Episode 34 - Shake Up Your Status Meetings

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Lou Quinto:

Hi, welcome to Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:

And I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:

Today, we're going to cover a topic that in many instances, when it comes to meetings is most people it's productive time. And unfortunately, most people leave a meeting and they say, "We didn't get anything done." Today Craig and I are going to talk about how to shake up your status update meetings because in many instances, these are the meetings that happen most regularly. And so what we're going to do is we're going to cover three topics in this area of shaking up your status update meeting. Number one is start asking questions like one, what's going right? It's always great to get people on the positive side, as opposed to coming in and just seeing boring PowerPoints. Start asking questions, what's going right in our project right now?

Lou Quinto:

The second question that we're going to talk about is asking a great question is, what stupid stuff are we doing? And if you ask that question, I promise you you're going to get a lot of good answers. And then the last one we're going to talk about is we're going to ask the question, what's changed? Because when it comes to problems, most problems are caused because something changed, but not all change causes problems. So at the beginning of a task, what you want to do is you want to take a look at what's changed since the beginning to be able to adjust. So let's go ahead and talk about the first one. And the first one is asking the question, what is right or what's going right?

Craig P. Anderson:

Right. Well, I mean the important thing, and you don't want to spend too much either. At least the way I would run my meetings is we would touch on the things that are going right. But that's not where we do the deep dive. It was just enough, when I have my status meetings, we had a 30 minutes stand up. And we had all the big projects that were at the top level. There was lots of sub projects under that. But the first thing we did is before the meeting, it was all on a whiteboard. And you had an update note. And if you put the update note up there and it was good, it was just like, touch it. All right. That one's on progress. Don't need any help. So it was a good way to say, all right, we do have some things that are moving forward, but we could sit in that meeting and pat our backs all day. We wanted to dive into the other pieces, but it's important to make sure all right, where are the things that are going right?

Craig P. Anderson:

What do we not have to worry about or just keep moving forward at the right pace? And that's where I think making sure you know what's going right instead of just ignoring those. Sometimes I'll think, well, we'll just ignore those things that are going right. It's worth making the touch. Right? To see what's going right.

Lou Quinto:

And it's a great way to start off any meeting, because as we say our minds are programmed to think negative. And until you rewire your mind or the meeting to begin on a positive note, you could go down the path just of human instinct and begin talking about everything that's bad. And when people walk out of that meeting, they don't have that feeling of accomplishment, progress that's taken place. So starting off with what is going right in our meeting is a great way to really begin a status update meeting. Okay.

Lou Quinto:

The second topic we're going to cover is going to one of my favorite questions. What stupid stuff are we doing? Because if you think about it, stuff creeps in to a project and it gums, as I like to say, it gums up the gears of the project and everyone just puts their blinders on it like, "Yeah, [inaudible 00:03:31], we're not going to deal with it." But really asking what stupid stuff is going on and be able to address that. So in a way it's kind of negative because you're dealing a little bit with the negative, with the stupid stuff, but sometimes it could be just little pieces of your process that are getting in the way in being more efficient, more productive.

Craig P. Anderson:

Well, I think this is actually where we probably differ is why I think the meetings are important because you can do lots of status updates online and you can do a lot of emails, but you miss a lot in the middle when you're doing that. And I think a lot of times when you actually have everybody you need around the table and you're focused and you're diligent about how you're running the meeting. You can start to uncover what are the stupid things, because I've seen it many times in a status meeting where someone's running down a path because they're missing a piece of information they need somewhere else. And that gets flushed out in the meeting. So I think you can start working through to say, what are the things you're doing? Or why are you doing that because we're not ready for you to do that piece yet.

Craig P. Anderson:

So I think that kind of brings out having that conversation and then update it, "Right now we know the things that are going right. Here's the things that are going wrong. Where do we need help?" And then we start to uncover what are some of the stupid things that are going on because people start running off before you're ready sometimes, or people are holding you behind because they're working on the wrong thing-

Lou Quinto:

Or they're developing solutions before we even know what the problem is.

Craig P. Anderson:

Right. Yeah. And so I think that's when I do one-page business planning with my clients, it's really walking through kind of getting those guardrails of how are we doing things. The strategies and the plans that we're trying to move forward. And that's where you start to flush out some of the stupid stuff that might be going through your office.

Lou Quinto:

But I like to be specific and ask people, "Tell us in your mind, your opinion, your hunts, your beliefs, what stupid stuff are we doing that is standing in our way?" And again, it goes back to critical thinking. It gets people to focus on, okay, "He's asking me, or she's asking me for stuff that in my mind, I think are stupid." And at this point you can find probably redundancies that are happening, that you or the team, the management team doesn't even know about. But really phrasing it, what stupid stuff we're doing. Because I bet you, if you go out right now and you talk to anybody on your team and you ask them, are you doing anything stupid right now? Or is anyone else doing something stupid? Answer is probably going to come back? "Yes, we are."

Craig P. Anderson:

Yeah. But I think here's the thing. Right? You might think it's stupid. And I think it's why it's important to have the conversation. Chances are, it's probably not. So this is the story I tried out and I don't know if I've done it on this video. My famous days as a Burger King guy. And I was by God going to put the fries in the bag the right way. And now Burger King spent bazillions of dollars to figure out, to make that efficient. I refuse to do it. And when they finally beat me down and I did it right. It was like, "Oh my God, I'm actually doing this so many more." So just because you think it's a stupid thing, doesn't make it stupid. You may just not understand why it's there. So I think it's both sides of that coin.

Lou Quinto:

We can agree on that one. Okay?

Craig P. Anderson:

All right.

Lou Quinto:

And the third question, we're going to talk about asking when it comes to your status update meetings is to always cover the question what's changed since we started? Things will change. Nothing is ever static and people will come and go off of the project, perhaps without being scheduled to come and go off the project. People leave, budgets get decreased, customer demands increase. And if you are approaching your project with the same in your mind, the same circumstances are existing throughout the entire project, you're going to fail. And so you need to go through and ask yourself at every, every possible moment what's changed?

Craig P. Anderson:

Right. And there's all kinds of external conditions that can change, competitors may roll something out that's you thought you had a breaking product and suddenly now you're coming in behind. Regulatory changes can change the way you're looking at things. A lot of things can change in flight of a project, especially on big long projects. So it's important to make sure you're paying attention to what's going on and say, "Hey." And at least ask the question and maybe it's time for a deeper dive into that separate from the status update meeting. But you need to raise the issue and see if you can figure out what it is.

Lou Quinto:

Yeah. Because by asking the question what's changed is also going to help you plan better for what's going happen in the future. And again, it's that adjustment that realignment at the very last minute to be able to move forward. And again, it's a good, critical thinking question.

Craig P. Anderson:

Absolutely.

Lou Quinto:

What's changed? Okay. So key takeaways from today's meetings, when we've got status update meetings, what'd you learn?

Craig P. Anderson:

I think what it is I think what I took away is I don't think you don't have the status meeting, but be very focused, ask questions to make sure you're on the right track. Don't lose track of the right things that you're doing, but it's important to stay very focused and make sure you're adjusting to what you need to do.

Lou Quinto:

Yeah. Yeah. And one of the reasons why we carry this, we went ahead and did this video is because status meetings sometimes are one of those things that people think are traditional. "Oh, well we always have a status meeting." And in today's environment, remote employees that are happening. Open workspaces, all of those and you and I disagree a little bit on this, but you got to blow things up every now and then. And when pieces fall, you may find out, okay, this is still good. We still need to use this. But the status update meeting, and the reason why we covered this was to get rid of those boring PowerPoint status updates. Find a place on your website that enables you to put those important information pieces up there about what's going on with the project, what milestones have been met, and just really quickly cover them during your status meeting, but shake it up by asking different types of questions. And I promise you, you'll be surprised at what answers you're going to get.

Craig P. Anderson:

Yeah. Very good. I retreat from the phrase, blow it up. But I do think you have to ask questions about the way you're doing things and I think that's a fair way to take a crack at it. Very good. All right.

Lou Quinto:

Okay. So we hope you enjoyed this episode of Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership. If you've liked the video, go ahead and click the like button. Please share this with some of the people that you work with, particularly those people that are attending the same status update meetings that you're going through and subscribe to Q&A. Don't forget, we also have the Q&A Breakthrough Leadership now available on podcast too. So you can download it on your favorite podcast platform. So with that, my name is Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:

And I'm Craig Anderson.