If your staff turnover is high and client tenure short, it says a lot about your culture. Having a good one is all about people, not ping pong tables and soft furnishings.

“If you take a job where there’s lots of assholes, the chances are you’ll turn into one too” — Bob Sutton, The Pineapple Project, ABC, 2019

Ad agencies obsess over this concept of “culture” but having a good one is about more than just “matchy-matchy bean bags,” free pizza and ping pong tables. It’s more than onsite parking, flat-screen monitors, two free pairs of glasses and a new office with panoramic views (real incentives from real job listings). It’s about how people feel about working with and for you.

When they’re trying to recruit you, companies are on their best behaviour. You may meet everyone from CEO to receptionist, have orientation or onboarding sessions galore and be told: “you’re a great fit”. You get a true feel for corporate culture once you’ve got your security pass and it’s often after the novelty has worn off. Most probation or trial periods are three months but, like a New Years’ resolution gym membership, the harsh reality of what you’ve signed up for can set in after about six weeks. Think of Tom Cruise in The Firm. That kind of information isn’t always in the welcome pack.

The advertising business is increasingly about selling (brands, ourselves, our ideas and our work) and winning (budgets, clients, pitches, awards). If you remember high school, the same self-preservation mentality can exist in advertising. It’s a popularity contest, and it’s competitive, political, often fun and sometimes, boring. It’s a melting pot of personality types, from introverts to narcissists and backroom people who feel they exist to make the front end famous. It takes all kinds of people to make the place function and that also makes it interesting. Add in forced socialising, lots of booze and a more casual work environment (we can wear jeans and talk about telly at work), it can feel like one big frat house party. We’re told it’s only banter, suck it up, it’s dog eat dog, that’s just the way it is or “if you don’t like it, the door’s not locked from the outside.” If you always need to be the smartest person in the room, a smaller room is all you’ll end up with.

Big agencies are made up of internal department tribes and specialist roles with different priorities and many layers of hierarchy. Some people have more power than others. It can be so cliquey and bitchy it hurts. Holding companies and clients with unrealistic expectations add to the mix. We’re so desperate to please, we never tell them they’re wrong. S/he who has the client wins and everyone else is overhead.

It can’t always be about the money — we spend a fortune on talent and promote “our culture” to attract it. Staff are increasingly seen as returns on investment rather than assets that appreciate over time. We’re driven by proving our value instead of our worth. Obsessed with merit and getting credit like toddlers needing gold stars for everything we say. Unsurprisingly, burn-out syndrome is a thing; “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

In research conducted by Digiday+, 32 percent of agency professionals reported being worried about their mental health.

Working with a horrible boss, direct report or colleague isn’t unusual, even over the course of a successful career. As our careers progress, moving up and around in the small world of advertising is pretty standard. Strong relationships and reputations matter. Look after you, look after your people. Play nicely with others. Don’t be an asshole.

Written originally for Corporate Gaslighting. To find out more about the Rob Campbell initiative:

• Home | Corporate Gaslighting
• Corporate Gaslighting (@CorpGaslighting) | Twitter

When I was seven years old, I got into serious trouble at school and took my friend down with me.

Principal Stevens, a stern and physically imposing man, told the entire school at morning assembly about our alleged crime. He spoke into a microphone from the top steps of the library, broadcasting the news over the loudspeaker system, through the corridors and across the ovals. The mysterious “two girls in trouble,” their crime and likely punishment was the talk of the playground before the bell sounded.

Sitting in terror outside the principal’s office, we waited to meet our fate. Our favourite French teacher stopped in surprise when he saw us “oh no, it was you two…what did you do?” he asked. He was very “désolé” for us and, even though I could only relay the gist of it in my beginner’s French, none of us truly understood why this was such a big deal.

Flustered, my face tomato-red and throat choking on angry tears, I described the events in question. That morning, fueled by the threat of losing my borrowing privileges, I rushed to return my library books. I focused on my mission to get to the returns desk before school started. Not knowing about the etiquette of doors, I didn’t see the large man approaching ahead until he was shouting down at me. Not much taller than his kneecaps, I had squeezed past him to get inside the open library door just as he reached it to exit. Recognising Mr Stevens in his too-tight pale grey suit before I did, Jill* didn’t even make it over the doorstep before I got nabbed. She was guilty by association for blindly following my lead, got the “if your friend jumped off a bridge, would you?” speech at home and reminds me often that I’m a terrible influence. I believe Mr Stevens spitefully sped up his steps but I’m an unreliable witness.

I do a dance at doorways as if I’m Dr Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu

While I knew how to say please, thanks, eat with a closed mouth and keep my legs together when seated in skirts, I may have missed a manners lesson about always letting adults go first. To this day I still do a dance at doorways as if I’m Dr Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu, unsure of who should get the right of way.

Shame was our only real punishment for being “ill-mannered, disrespectful and rude little girls.” After this incident, I was notorious in the staff room and Jill was my reluctant sidekick. I never used to put my hand up yet teachers would call on me first to answer questions, find chalk for the board and later remove their words with the duster. I asked my mother how new or substitute teachers knew my name before they even marked the roll. She said they weren’t picking on me, “you’re either very good or very naughty.”

*name changed to protect the 100% innocent (still so sorry)

In the era of [insert here]

Stiff competition and adulterous clients make advertising agencies race to keep ahead of change. Partly because they like shiny new things but also to show that they know what the next era of [insert here] will bring. Change is a constant topic in our industry; we’re experts at talking about it. Is this another new era of unprecedented times?

Facebook, Google, Netflix et al. took over the world via algorithm while normal telly was time-shifting quietly in the corner. No one watches our ads anymore. Newspapers folded, and Russian bots sent us into an echo bubble shame spiral. Agencies hired all the unemployed journalists and set up “content hubs” to monitor the news and respond in real-time to cultural moments. Creative briefs demanded work that was so newsworthy, it could write its own press release. Making it from the business section to the front page became the goal.

In the Era of Trump

The news is back, baby. Brands are afraid of backlash, boycotts, being attacked by trolls, or Trump on Twitter. They’re scared to say anything at all. Most toddlers are taught there’s a difference between good and bad attention. Many publicists would agree there isn’t. For brands, there’s a bigger risk if no one pays you any attention.

Strong brands eventually bounce back

Has an established, strong brand ever died (forever) by tweet? Not yet. Prof. Jenni Romaniuk’s analysis in the Journal of Advertising Research in 2013 found that “negative word of mouth is not only rare; it has the same impact as positive word of mouth.” Her opinion still stands:

Even when a company does something wrong, I don’t see much evidence of sustained backlash (…) people forget really quickly. But in the case of a ‘crisis,’ it does depend on how companies manage it too. Fighting the story rarely helps as this just gives the fire more oxygen. Also, remember there is still a big chunk of the population who are not on Twitter!” — Professor Jenni Romaniuk, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, via LinkedIn message, November 12, 2017

Strong brands can eventually bounce back once the media attention dies down. If they don’t, there may be other forces at play. If they do, swift and strong crisis management is usually the reason.

It may just seem like there’s more visible bad behaviour

Way before this so-called Era of Trump, top brands had been cleaning up their acts. Some corporations are probably more well-governed than the government. It may seem like there’s more visible bad behaviour, but all this consumer activism stuff happened to companies before “keep the bastards honest” social media. Savvy investors watch for stock scandals because they want a good deal on shares.

Preparing companies for corporate citizenship has been going on since Exxon Valdez, and Enron when, keeping clients out of the press was the remit. There’s an entire PR industry dedicated to spinning corporate embarrassments via the dark arts of reputation management and media relations.

Keep the lights on

Before authenticity, transparency, and the knee-jerk public apology was a thing, CEOs had media training to talk to the press about bad news. As companies dealt with disaster, their immediate reaction was to stop advertising entirely. In the long term, studies confirm going dark during a bad patch isn’t good for business.

Brand purpose politics

Brands are advised not to get involved in politics. A mention from Obama would have been like winning gold in the popularity Olympics. This President is different. He has a corporate scandal every day and ignores it. Trump contradicts every commonsensical thought. He’s a norm buster or, is he the best at branding, ever? To be famous, part of the conversation, a wavemaker, or “movement starter”, even the President needs the media to notice him. Now, one voice on a single platform gets amplified more than others.

Soft metrics, hard results

Reports suggest that Trump measures success with ratings, retweets, and he counts his followers like money. For context, by the end of 2016, neither @POTUS nor @realDonaldTrump made the celebrity Twitter rankings while Barack Obama had 80.1M (Katy Perry was in the lead with 94.5M). A year later, even with 44.6M followers, Trump has less than half Obama’s 97.9M (Katy Perry has 107M).

Trump will not stop tweeting; he hasn’t since he joined in 2009. Should we worry if a brand’s politics draws his ire? A 4A’s/SSRS survey about brands that get involved in politics revealed that “regardless of whether [Trump] tweeted a positive or negative endorsement, about three-quarters (74%) of respondents said it had no impact on their purchasing decisions.”

Possibly alienating half the voting population is understandably a risk but we do advise our clients not to go unnoticed. The @realdonaldjtrump knows this brand strategy better than anyone.

Madonna Deverson, madonna@contxture.com

Jenni Romaniuk, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, De-Clutter Your Mind: Seven Worries You Can Drop from Your Research Agenda, Journal of Advertising Research: Vol. 53, №2, 2013

Jenni Romaniuk, response to a LinkedIn message, November 12, 2017

“What We Know about Advertising in a Recession,” Warc.com, 2020, https://www.warc.com/content/paywall/article/bestprac/what-we-know-about-advertising-in-a-recession/110157.

Marketing Communications, “New 4A’s Survey Finds Majority of Consumers Dislike When Brands Get Political — 4A’s,” 4A’s, May 24, 2017, https://www.aaaa.org/new-4as-survey-finds-majority-consumers-dislike-brands-get-political/.

Raisa Bruner, “Katy Perry Reigns Supreme Still as Twitter’s Most-Followed Celebrity,” Time (Time, December 6, 2016), https://time.com/4591951/top-twitter-celebrities-2016/.

Has email become less urgent — almost irrelevant — as we shift towards more intimate, instant messaging platforms? Word.

“I sent a lot of great emails” is not an achievement worthy of a resume bullet, nor is “answering emails” a remit on most job descriptions. And yet, sometimes it feels like that’s all we do, all day, every day.

I have 18,603 unread emails across 4 accounts today. I used to relish the red dot but now those notifications nag. I sent my first work email in 1996, it went off with a “whoosh”. I’ve spent many hours since, labouring over beautifully composed emails to my boss that didn’t receive a response, no matter how many times I re-wrote or re-sent them. I have suffered crippling anxiety when I got a one-word email back and also callously used the same technique with my team.

What’s the problem?

We send too many emails. We get too many emails. We don’t read or reply to the emails we receive.

What can you do?

1. stop sending so many
2. send more useful messages
3. deal with your inbox

Establish norms by changing your behaviour first.

Send the kind of emails you would want to receive. Lead by example. If you want people to use your rules, start by following those rules yourself.

• If you use short, bulleted lists, people can respond to those bullets individually.
• If you give specific, actionable items at the top, people will usually respond in the same form.
• If you ask a single question, you’ll likely get a quick answer back.
• Aim for a one-word response; it’s better than no response at all.

Prioritize the most effective way to communicate. It’s easy to send off an email in 30 seconds, but it could take someone over an hour to respond to it.

Switch to a more efficient phone call or face-to-face meeting when a conversation has become too complicated or contentious for email.

Always consider your audience

Leaders tend to check email early in the morning or late at night if they are busy in meetings for most of the day. There is also a time management trend that directs us ONLY to check email twice a day, so we’re not constantly in reply mode.

Emailed content has to survive a cost-benefit analysis:

• Cost: how much hassle and pain do I have to suffer to read this information?
• Benefit: what’s in it for me, what will I gain if I read this information?

Write for how we read. Remember that people usually scan instead of reading — online, users only have time to read 28% of the words on the average website. They pay the most attention to information at the top of the page. Keep your email to as few words as possible.

“highly educated online readers crave succinct information that is easy to scan, just like everyone else.” — Hoa Loranger, Nielsen Norman Group.

Grab attention by making it interesting with clear headlines, and scannable text — make key information stand out by using bullets rather than long-form paragraphs.

Compose for impact. Review for clarity and simplicity. Be brief but direct.

Be concise, specify the bottom line, including a requested action upfront.

Communicate useful content immediately

“Why are you emailing me?”
“I have no idea what this person wants.”

Focus on the point. If someone doesn’t know what you want, they likely won’t respond to your email. Make sure you specifically mention what you’d like the action to be.

• Journalists use an inverted-pyramid writing style, “a story structure where the most important information (or what might even be considered the conclusion) is presented first.”
• Military professionals lead their emails with a short statement known as the BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front). They declare the purpose of the email and action required. Background information is listed after the BLUF as bullet points so that readers can quickly grasp the message.

“Short emails are more effective than long ones, try to fit all content in one pane, so the recipient doesn’t have to scroll.” — Kabir Sehgal, Harvard Business Review

Use subjects that stand out. A subject line is often the first piece of content people read, and often it is the only thing people read. Use short, keyword-lead subject lines that make sense out of context. After a lengthy email chain “Re: Meeting” becomes irrelevant if you move on to other topics. On mobile, in preview mode, notifications show the first 2 lines so use that top space well.

Use less complicated language. Consider how much harder your brain needs to work when you read terminology that requires interpretation. If you need to google the definition, it’s not a viable abbreviation.

Email is not a filing cabinet.

“I know the email is in here, just hold on.”

“I wasn’t on the distribution list, can you forward it?”

“I couldn’t open the attachment, can you please resend.”

“What was the subject line — meeting follow up?”

“Is Draft 3 the latest version?”

Consider virtual collaboration tools. Rather than emailing drafts back and forth, decide to save relevant information in a secure, central location or shared drive. Establish clear uploading/downloading and document naming protocols.

Make it easy to follow the breadcrumbs. Emailing shared links back and forth won’t eliminate the inbox fishing expedition. Use clear file structures and document naming conventions. Everything should be easy to find — include the file location in all emails or a direct link to the document you are drafting. Saying “it’s in SharePoint, Draft Version 3” isn’t helpful. Saying “See SharePoint/NewYorkOffice/Drafts” or inserting the file’s location path in footnotes of all documents may be better.

Use natural language terms to name files. Imagine doing a google search for a news story, but you or a future colleague can’t remember the author, publication, or title. You generally remember what it was about, not what it was called. For example, can you easily identify what information this document provides? StfemailCur0818Curr.doc

“An email inbox evolves into a messy collection of stuff that generally falls into the categories of things to do, things to read, or things to schedule.” — Khe Hy, Quartz at Work

Have reliable downstream systems. Tiago Forte of Forte Labs, a productivity training firm suggests we only need four apps to manage email overload. As you process each message, give yourself two options — respond directly or send to one of the apps you’re using to manage information.

13 ideas to try:

• Develop a company style guide — have consistently formatted content for all your documents and web pages.
• Observe a maximum length and template structure with bullets, as opposed to full-text paragraphs
• Wrap text or use a hard return at the end of each sentence — like a newspaper column. Scrolling up or down is more natural than across, particularly on mobile.
• If content runs to 2 pages when printed, it’s probably too long for email and should be a document.
• Strip out extra long signatures to make your emails and email chains shorter. Some email programs (Outlook especially) don’t display images/logos.
• Use a signature that works on one line rather than a vertical signature which takes up valuable space and is better suited to an envelope.
• Draft emails in writing programs that estimate the time it would take to read. Specify this upfront (e.g., a slow reader would take 8 mins to read this). Programs such as Grammarly, Hemingway suggest ways to cut, simplify & shorten copy for legibility and readability.
• Make it ok not to say “thank you” for every email response or at least, don’t “reply all” when you do.
• Keep yourself nice: think before you hit send and watch your tone. If a subject is sensitive, consider a 1:1 to discuss rather than sending an email.
• If copied along with your manager why not take the initiative to respond if it’s more relevant to your remit (ask for forgiveness rather than waiting for permission — at least you quickly know your manager’s POV).
• Unsubscribe to newsletters you never read. Set up unroll.me, use Nuzzel to create a newsletter that covers topics/sources you need to track, delete the rest. You’ll find you even stop reading those after a while.
• Auto-responder: a solution that sets the right expectations and offers FAQs or other information, directs the sender somewhere that might be useful.
• Re-define ‘cc’ to mean FYI, filter those that aren’t ‘to’ you into a separate folder for reference rather than action.

Read more:

You need four types of apps to achieve Inbox Zero, Quartz at Work, https://qz.com/work/1095665/email-sanity-how-to-achieve-inbox-zero-using-four-apps/

The Essential Guide to Crafting a Work Email, https://ift.tt/1CUpN3C

The Only Five Email Folders Your Inbox Will Ever Need https://ift.tt/2mKJeIZ

How to Delegate Your Email to an Assistant, https://ift.tt/1EmMMPz

How to Write Email with Military Precision https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision

The Secret to Getting Replies to Your Emails: The One Hand Test http://www.managementcenter.org/article/the-secret-to-getting-replies-to-your-emails-the-one-hand-test/

7 Tips for Presenting Bulleted Lists in Digital Content, https://ift.tt/2oT16SM

How revisiting old words can inspire new ones.

Blog off?

For a job interview, I set up a fake blog as a prop to explain “blog culture”. My premise? How brands could use blogs to show some personality, to let consumers see behind the corporate curtain.

It was before authenticity, content marketing and corporate values became a thing. Clearly too early for the train to Purpose Town, I didn’t get the job (but we’re still friends).

I started writing Blog Off “for reals” while on a road trip across the US (told you I didn’t get that job). I eavesdropped, shopped and people-watched from Texas to New York. I wrote about Piggly Wiggly, the Amish who shop at WalMart and my first (and last) visit to Olive Garden for “Italian food” with a white evangelical church-going family in Houston.

I was writing about hearing gunshots and being bitten alive by ants in a Texan camping ground when my enthusiasm for blogs evaporated. Partly because of the gunshots and ants but also, my mum started reading it. Mum would comment; “sounds great, remember thingy from primary school? Her blog got a publishing deal.”

I didn’t want to be #humblebragging, as if I was living the life of an Influencer pre-Instagram. I didn’t want to do an Eat, Pray, Love travel diary. My posts dwindled after “that time I was the only white woman in a Weight Watchers meeting and the hip hop aerobics class at the YMCA in deepest Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn”.

MySpace then Facebook, Twitter et al. diverted my attention until it didn’t seem necessary to say anything if it wouldn’t get a like from someone. I also got a job. Suddenly, I was too self-conscious to write about random observational stuff anymore. Someone was reading over my shoulder, in the digital sense.

Keeping up with all the places to write on became more interesting than actually writing stuff. Russell Davies (quite famous planning icon…look, here he is) advised my Essential Planning Skills Account Planning Group, group to collect sources of inspiration. He recommended storing everything scrapbook-style in journals, filed by year. A lucky dip of ideas, like browsing in Waitrose for dinner options instead of heading straight for the tinned goods. I wonder if he kept or looked at his notebooks once everything on paper went online. Was it clipped and forgotten in Instapaper, Pocket, Evernote et al.? Bigger question; does he know where to find things when he needs them and if so, which tags does he use?

“a place for thought out thoughts, sparked by the lucky dip of life’s bits & pieces”

Seth Godin writes something for his blog every day, no matter what. He says “the secret to writing a daily blog is to write every day. And to queue it up and blog it. There is no other secret”. An excellent discipline. Whenever he needs a reminder that he once had a great thought, it’s all there. Removing all pressure from the exercise, it doesn‘t even need to be a great thought. Or have anyone reading it. No claps, likes or shares required. The thinking is preserved, as long as the blogging site stays in business and you have backups, just in case. Google bought blogger.com so I can still access ‘06–07. The book I started writing on the road however, in pre-cloud Word on an HP laptop, is gone forever.

I have collected photos of signage, shops and weird toilet doors that I lose once I forget where I saved them. I have notes in various apps, notepads, journals, emails, tweets, scraps of paper and backs of envelopes too.

A blog seems to be a sensible option again. I will have a place for thought out thoughts, sparked by the lucky dip of life’s bits & pieces. One day, it may turn into a book — like Mum said thingy from next door did. I doubt it but, it’s better out than in. I’m still comparing the functionality and benefits of all the platforms. Have had a few beta tests or “rapid prototyping” false starts but it’s ok, Mum has forgotten her password.

I am blogging off.

madonna@contxture.com

Nearly three-quarters of us are going through the motions, showing up but only doing what is absolutely necessary to get through the day at our jobs.

Claire Snyder took active steps to find work that she was more engaged in. Meeting recently at RMIT in Melbourne, we discussed her transition from journalist to activist.

A freelance consultant for environmental advocacy and “purpose-driven” groups, Claire has high profile organisations such as OXFAM, Greenpeace and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) on her resume. Along with the majority of Australia’s 1 million independent contractors, she is her own boss.

“A bit of a mixed bag,” Claire’s background is in journalism. Working at a local paper and as a writer/sub-editor for the Australian Associated Press (AAP) in her twenties, she felt psychologically unattached to her job. A dream job for many but she was only putting time — not energy or passion — into her work. She’s not alone. On top of not feeling engaged, only one in five workers in Australia and New Zealand strongly agree they even like what they do each day according to Gallup. “I was doing entertainment and sports lift-outs, things that weren’t very close to my heart.” She decided to find a new life.

“who knows if it’ll work, but I’ll give it a go”

An interest in the environment and exposure to the climate change movement as a volunteer lead her down a new career path. One of her first gigs was during the 2010 Federal Election campaign when prime minister Julia Gillard was running against Tony Abbott. Tasked by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) with motivating young people, Claire had to get the environment “into the narrative of the election in a colourful way.” She explains a tactic called bird-dogging where “you go and hound candidates, jumping in front of the camera to get a message across, usually while wearing a costume or holding a crazy sign.” A strategy based solely on photobombing for publicity, they followed candidates around the country wearing elephant costumes. “None of the politicians were talking about the environment” during the election, “climate change was the elephant in the room.”

To get the message out at each campaign stop “we would throw people in taxis with signs and elephant suits.” Claire laughs as she remembers “following along on Twitter to see where the candidates were going to be.” They had elephant costumes ready to go in every capital city, and this culminated in a final Election Day stunt. “We hired a giant, four-metre-high elephant which we towed around on a trailer.”

The Climate Change Elephant was a successful awareness campaign, Gillard personally tweeted an invitation to host Ellie (the elephant) and the AYCC team at Parliament House. Post-election polling would later show that Labor’s decision to defer the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) was a liability for the party.

In 2011, Gillard established the Climate Commission, an independent body to provide authoritative information on climate change. Claire was contacted with another job offer when then-prime minister Tony Abbott abolished that commission in 2013. “It was quite a big deal” when sacked chief commissioner Professor Tim Flannery announced he would relaunch as the Climate Council, a community-funded body. Claire joined the campaign thinking “who knows if it’ll work, but I’ll give it a go.” They asked the public for help, “people were so annoyed and unhappy that the government had sacked the organisation.” Raising a million dollars in the first week, it became a good news story. “It was fun to be involved in something that had so much momentum.”

I asked about her worst professional experience. Blushing, Claire admits “I have a few actually.” The most embarrassing one? When she was a sub-editor for AAP, responsible for writing and distributing syndicated content to regional papers. “I sent the wrong file, but no one picked up on it. Every local paper on the eastern seaboard printed syndicated, week-old news — the same thing they had printed the week before.” Though mortified, she didn’t lose her job but “our contracts promise 100% accuracy so there were a lot of apologies and retractions.” At thirty-four, she is more pragmatic, “look, it was my first job. I was twenty.” When mentoring junior teams, she still shares this experience. “Hey, whatever you think you’ve stuffed up can’t be that bad. Don’t worry, seriously — everyone stuffs up.”

Madonna Deverson, CONTXTURE

If your career has mostly been in small companies with dedicated internal teams who regularly communicate, you may not have a problem with meetings. My first “proper” meetings at one of the biggest global advertising agencies in New York were more like those captured so gloriously by Sarah Cooper in her series Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings. Initially, I felt lost and incredibly stupid, faced with a foreign language I had yet to master. It seemed as if everyone knew what was going on while I struggled to follow along as we “unpacked the data” before “tabling it” until we could “circle back” with “next steps.”

Also standard was the unnecessarily large meeting held in conference rooms filled with more staff than chairs. Does everyone in the company need to be at every meeting? Contributors who don’t need to be there can hijack the conversation after they’ve grabbed their free pizza to show participation despite their lack of preparation. Ditto for people calling in on the batphone, minus the pizza slice.

Armed with precisely formatted powerpoint slides, fully prepped for tough questions with bloodshot all-nighter eyes I have watched helplessly as the boss succumbs to the distraction techniques of a lazy ill-preparer who arrived late, skips the point or changes the topic entirely. Never afraid of asking the “dumb” questions, colleagues reassured me these were accomplished orators who were known for being expertly articulate yet completely meaningless. Simply put, some people sound great while they’re saying nothing — another killer skillset featured in The Cooper Review.

1. Establish norms.

• Consider whether you are consuming your colleagues’ time efficiently.
• Redefine what meetings look like and reserve them solely for that purpose.
• Ask the leader to circulate an agenda or a pre-read beforehand.
• Send a short email on agreements, commitments and next steps afterwards.

2. Ask if we should have this meeting.

“If workers are organized into small teams, there is much to be said for the “morning huddle” in which members update each other on their progress; the whole thing can take 15 minutes.” — Bartleby, The Economist.

Before you ask for a meeting, ask yourself:

“Am I clear on what I want to accomplish from this meeting or conversation?”

Before you accept a meeting, send a response for clarity:

“Would you quickly let me know what you hope we can accomplish together?”

Try a decision tree to be absolutely sure.

3. Suit yourself first.

Meetings aren’t meant to be a substitute for regular communication. Clarify that declining a meeting does not mean you lack interest or appreciation.

Having set times for meetings helps reduce scheduling back-and-forth. When someone asks to schedule a meeting, you can say “pick any time between 10 a.m. and noon on any Tuesday or Thursday.”

“The only actual “free” time on your calendar should be time when you’re actually available for phone calls and meetings — time that’s not allocated to something specific.” — Alan Henry, Lifehacker.

Structure your day so that you aren’t constantly in “reply mode”. Batch tasks — give yourself time to do your actual work in between meetings, phone calls, and email. Stack meetings one after another on a particular day or at the beginning/end of the day based on how you work best.

4. Have clear decision roles.

Does everything always need to be approved by the most senior person? Take ownership of your specialty. Use meetings to present your decisions along with your rationale, show how you will take accountability.

“In many firms, decisions routinely stall inside the organization — hurting the entire company’s performance. The culprit? Ambiguity over who’s accountable for which decisions.” — Paul Rogers & Marcia Blenko, Harvard Business Review.

Strategically hit the invite button:

• To solve a problem, invite four to six people
• To make a decision, invite four to seven people
• To set an agenda, invite five to 15 people
• To brainstorm, invite 10 to 20 people

“The main thing is to invite only those people who truly need to be there: those who have something to contribute, can get something out of it, or are directly affected by the outcome.” — Emily Esposito, Evernote.

Make the policy known, so there’s no offence caused if someone isn’t included in a meeting too.

“Part of the problem lies in the paradox that, although workers hate attending meetings, they loathe being excluded even more. Nothing is so likely to induce paranoia than a department meeting to which you are not invited.” — Bartleby, The Economist.

5. Set the agenda.

What is this meeting for anyway? Is this a check-in, brainstorm, tissue, kick off, status update, brief, debrief — make sure these titles have meaning and establish a format to match.

Every meeting should have an agenda. List agenda topics as questions the team needs to answer. Tackle the most contentious items at the start.

“Select topics that affect the entire team. Team meeting time is expensive and difficult to schedule. It should mainly be used to discuss and make decisions on issues that affect the whole team — and need the whole team to solve them.” — Roger Schwarz, Harvard Business Review

Include quick bulleted updates in the written agenda that you email ahead of time. Attendees (should) read the updates before the meeting so time can be spent on the items that truly require back-and-forth conversation.

At the end of each topic on the agenda, agree on next steps and establish commitments with clear deadlines. If someone goes off track, bring the discussion back.

6. Take notes during the meeting.

Before you conclude, spend five minutes talking about action items, owners, and the timeframe to complete each one.

Do two things after meetings: quickly send out clear and concise meeting notes and follow up on the commitments made. A single page is enough. Notes should cover the discussion, key takeaways, and a list of specific actions to be done, by which people, and by when.

More ideas to solve meeting overload

• Set guidelines: clarify when you should use certain kinds of communication channels. Lay down the ground rules for how your team will communicate.
• Use a scheduling app such as Calendly or share a version of your calendar that offers your “open for business” hours — Block your schedule to maximise your most productive time of day and save meetings for the lulls.
• Schedule all your meetings on certain days of the week, so you are free to work uninterrupted for the rest of the week, e.g. have a “No-Meeting Wednesday” policy.
• Limit your involvement: Ask to attend only those portions for which you are needed. Agree to half the time a colleague or employee requests. Explain that you have a hard stop (real or constructed) so that you’re not stuck when others run over.
• Consider banning open laptops in meetings except for presenters and notetakers. The lack of distraction will help you move through your agenda faster and reduce the need for follow-up meetings.
• Make sure the tech works before the event. Make friends with IT on day one.

Read more:

Tortured by meetings, The Economist, https://www.economist.com/business/2018/06/30/tortured-by-meetings

How to Collaborate Without Burning Out, https://ift.tt/2JZMOa9

Preparing for Decision-Making Meetings https://ift.tt/2LMRTma

You Can’t Be a Wimp — Make the Tough Calls, https://ift.tt/2b6Nyum

How to structure your day better, https://ift.tt/2xvNRN0

The Management Center, Check-Ins, http://www.managementcenter.org/tools/check-ins/