What's up, Toby? Hey, man. Happy Friday. No,
we made it more week. Another week. We're getting
close to a year. I know. Can you imagine that?
Episode 51. I love it. Pretty exciting. 51. Let's
go. What's on your mind? Today's topic. Have
you ever been in a corporation where your colleagues
or maybe you have said, you know what we need?
We need more communication. Actually, hold on.
Let me stop there. A better question is, have
you ever been in a group where that has not been
a topic of conversation? Yeah. Has anybody ever
asked me to not communicate or to communicate
less? I've been asked to hold my opinions or
keep them to multiple. I've been asked to think
before I speak. Some of these were younger career
versions. Oh, you know, you know, Chris, it's
it's funny though, because usually when we have
a communication problem, we think it's a lack
of communication. Yes. Right. So it's usually
an ask for more. Correct. There's a question
behind your question, which is always what I
love digging into. Well, what brought this to
mind this week? It sounds like there's something
kind of I mean, I don't know if it was this week,
but I just I've been I've been trying, you know,
we talk a lot about meetings. Maybe I've got
a maybe we've got a problem with meetings, but
I was I was in and I was, you know, we had an
all hands or whatever and we were, you know,
talking and it, this topic just seems to come
up. And I don't, I think what's interesting about
this is it's an under something underlying is
broken. Yeah. And, but the response is more meetings
that are structured in the same way that aren't
necessarily giving the quote -unquote communication
that the people are expecting. So it's not even
that they need more communications, it's that
they don't understand what they are hearing.
Yeah, yeah. And they can't make sense of it.
Like you can't just raise your hand and say,
you know what, I've been here for 15 years and
I actually don't know where I fit in this org
anymore. Like you can't, you can't. Maybe that's
the honest conversation a lot of people need
to have. I think that's probably really true.
I've been sitting in a meeting for a year and
I don't know why. Or we talk about things that
don't seem to have anything to do with creating
value for our customers. Why are we talking about
this? But those are impolite things to say. And
also they can be career limiting, right? My favorite
is when you have that, like that coworker that
just is not afraid or is unaware of their career
and limited questions. And it's like, Oh, get
your popcorn. Johnny's going to play something.
In the bullpen. Here they come. Here it goes.
Yeah. You know, Chris, I think that this idea
of for all of the written messaging and all of
the discussions and conversations. We often fail
to provide the most basic context to let people
kind of land in a discussion. So I go back and
I know you and I've talked about it a lot probably
on this podcast too, but it begins with what
is the purpose of a meeting? And then you remind
people even while we're there and the further
people are from the day -to -day activities of
that group or that purpose. It's really hard
to fly in to your fifth meeting in a day and
remember what the hell the agenda is about. And
we do that to our decision makers all the time.
So why did they make such bad decisions? Well,
they tried to make a decision based on what we
presented them with. Well, what's interesting
is like, I think when people want communication,
it's like, look, where do I fit? Where are we
headed? Right. How do we align? And the reality
is like, if The communication is meeting the
audience, which I think sometimes is hard, right?
Nothing's been more frustrating in my career
when I'm Building this PowerPoint and I think
you know, like there's you know There's been
a couple times where I build like this kind of
snarky funny a little bit Sarcastic PowerPoint
and my boss has been who's your audience and
I'm like executives and then I'm like, well,
that's just dumb like that's not gonna land well
like But, but, but I think the same is true,
like for us, like sometimes we, we aren't, we
are too afraid to, or we don't slow down enough
because what we're asking for is if what I heard,
right? So when you're saying communication, it's
like, if what I heard could align with what I'm
doing for 40 plus hours a week, that I wouldn't
need any communication. You wouldn't actually
even really need any meetings. Truly. I think
too, so many stakeholders, you may be in the
middle of a project or your functional area,
the work that you do has a scope, but people
that ask for more communication have a different
purpose. They're trying to translate from your
outcome to how they're impacted by the work you're
doing. But we don't always, we have a hard time
communicating about communicating. The other
reason why I thought of this is I just finished
a book on, forget what it was on. It was on regret.
And it talked about no regrets. And so it talks
about tattoos and people have no regrets. And
then this guy did this world regret. survey where
he basically asked people. And people would say
the same thing, but the underlying motivation
of why they did the same thing is completely
different, right? One might be a missed opportunity
and it wasn't courageous, right? Whereas the
other one, you know, literally same decision,
but it wasn't necessarily courageous. It was
just more about, you know, I chose security,
right? Because that was more important. And so
it just made me think about this. And I think
part of it was I was reading the book on regret,
and then the next day I have a meeting, and people
in the meeting are asking for something that
they're not really going to get if you just do
more, right? More emails doesn't actually make
us... better It's true I I think For those people
that are still foolish enough to be engaged in
social media and I count myself among them you
know, there's there'll be a series of memes that
come across and then and we all know that the
algorithm is dialed so that whatever is is You
know capturing your attention. It's gonna flood
you with more of that. Yeah And so of late, you
know, there's certainly been things about about
just healthier living, but also, you know, better
being in a better mind space. Yep. And one of
the memes that keeps coming up is this idea of
like, happy people do less, but they do it more
effectively. Right. They lean into a smaller
set of things and get very focused instead of
trying to truck all over God's green earth and
do seven hundred. And I feel like to your point
in 40 hours, it could either feel like I have
nothing to do because I did one. Or it could
be, oh my God, I've got 70 ,000 things to do.
Truthfully, I think my sweet spot is about a
dozen tasks a day at one material thing. Because
it gives me enough to feel like I have to be
on point and track through things. I want to
be able to lean into one juicy thing and that's
the thing I take away for the day. Yeah. You
know, give or take, right? It varies. But, and,
and so I think when we were being asked for more
communication, a lot of times somebody's only
told us they've repeated the message poorly.
I don't know how many times that happens. Like
the kids game telephone, telephone, where you
whisper and the message comes around and it's
so wrong. But I feel like that's adulting writ
large. It's all story poems and versions of telephone
telephone. Yeah, no, for sure. And I think where
this is important is oftentimes the broken process
is so far away from our awareness that we don't
even actually know what to ask. So other things
that people ask is, we need better tools. It's
like, do you really? Or do you need people to,
do you need to be more aligned? Corporately or
from a department standpoint like we're working
too many hours Right or we don't have enough
resources Like those are all things where it's
like what what what part of the process is broken
and I guarantee you that something's broken Yeah,
and so Did we talk about mine? We talked a little
bit about vibe coping vibe coding a couple. Yeah,
one of the things that I built and I On that
yeah one of things that I built that I want to
publish and I need to figure out how to publish
it and not Cost myself a bunch of money because
it does use AI which you know sure it's pennies,
but like if this thing's takes off I don't want
to have you know yeah, you know all sorts of
stuff, but but basically it's out It's the five
wise But it's five wise for teams right so And
so like this again is like okay Why do we need
more communication? Right? So the way that this
works is like you would basically, you would
enter a room, right? And that in that room, you
would give everybody the room key and they would
basically answer that question. Well, why, right?
And so you have everybody in your team, like
you got 17. Well, why do we need more communication?
And you get five, you get, you know, however
many people on your team respond to that. The
AI actually takes all of those responses, asks
three more questions. the team gets to pick the
next question and you ask that and you figure
out five times. Because I think so often we think
we're doing work because we have to do what is
socially acceptable, but we actually don't really
know why I think a lot. Boy, that's true. We
want, we want a sense of purpose. Yeah, for sure.
I think we're so true. And so what can be a bigger
grind than performing tasks that lack purpose?
We don't understand the why behind. all this
effort. Chris, what a great way to charter a
project. When you first pull a group of stakeholders
together to talk about embarking on some effort,
the frustration maybe felt in little ways across
several people, but it doesn't feel material
enough to come together and invest all this time
because we're only seeing a little piece of it.
You raised a really interesting question about
How do we bring people together for shared perspective?
And what is that necessary? Is it when we begin?
Is it every time we meet? Yeah. And really, really
the point of this podcast is not really, it's
not like, you know, go and change the world,
right? This is really like, figure out the why.
Like dig deep, dig below the patent safe response.
and really think why. And I think, because I've
thought a lot about the word communication, and
I think it's like, look, I'm not aligned is really
ultimately what it's saying, or I'm not sure
if I'm aligned. And so, and how do we align as
an org to the corporate goal? Because no one
wants to be like this person that's out in left
field trying to figure out what's going on, playing
the wrong, you know. they're playing baseball
and everybody else is playing soccer. Like no
one wants to do that, but I think sometimes work
feels that way. And so our response, and really
the politically safe thing to say is we need
more communication, right? But you're going to
get the same communication in the same way, unless
management changes it. And so then you continue
to ask, we need more communication. And then
it's this cycle that basically no one's actually
being fulfilled. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody
is still frustrated. Oh, yeah. So I love this
thought about how we interrupt, you know, the
question. Sometimes it's also the question behind
the question. So somebody says they make it a
statement. We need to increase the communication
or I need more frequency or more detail. But
instead of just complying and guessing at what
they need, I don't know that. My experience has
always been that people have sought clarity about
what's missing before they just start adding
to the pile. So meetings go from once a week
to twice a week, but we don't understand what
the focusing gap was. So your Y focus is a really
great call out here. It's just until we can read
minds and stop pretending that we do. We're gonna
have these these missing elements. So yeah, it's
interesting like I think I think the other thing
that I've been thinking about is like productivity
like productivity shows up in my app all day
every day And I've just I've been thinking about
that. Like does it really matter? And what I
mean by that is like, okay, I Can do more tasks
in a thing, but if those tasks aren't aligned
if they aren't solving a problem in the market
then what is the point of doing more of those
menial tasks that basically make me feel like
I'm doing work? Yeah. Does it matter if you did
700 things today? It didn't matter to you or
that you did one thing that mattered? Correct.
And I think, you know, I don't know if it's COVID
or if it's the fact that we've lost our ability
to focus. But we have replaced lots of little
non like non repeatable tasks with something
that can be kissed consistent and known. And
I don't I don't have the solution to that. I
just I mean, I mean, well, oh, shoot. I know.
Oh, I guess. I mean, if you're a manager and
you have some sort of authority, you can run
your meetings. Yeah. Right. I would say leadership
is situational, right? And so if you're convening
people, it's not just an opportunity. I think
it's an obligation to tell them why they're there
and what the intention is and what the desired
outcome is. Have you ever, random thought, have
you ever gone to a Toastmasters meeting? I have
not. I was in Toastmasters for probably two or
three years and I've been in a couple other other
organizations that are similar, that are business
focused. Yeah. But it's very interesting in that
like they have the same repetitive, boring meeting
notes, right? It's like, Hey, can someone read
the mission? And you're just like our mission
and it's on the paper and you read what the paper
says. And then you're like, this is this person,
this person's doing this role. And they're it's
I'm kind of stumbling here, but when I've been
in those meetings, there is this sense of calm
in knowing that every single time it's going
to be the same. The speakers might be different,
right? You're still going to have the certain,
you know, what's funny about Toastmasters is
they'll count your ahs and ums and all of your
little things, you know, and it's funny. I thought
I was such a better speaker. And they're like,
Chris, you said 24 times in five minutes. And
you're like, oh, man, that stinks. But again,
it's really all about the practice and getting
better at speaking. And I think in business,
if you have the authority to make the changes
to the meetings, run the meetings. Run them well.
Most of them are consistent. Make sure that everybody
knows why you're doing the meeting. And make
sure that that Y makes sense to the people that
are attending. Because if it doesn't, then people
ask for more communication. You will have more
distracted me's. The other thing that I've noticed,
I don't know if you've seen this, but if you
watch Zoom meetings, well, or I guess Teams has
this feature where you can show up to 50 people
in kind of a room. It sets them up in chairs
and stuff. It's actually fairly cool. But I caught
myself watching people be distracted today earlier
this week. And I was like, that's interesting.
We want more communication. We want to go to
a meeting so that we can all check our phones
or do our email or whatever. I'm like, just show
up. I love that. I'll tell you. I don't remember
if I'd mentioned her before, it's a friend here
in the Portland, Oregon area named Elise Keith.
And she and her husband co -founded a company
called Lucid Meetings, probably a decade ago
now. But Elise, in their work to build a better
software solution for online meetings and meeting
management, she did this incredible deep dive
into the... you know, what is the schema and
organizational structure and the types of meeting?
What are components of all this? And so she's,
gosh, it's probably been, it was pre -COVID that
I want to say that she published her book, but
this idea of what is the anatomy of a healthy
meeting and then meeting with purpose. was really
beautiful approach. And so I've continued to
use that. Oftentimes it's not that it's new information
that we don't have, it's that we don't think
about the context. And so a lot of these skills,
but we don't think about the context that people
are bringing to our conversations. And so run
it like you own it, run it like it matters. For
sure. All right, man, we made it through another
episode. Indeed, sir. Thank you. It's been a
good year one. I appreciate your conversation.
Absolutely. Next week, it's 52. We will have
a year in the blurbs. We'll put a bow on it.
All right, man. See you then. Talk to you later.
Bye.