count it, 600+ people working for me. I've decided that I want to set the way those meetings go and make them really good. And the way I do that is this hack around core values and expectations. And I've defined 7 things that I've started to use over the past few years and they've just been magical. Me figuring out how to run better meetings and make everybody's life a bit more pleasant. Because let's face it, meetings, not as much fun as you think. But if we can make it better, if we can make them fun and make them more effective, everybody will be, well, thankful about that. So here's how I do it. So these are the same 7 bullets that I bring up every single time I'm in a big meeting. This is a screenshot of the slide that we use for my media company. You know, if you follow my journey, I transformed everything I've been doing on social media into its own business with a CEO and team. I have a team of 4 people now that work with me, and I consider myself the 5th team member because I work in the business too. But basically, like, this is a slide from our slide deck for our monthly board meeting, and I'm going to go through each one of these individual 7 bullets and talk about how we try to shape the attitude and core values and approach that we're all going to take inside of our board meeting, which is a super important meeting, right? We're getting together on a monthly basis, we're going through and seeing how the business is going vis-à-vis all of our short-term and long-term goals, looking at our KPIs and metrics and all that stuff that's super important, and knowing if we're on track and working together to figure out what we need to change. Let's start with number 1: the board should make everyone, including Girdley Media, better. And that's a pretty loaded sentence. What that sentence actually says is this is not about a win-lose situation, right? We're not expecting individuals, uh, to sacrifice themselves too much for the company. We're also expecting that we're all working together on a similar mission. We're all trying to make the company be the best it possibly can be. And so this board that we're having, the board meeting, each team member, the meeting itself. It's all about doing something that we're all aligned to understand is the thing that's brought us together, which is achieving our mission. And the way we achieve our mission is by getting better. And ideally, people come in, they get feedback, they get, they get insights on stuff. The company gets feedback and insights on stuff. Leadership plans, everything gets adjusted and gets made better. And By spending this hour together, we get a huge return on investment by starting one way and finishing slightly better. And I think the message implicit in this is super important because ultimately the businesses that win are not the businesses that make it so they win and the employees lose. The employees need to get something out of it as well. And the teammates need to be growing. The teammates need to be working on something inspiring. And so that way implicit in this sentence is, I think, something pretty beautiful. And every business and meeting should achieve that goal. Okay, be direct but kind. All right, there are tons of environments where people are direct but unkind, right? We've all worked with coaches like that, or like a sports team where a coach was kind of a tyrant, or you've had a boss who was unkind to you and really mean. We're going to be direct with each other and we're going to speak our minds and we're going to speak plainly and we're going to be honest with each other and speak with a level of mutual trust and respect, but we're not going to do it in a way that's super mean. And I think people oftentimes end up on one or either side of this equation. Either they're too nice and they don't speak their mind and they don't tell the truth to people and things don't get done and things don't get better and it's kind of just a kabuki theater of BS. Or you end up in an environment where people are too direct and they think, well, this is a direct style environment, so I'm just going to be mean to somebody. And I fundamentally believe that you can put in just a little bit of extra effort, choose the right words, and be direct with somebody but also be kind to them. And kind is different than being nice. Right? Kind is actually doing what's best for the other person, even if it's sometimes a sacrifice for you. Nice is, oh, okay, well, this person's got it wrong or whatever. I'm just gonna be nice and let 'em keep doing that stuff. So whenever I show this slide and show this bullet in particular, it shows that, look, we're about business. We're gonna be direct with each other. We're gonna be honest, we're gonna be upfront, and we're going to tell each other what we think, but we're gonna do it in a kind manner, in a respectful collegial way that respects the other person and treats them like the, well, the, the way we would want to be treated. Bullet number 3: No formality unless necessary. Look, I think the idea here is you see that boards or big meetings or whatever, they get lost in just being like overly formal, right? Like doing a bunch of stuff that really is just kind of fluff and isn't actually essential to what's going on. So to me, I think most and highest performing teams are one that limit that kind of stuff and the formality to just what's essential, only what you actually have to do. And so like, if that's a a board meeting. A lot of times boards are legal constructs required by the law. You have to do certain things in terms of minutes and all that kind of stuff. Like, that stuff's necessary, but we don't need the pomp and circumstance. We don't necessarily— like, a great example to me is sometimes you go to board meetings and they have like the UN-style, like, big nameplates and stuff. Like, that's not— that kind of formality is not necessary, right? Like, let's just keep this thing as informal as possible, because what matters is kind of what we talked about in bullet 1. Like, how do we make things get done as as quickly as possible. Everybody leaves a winner. And a lot of times, well, formality just gets in the way of that. So I love this, like, let's be informal, but only be formal if we have to and we're forced to, and really focus on getting stuff done as much as we can. So bullet number 4, uh, Girdley Media team— so it's the board, you know, the CEO who's prepared this presentation. If you're going to expect people to come in to your meeting, you're going to send them the stuff ahead of time so they can be prepared and come in and be ready to contribute to the meeting. So in the case of a board meeting, typically what I insist on is that the board sends the materials out at least 3 days ahead of time. So that's 72 hours. And the reason there is because we want to maximize the time being spent in the room. And there's an expectation when I have a board meeting or I have a big planning meeting or whatever, that people are coming in prepared. And I like that because showing up prepared, uh, does 2 things. One is it saves everybody's time because you're not spending time catching people up during the meeting. Uh, but number two, uh, it actually gets people to think ahead of time in terms of what should be solved in this meeting. And you could do deeper thinking about it. You can sleep on it at night, as they call, where you can let your subconscious start to reflect on the meeting. And so when you have a big planning meeting or a big meeting like this where the board is involved, having it out those days ahead of time can be super valuable because you end up getting more out of the people in the room. And it also, it just makes the meeting less boring if you're not like having the CEO read the slides or try to catch people up. So the 3-day rule there is really good. Not too much to ask somebody to have it out in 3 days and not too little to where it's impossible for somebody to come up prepared. And that really goes to bullet number 5. We all come prepared. So we've been armed because we got the materials 3 days beforehand for the speak meeting and we all show up having read it. And that just, I don't know, just makes the meeting so much better. If everybody takes it seriously, and they've read the stuff ahead of time, and they all come, you know, ready to do the business at hand. All right, being 100% present. I love this core value and expectation for a big meeting. It is very easy for people to be on their devices, to be on their cell phone, to be off thinking about what's going on in the clouds behind, behind everybody in the conference room. But when you say that we're going to expect everybody to be 100% present, that just defines this expectation that we're going have a level of mutual respect. And the mutual respect is we're here on a mission together. Somebody organized this meeting, we got all the materials out 72 hours ahead of time. And if you say we're going to be 100% present, that means that people focus on what we're doing. And that just means so much for the people that did the work to, to bring this issue at hand. And look, if we're taking a level of the entire team, like if we're trying to spend all of that company money on us being together to focus on a problem or a set of problems at hand, wouldn't you want everybody to be maximizing that time, because the company's spending a ton of money, right? If you think about the hourly rate to have 5 or 7 or 3 employees in a room, like that's a lot of money in a meeting. And the best way to make sure those meetings go well is to be, well, 100% present. So I expect this of people, and I love this one, be 100% present. And not only does it set expectations for the people in the room, but also sets expectations for the people who, you know, potentially are running the meeting. And lastly, like the expectation that I put down is this should be fun. Right? I think so many people get it wrong that business has to be all business and shouldn't be fun when you're doing stuff. And look, that doesn't mean that it's all going to be bouncy houses and rainbows and unicorns and the same kind of fun that you're going to have when you're with your family or Six Flags or Disney World or something like that. But we can make work enjoyable. That means there's opportunity for levity, for jokes, for smiling, for asking how the other person's doing as a, as a person, right? And understanding that we're each human beings. All of that is an opportunity to make as delightful as possible despite it being work. All this put together is really just my shortcut and, you know, secret weapon to have great meetings, especially when they're big important meetings, and to set the tone for them. Tell me what you think in the comments below, and on to the next one.