128. Stop Multifocusing: How to Make Meetings worth the Time

0:03 Welcome to the Catching Up with Casey show. If you are tired of chasing buy in, frustrated with teams who can't seem to get on the same page, or over the constant struggle of holding people accountable without micromanaging, this is the show for you. I'm Casey Watts, speaker, author, and the creator of the Clarity Cycle Framework. I help leaders just like you take teams from frustration to alignment so teams can work collectively toward a common purpose in a committed way instead of against each other as though they are functioning in different organizations. And we do it all through the craft of clarity. Whether you lead from the middle or you are the front facing leader of your organization.

0:45 On this show, we bring clarity to the seemingly small things in leadership that make the biggest difference because clarity precedes capacity. Now, with all of that said, let's dive into today's episode. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Catching Up with Casey show. I'm really excited about today's topic. And you know, as I say that I feel like almost every time I get on the show, I say I'm really excited about today's topic or I'm really excited about this episode.

1:27 So maybe you guys can help me out with some different ways to start the podcast. I'm going to be brainstorming in next week when I have my next episode. I am determined to intro a different way. OK. But I am excited about today's topic. And today we are bringing clarity to this thing called multi focusing, which happens a lot in team meetings. And what we want to do is make your team meetings your your meetings of any kind worth the time and effort and energy that you put into them. So here's how this podcast episode came about.

2:09 Really it came about in two different ways. So recently I was leading this professional learning institute at a school with two different campuses. And our goal was to build clarity of collaboration as the clarity of collaboration training. And we wanted to ensure that we were having effective, productive meetings. And when I started the session, I shared something that made people fidget in their seats. And here's basically what I said. I said, you want to have better meetings so you don't dread team meetings. You don't want to feel like meetings are pointless, right? You don't want them to feel unproductive. You don't want to leave the meetings thinking, well, that could have been an e-mail.

2:58 And it's so interesting to scan the audience or to scan participants. When I say things like that, because I'm a, I'm a truth teller. I speak, I speak the truth and I'm able to do that because I'm coming in as a, as someone who's not biased and part of the organization. But when, when I see people squirm when I say something like that, it's most likely because it's kind of an awkward situation, right? Like you have leaders in the room who are the ones calling the meetings or people in the room who are trying to facilitate or lead meetings. But sometimes it's being done ineffectively. It is not that we're trying to lead these kinds of meetings that feel pointless on purpose, right? No one intends to do that.

3:49 In fact, most of the time, we feel it's just the easiest way to get information across to a whole group of people, or we want everyone to be on the same page. So we believe that having a meeting is the best way to do that. And I'm not saying that it isn't. It's just that we haven't been explicitly trained how to lead efficient, effective meetings, but we also haven't been explicitly trained how to contribute well to these meetings. And because of that, we don't know how to have effective meetings that don't kill our culture and team members in depth. Dreading team meetings, right?

4:34 You've probably been there. You've experienced that you've had some sort of situation where you've dreaded the team meeting. Something that we have not learned is how to be essentialists when it comes to meetings. So that's the other reason that this episode came to mind. I have been reading the book Essentialism. I recently finished it. It is really about the pursuit of less, doing less but better. And in the book, Greg, Greg Mccune paints this picture of the difference between multitasking and multifocusing, right, multitasking versus multifocusing. And I tend to agree with the paint the picture that he paints.

5:19 He says everyone can multitask, right? Like we, we multitask all the time. We are driving our car while listening to a podcast or music or talking on the phone. We are cooking dinner while also thinking about our To Do List. The next day. We are cooking dinner while having conversations. We are getting dressed, but also trying to make sure that I'm going to get all of this laundry to the laundry room. And it happens in our work environments too. It happens in meetings. We try so desperately to multitask and we all can and do multitask regularly. However, no one is able to multi focus.

6:03 And what he says in his book Essentialism is Multitasking is not the enemy of essentialism or multitasking itself is not the enemy of essentialism. But pretending we can multi focus is, right? This happens in our team meetings. We all come in with these really loose agendas or an overloaded agenda or sometimes no agenda at all. We're toting around all of these additional things too. So we have these massive water bottles or snacks, or we've got our computers, our iPads, our phones, paper, pens, markers, chart paper, you name it.

6:46 And we find ourselves, because of all of that, starting to multitask but accomplishing just not very much. And then we end the meeting lacking clarity or we feel less productive than we anticipated. So what ends up happening then another meeting is scheduled, right? Another meeting is required because we didn't finish what we started. And that is what today's episode is all about it. Today's episode aims to teach you how to take these meetings and make them better, more focused on what's important or what's essential. So there's there are five things I'm going to highlight today, plus some action steps for how to make this actually happen.

7:33 Now these five things I'm going to share with you, it's really, really brief. We are stepping into them and stepping right back out. So it's just a piece of each of these five things. And so I want you to know that if any of this is resonating with you and you want your meetings or your PLCS to be more effective, I would love to come to your campus and work with you and your leaders and your teams in clarity of collaboration. OK, you can find out more about that training at Catching up with kc.com/collaboration. Would love to work with you. So here are the five things that we're going to be diving into. Just in and out space, purpose and goals, norms, success criteria, and roles.

8:18 I bet you have heard of a lot of these terms. They're probably pretty familiar and for a lot of if you are a school leader and listening to this, most of the time when you hear those terms, they are associated with PLC meetings, but no other meetings, which is interesting to me. We want our PLC meetings to be really effective and collaborative, but what about all of the other meetings, right? We want all meetings to be worth the time. So let's dive into the first thing space. Just think to yourself before you host a meeting, what is the status of the space and what does everyone need to bring or not bring?

9:04 OK, what is the status of the space? What does everyone need to bring or not bring? You want to be sure you're keeping these spaces organized. Wherever you are planning to have a meeting. Think ahead of time. What does this space look like, and is it going to contribute to our purpose of the meeting or contribute to people staying focused on what's essential? It kind of reminds me of being, you know, you have students who are in cluttered classrooms and because they are in these really cluttered classrooms, they have a hard time paying attention to the main thing because their eyes are thwarted in all different directions. I also think about my husband.

9:45 He really does not like going to stores like Ross or TJ Maxx or heaven forbid, I take him to a thrift store because there's just too much going on. He wants to be able to go into a store, see all of the same item, see the same colors together and go find his size, right? And I'm kind of the opposite. I like to dig and, and, and, you know, search for what I'm looking for. But if I think about how I feel when I leave those stores, like when I go to thrift stores, I leave feeling so tired, so tired. My eyes are tired, my brain is tired because I'm spending so much time sifting through to get to what I'm looking for, right?

10:31 Or maybe I don't know what I'm looking for and I'm sifting through to see what's going to catch my eye. It's the same with our meeting spaces. We have to be sure that however we're organizing this space supports our people and focusing on the one thing, the one essential thing that we're talking about. So with that said, I want to ask you this. Your space may be organized, but is there an agenda? And I know a lot of the time agendas can feel just like checklists that you're trying to get through, but what is the reality if we don't have an agenda?

11:12 What's at risk? I talk about this a lot in my training and we get really specific. If we, if we don't get specific about an agenda, two things happen. And, and let me back up. If we don't get specific about what we're looking for, going for an agenda and what the purpose of an agenda is, 2 things happen. First, the agenda can be way too broad. I have experience with this and, and let me tell you, just because you, you expect people to have an agenda does not mean that is going to be an effective agenda. I have gone to so many meetings where an agenda was expected and the agenda was too broad.

11:58 Here's an example and I write about this in my book, The Craft of Clarity. It's in the beginning chapters walk into a meeting and here, here are the three things, three bullet points on the agenda, lesson plans, grades, copies. That's not an agenda because that doesn't serve a purpose, right? It serves the purpose of getting things done. So it serves as A to do list, but it's not an agenda that's purposeful. And then the other thing can happen to where the opposite end. It's just too, we pack way too much into a meeting thinking we're going to get to all of these topics and we know it's just unrealistic. OK. So first and foremost, foremost, we want to be sure our space is ready, make sure people can attend to the essential purpose of the meeting.

12:47 And then we also want to be sure that we have an agenda to support that. Which brings me to the second thing we want to think about what is the purpose and what are the goals of this meeting? Purpose and goals. I know I've kind of mentioned this already, but we have to think about limited goals you have for meetings, right? What are the limited goals? What is essential to discuss or accomplish during this meeting? And why? If we leave this meeting having having accomplished only one thing, what would that be? What's our purpose for the meeting? And let me add this.

13:30 We want to be sure that we state those things before the meeting. I'm not talking about at the beginning of the meeting. I'm talking about when you set the purpose of the meeting. When you set the meeting, you put it on the calendar or you're talking with people about, we probably should meet about this, what's essential? What exactly are we meeting about? What would be the outcome of this meeting? What would you hope for? And if we can't determine the purpose and an essential goal, then maybe we don't need to have the meeting at all, right? Or maybe we do need to have it. We just need to let people know before they come in our purpose and goals.

14:10 I, I know for some of you listening to this because you are leaders who crave clarity and you crave the ability to create clarity for other people. I know it sounds almost unfathomable that someone would not let people know the purpose and goals of a meeting before going in, but it happens. For example, I worked with a district one time where I was working with a team the the teachers and they said before the meeting they I was visiting with them just passing by and they said, what's the purpose of the meeting Asking me this as a consultant working on their campus coaching instructional leaders. They were asking me what's the purpose of this meeting? They were all up in arms.

15:02 Like we don't know what to bring. We're a little bit nervous. Are we in trouble? It happens frequently and it's not intentional. It's not like leaders, like I want to stir the pot and get people all riled up, but we just are so busy with things. We forget that people need to know the purpose and goals before we meet. OK, so we've talked about space, getting your space ready, having purpose and goals. And then third is norms. OK, this is a big one and I spend a lot of time on this one as well. When I'm going through the clarity of collaboration training, Here's what happens when I'm meeting with people. A lot of the times if I meet with teams to work on a, to do APD or what, whatever, it doesn't matter what it is.

15:48 When I'm working with teams, I will ask what norms we need to set in order for our time to feel productive, successful, etcetera. And I often and met with two things. I met with either crickets because no one knows what I mean when I say norms, or I met with things that are basically rules and expectations, like we want to show up on time or bring the right materials or be sure we're staying on task. Those are important. I'm not saying they're not important, but they are not norms. We need to look at norms as commitment. So if this is our purpose and these are our goals for this specific meeting, and this is the one thing that is most important to accomplish, then what does that mean for how our team approaches this meeting?

16:42 What do we need to commit to? What do we need to commit to? It could just be a few things. We want to commit to these things. OK, what does that look like and sound like? I know this sounds like it takes quite a bit of time, and it can. It can if you let it, but if you're if you have a culture of doing these things from the beginning of the year, then people will become accustomed to approaching meetings in this way and you'll transform your culture. Now, is this sounding familiar? Is this sounding familiar? Is it? Is any of this standing out to you? If so, I want you to leave a comment. I want you to review this podcast, share it with a friend so that people can access this. More people can access this podcast, but finally, you might consider working with me so that your teams can leave meetings feeling valued, inspired, and empowered. OK, so we've talked about three things so far. Let's go to the fourth thing that is success criteria. And I told you guys, a lot of this is going to sound familiar. If it's sounding familiar and you're doing some of these things already in your meetings, fantastic. This is going to be a great reminder for you. And maybe it's going to give you a little motivation to approach it in a very specific way, like you're just going to fine tune some things.

18:03 That's great. Here's the one thing that I want you to think about, the one phrase that can change it all. We'll leave this meeting feeling it was productive or purposeful. If or when we will leave this meeting feeling productive or purposeful, If and or when, OK, that's it, That's it. That's going to give you your success criteria. It doesn't have to be a long list. It doesn't have to take a lot of time, but we need people focused on what success looks like at the end of the meeting. We miss out on this all the time. And it is part, a huge part of why people leave meetings feeling like it could have been an e-mail.

18:47 Like I, I could, you could have just told me all of that. And a lot of that is I'm not a part of this meeting. You're leading it and I am like an audience member. We've got to facilitate meetings differently. We don't want people feeling as though they are audience members because if they are feeling as though they are audience members attending your Ted talk, then of course they're going to turn around and say all of that could have been in an e-mail or quick video. OK, So what is the success criteria so that everyone is starting to take ownership and walks away remembering what was successful? Finally, this is number 5. So we've talked about four things. This is number 5.

19:31 No, that was #4 roles. What role does each person play in reaching the success criteria? Hear me when I say we're looking at roles in in light of the the success criteria we have set, in light of the purpose and goals, in light of our norms. What role does each person play in reaching our success criteria? Do we need someone to take notes, keep time, be a facilitator, or keep us on track so we're not chasing tangents? What do we need to consider in in these meetings so that everyone in the meeting ends up leaving feeling valued, inspired, empowered? OK, here's what happens when we don't, when we don't address roles for people in meetings.

20:31 And I'm hoping, well, I'm hoping and I'm not hoping. Like I know that this is going to resonate with a lot of you, but I also hope this is not the situation for you, right? We're trying to get away from what I'm about to describe. What happens so often when we are not assigning roles or taking on roles is one person, typically the high achiever or the veteran teacher or the veteran person on the team. Typically that person ends up assuming the role of facilitator or leader and they do everything. They leave the whole meeting. They, they, they stand on their Ted talk stage. It's not because they're wanting to necessarily. It could be that no one else is stepping up. So I'm going to step in, but when that person's not there, you know what I've seen happen?

21:24 I've seen people say, well, so and so is not here. Do we even need to meet? You're hearing me pause because I just have way too many thoughts going on in my head. Plus that gives me a little bit of anxiety, right? But you've seen it happen. And what, what also happens is we can, we can fall into groupthink and both of those things we want to steer clear of it. It affects the efficiency of our time too. If we are falling into group think or one person is the lead facilitator and has assumed that role, well, no one else is contributing. So our time is not being used effectively. So we leave the meeting thinking we could have shortened it or it could have been more productive or not have happened at all, right.

22:15 Everything that I'm describing to you can lead to us ruining the possibility for collective efficacy to happen. And that what I've just described where one person is continuously taking the lead, that is the opposite of true collaboration. OK, so here, here's what we've talked about so far. And, and let me just back up a little bit because I do want to be sure that I mention assigning roles. Talking about roles also doesn't have to take a lot of time. Here's the statement that you might use. You might say, if if you have decided we're having this meeting, you've come together, you've talked about purpose, goals, success criteria, all the things. Here's what you can say next.

23:02 Hey, I want to be sure this meeting runs smoothly and efficiently and we meet our goals. So it would be really helpful if we had a note taker, a time keeper, and maybe someone that helps us make sure we're not chasing tangents. Which roles do you think will suit your geniuses? Hopefully people will speak up. Great, let's move forward. OK, so we've talked about 5 things. Here are the five things, space, purpose and goals, norms, success criteria, and roles. Those were the five things that we talked about. Now how do we put this into action? What does it look like to practically do this? Well, I want to say first of all, subscribe to my newsletter.

23:45 You'll see a link in the show notes for you to subscribe to my newsletter because in the newsletter this week, I'm going to be sending out a meeting agenda that I share with schools that I work with. But I want you to know this. I want to be super clear that an agenda is only a very, very, very small piece of supporting effective collaboration, OK? People need foundational skills of collaboration. They need foundational skills of facilitating meetings and also contributing well, OK. So yes.

24:28 Subscribe to the newsletter know that you're getting an agenda that you can replicate. Know that I send out every week how to how to lead clarity driven teams. I'm giving information about that every single week. And a lot of the times you're getting something to utilize, but be sure that you are finding ways to support your people in leading and contributing in meetings. OK. Also set expectations ahead of time. So just just a quick reminder. I, I think I mentioned this earlier in that episode, but if you're wanting to put this into action, one of the very simple things you can do is just be super clear about the purpose of the meeting before it even happens.

25:13 Tell people exactly what to bring, what not to bring, and then on your agenda somewhere, set aside a space for adjunct items. So things that don't necessarily align with what's essential. Put that in the adjunct column or in the adjunct row. So you can just have that there and come back to it or address it in different ways, for example, e-mail, group messaging, video, etcetera. OK. And then finally, you're going to want to be sure you're ready to address when norms are breached. This is another huge piece of the training that I do in the clarity of collaboration training because we have not learned how to address when things go awry and there are a lot of different strategies that you can learn to support your confidence in facilitating when those times happen. I have a lot of episodes about doing this. You might take a look at some other episodes. But again, man, I would love to visit with you about how we can train your people effectively so everyone knows how to address uncomfortable conversations.

26:25 OK guys, we're going to wrap up and I want you to think about what was been, what's been most useful for you here today. Again, you can comment, you can leave a review so others can find the show. You can share it with a colleague. And then finally go to my website to see how we can work together to create clarity in your organization. I have enjoyed this time with you. I can't wait to hear what you find most useful and I will catch you next time. Bye. Hey listener, I am so honored that you listen to today's episode and I hope you gained something valuable from it. I'd also be honored if you did ME3 solid favors. First, subscribe to this show.

27:07 I've got a lot of great content coming up, and I don't want you to miss any of it. Second, be sure you're following me on social media platforms. You can find me at. Catch up with Casey on LinkedIn or Instagram. And finally, if you were looking to book a dynamic and relatable speaker for your next event, conference, or retreat, I would love to bring a message about how the crash of clarity makes a significant impact on both leadership and life.