Leaders! If you want a high performing team, stop bombarding them with meetings!
In this episode of [Podcast Name], we’re tackling one of the most dreaded yet essential aspects of leadership: meetings. Are your meetings leaving your team energized and aligned, or are they draining morale and productivity? Lyndsey and Briony break it all down in Part 1 of a two-part series designed to revolutionize your meeting culture.
Key Highlights:
The Problem with Meetings Today: From meaningless jargon like “bird tables” and “hot washes” to a lack of clarity, many meetings fail to deliver real value. Lyndsey shares a shocking story about a leader so fatigued by meetings they resisted hosting a team meeting altogether.
The Importance of Purpose: Meetings with clear goals and structured agendas can foster creativity, connection, and impactful decision-making within teams.
The 4 Must-Have Meetings for Leaders:
One-to-Ones: Weekly or bi-weekly check-ins to build trust, provide tailored support, and align on individual goals.
Weekly Team Meetings: A time to collaborate, solve challenges, and reinforce shared goals (leave the “checklist reviews” at the door!).
Quarterly Reviews and Goal-Setting: Two sessions per quarter to reflect on successes, analyze learnings, and set achievable objectives as a team.
Cascade Meetings: Efficiently share essential corporate updates and connect team efforts to larger organizational goals. This can be done as a meeting, email, or even a vlog—adapt it to fit your team!
Why This Episode is a Must-Listen:
If you’re a leader drowning in a sea of unproductive meetings or struggling to establish a rhythm that fosters connection and accountability, this episode offers a simple, actionable framework to transform your approach. With clear strategies and practical examples, Lyndsey and Briony show you how to build a meeting culture that drives results without overwhelming your calendar.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll help you prioritize meetings and regain control of your schedule.
This episode is packed with actionable insights to help leaders streamline their meeting culture while fostering deeper team connections. Subscribe, review, and share to help more leaders Lead the Room with clarity and confidence!
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Full transcript
LeadTheRoom (00:00.238)
Welcome to the Lead the Room podcast, where we help those with great ideas and brilliant minds to become amazing leaders and build teams full of purpose, connection, creativity and courage, transforming people's experience of workplaces and leadership. In 2018, we decided that the leadership playbook we saw around us wasn't working for the needs of our teams and our organisations or frankly for us.
So we ripped it up, built a new one and watched the incredible impact that came from leading in a completely counter-cultural way. This journey transformed our experience of work, team culture, delivery and felt so, good to us. And our approach has served us and our teams in the good times and the tough times alike. So now we're here to share our stories and experiences with you all so you can become the leader you want to be. Build teams that deliver amazing things in amazing environments.
and inspire those around you to do the same. You and your leadership are what our workplace and people desperately need. We'll be laughing, crying and learning together. So let's get started. Dear Bryony, please come to our new weekly bird table. Please come prepared with your crumbs as we're all going to have a peck. Kind regards, Lindsay. Dear Lindsay, I have no idea what a bird table is, so I'm going to decline this. Warmest wishes, Bryony.
And that is an actual invite. I was invited to a bird table, which is in fact a meeting. What on earth, Briony? mean, name a weirder meeting you've been invited to. I don't think I've been invited to a weirder one than a bird table. But I do think that the moment you become a leader or, you know, or you step up into like more senior leadership, like your inbox gets flooded with these like weird invitations, you know, like
hustles, thought showers, deep dives, fireside chats, synergy sessions, sprints, know, circle backs, you know, hot washes. That is another one. I'm like, what am I meant to bring my washing in? I'll bring in the wipes. You know, like, no, I don't want to come to your hot wash. What's going to happen to me at the hot wash? You know, the list just goes on. Like it's really wild.
LeadTheRoom (02:24.974)
It's really wild. It's not okay. It's not okay. No, it's not okay. And then, you know, the meeting, the volume of meetings, like suddenly it goes from like zero to a hundred and your week is consumed by these weird and wild meetings that you're not really sure what they are. You're wondering whether you're going to get, whether you're going to do any work at them and when you're going to do the other things that you really care about. And
You know, you've just got no sense with these meetings that are coming into your inbox of like, what must you do? Where should you prioritize your time? And so you just like, you end up going to the mall, don't you? Yeah. It's just mad, isn't it? Like you say, think particularly when you first joined the DT team as well, it's very hard, isn't it, to discern like what you should be going to and what you shouldn't be going to. And that, and then you just go to everything to begin with, because you feel like you have to be seen. Yeah. So many issues in that.
the meeting culture. So today's episode is actually two-parter. So the first one on meetings this week, we're going to speak about the meetings that you need as an actual team. And then next week we'll focus on how you actually prioritize the stuff that you're invited to, because that is really tricky. Right. Exactly, Lindsay. And so back to the jargon, you know, these bird tables, the hustle, the hot wash.
I mean, some of these things make sense, but some of them are just confusing to me. And I really am a firm believer that the meeting just needs to like do what it says it's going to do. You know, you don't need a fancy label to entice people to come along. Like if the meeting is good, you're going to get things done. People are going to feel this value in it. Like you don't need a fancy title like that, given how low the bar is for meetings. If you can run a good meeting.
people are gonna wanna come and they're feel like it's a good use of their time. And just to be clear, I know there's a lot of research out there about different methodologies and some of which you have all these naming conventions, Agile and Sprints and all that kind of stuff. And there's research that shows that they do really work and they do deliver results. So I'm not saying I'm against all of these different titles, but what I am saying is that if as a team,
LeadTheRoom (04:40.618)
It takes longer to explain the framework, what the words mean and what the meeting's about than actual time spent discussing the thing. That's where things have gone wrong. I think that's where organizations, they think that this new system of meetings is going to revolutionize how their organizational culture, the delivery in their teams. I've seen a lot of this with Agile, but it's not when...
half or two thirds of the meeting is just helping people understand like, so this is a scrum, what's that? And explaining that, or this is the standup, what are we doing here? If you can't be clear on what the purpose is, why people are there and what they're there to do and what they need to bring, then you're wasting your time with these fancy words. A fancy word is not gonna fix the problem. Yeah. And I feel like people just came along to the bird table because they were interested what the flipping bird table was.
Or maybe they said, it's like people putting in the invite, like, there'll be treats, there'll be cakes. And then, know, people are just going to the meeting for the cakes, right? They're not actually going. Was there any cake at the bird table? Because if there was, I feel like I would have come. But I feel like there was no cake at the bird table. Wasn't even a granola bar or anything like that. There was nothing. there was not a seed. It was awful. Anyway, so I had, this could blow your mind, Briony, a recent experience that I had.
which was a really good insight into actually how that leader was feeling probably about the volume and like utility of the meetings that they were attending and contributing to. So when members of the team had actually asked, they had to ask to have a team meeting. There wasn't one already in the calendar, which you kind of, again, is definitely the responsibility of the leader to put that appointment in the diary and there wasn't one in there. So members of the team said, look, can we have a team meeting?
And the response that they received rather than that, gosh, you would expect like, gosh, I'll get that in the diary. Sorry, it must have fallen out. No, no, it hadn't fallen out. The reply was quite lengthy and said that they were feeling overburdened with meetings and they felt very repetitive and they really didn't need another one in their calendar, which was quite a shocking response to say.
LeadTheRoom (06:59.286)
I don't want to have a team meeting with my own team. I've already got far too many and I just feel like I'm saying the same things in each meeting. Now, if you were going to prioritize one meeting, surely it would be the team meeting, but they were obviously just so fatigued by meetings, they couldn't even comprehend another meeting. So what they did agree to was they said, we will host a team meeting, but on a trial basis, after six weeks, we will decide as a team whether it's actually useful.
I mean, have you ever heard that, Bryony? I haven't, but you can, gosh, there's a lot in there, isn't there? And you feel for this poor person because you're like, they're just trying to manage their time in the face of the meeting overwhelmed that we all have. Like they're trying to prioritize. They're feeling frustrated is what I hear in terms of these meetings are a waste of my time. I don't want another waste of my time meeting.
But then the message that they're sending you as a team is, therefore I'm not going to cut another one of the waste of time meetings so I can prioritize supporting and spending time with you as my team because that's really valuable. I'm cutting you. And that is really the impact on you. It must have made you feel quite devalued and demotivated, I imagine. I think, to be honest, I think the overarching feeling was just shock. Yeah.
is that genuinely just happened? Like I've never heard, I've never ever experienced that. But like you said, it spoke volumes for their kind of state that they were in in terms of their capacity, their ability, like all those different things. I think in today's culture, you can totally see that happening. But again, back to like what actually matters as a leader, like you're nothing without your team. So if you're to have one meeting,
It's the one we're going to tell you about today. But I think that's why we split this episode up into two parts, isn't it? Because there's one thing about that structure and that routine and rhythm of meetings that you really need as a team, which we're going to talk through today. But then there's also making sure that you've actually got the capacity in your week to prioritize, be intentional about how you're using it and can actually get the other things that you need to do done.
LeadTheRoom (09:17.838)
which is what we're going to be talking about next week. So, you know, that poor person, your poor boss, who's like struggling with all of those meetings he's got on his calendar needs to get rid of them. And that's what we're going to talk about that a bit next week. So the first meeting that you need in your life as a leader is, you're not going to be surprised because we've spoken about it before. It's the one-to-one. You must have your one-to-ones in the calendar. Don't let them fall out. Don't let them fall out. And so,
We've got an entire episode on this in episode four. So go back and listen to that if you like. And we've also got a whole step-by-step guide on how to set up and run really productive and amazing one-to-ones in our 90 day leadership refresh guide, which you can get for free by rating and reviewing the podcast and sending us a screenshot to hello at leadtheroom.co.uk. So I like to put my one-to-ones in every week or every fortnight. It really depends on what your team is like.
And the purpose of these should be to build an environment where they can bring the stuff they're finding hard because you've got that safety, that trust and connection in the relationships. They can bring the stuff that they're finding hard to build connection, to understand their passions, their values, their aspirations, to check in on growth and accountability and to really support them in their learning. So I put in half an hour with most of my staff, either every week, some of them I do every other week because you know, they're
you know, more autonomous and they don't need as much support. But, and if I need to reschedule them because of inevitable clashes, I will always try and do that. But either way, I'm trying to make sure that I'm seeing them each at least twice a month. So that's the first meeting that you need in your life as a team and as a leader, it's the one-to-one. Exactly. So the second meeting that you want going to want to put in your diary for your team is your team meeting.
Now we think that you should have a team meeting every week. I suppose it depending on the size of your team. You might think differently, but yeah, every week for us at Lead the Room. And the purpose of this meeting, again, as Bryony says, the title should be like, it should have a purpose. You need to know why you're turning up to that meeting, not to find out what the meeting structure is about. Purpose is to bring your team together around your shared goals. And it is an opportunity for you all
LeadTheRoom (11:38.398)
not to do that kind of round robbing of your checklist that we've spoken about before, who's got the longest to do list. But it's really to talk about the challenges that you're facing and the updates in your delivery and to build team connection and mutual support. And you really do that by teasing out kind of the challenges that people are having. It's like we say, it's not just about the checklist. It's about specific who can help me in this room. I'm having this issue. Right, Briony, has anyone else got experience in this? Who can help me in this area?
And you really do build that support network together. And it goes right back to those shared goals that we're trying to achieve as a team, not individuals. having that conversation also unlocks a real sense of creativity in the team as well, doesn't it? So you get both the connection bit and you also get the creativity bit because they're learning and growing with each other. Definitely. And one great way to tap into kind of the connection, a bit of courage, a bit of fun as well is
by getting everyone in the team to share a win and a woe and a learning for the week. So it's a really good one to get everyone involved, particularly if you feel like there's people who dominate the room, who are a bit quieter. So everyone has the opportunity to really kind of be proud of what they've done that week, celebrate something that they've done that they're celebrating. Something that's not gone so well, a of a woe or just a bit of a frustration.
And again, something they're learning. So by asking that kind of question again about like, what are you learning this week? You are immediately creating that culture. You're that kind of, then you're creating that expectation that you as a team are continually learning. And that's a really subtle, but important and powerful way to do that in your team. And how they can help each other through the walls. It's an amazing way to be like, I'm having issues with this or I'm struggling with this. This is frustrating me.
It's a great opportunity for people to jump in and say, I've had issues with that before. I'll help you out when we get back to our desks. And you're immediately creating that connection, which can be really wonderful to see as a leader. then the third meeting that you need in your life as a team is a quarterly review and goal setting meeting. And again, there's a whole, we've got a whole step-by-step, really thorough guide in our 90 day leadership reset package, which you can get for free when you're to review the podcast. So really encourage you to do that because everything you need to run.
LeadTheRoom (14:01.922)
This is going to be in there and it's going to be really fab for you. But in essence, this is two meetings. So the first one, they're happening once a quarter. And the first one is to review the progress, to celebrate, learn and grow together, reviewing the progress over the last quarter. So really thinking about what are the successes? What are the wins? Learning, where did you maybe not meet the goals that you had and why was that? What happened?
And then finally growing, like where have we committed to learning and personal development over the last quarter? How did that go? What do we want to focus on growing together as a team over the next quarter? So that's the review meeting. And then you've got the setting the goals for the next quarter together. And so that one is about brainstorming together and then deciding what goals you're going to have for the next quarter, making sure that you're not going to overcommit yourself and overstretch and really embedding some team accountability.
into that process from which you can kind of get some individual goals. But if you want the whole step-by-step process, then you're going to want our 90-day leadership refresh guide. Yeah. And I absolutely love this framework. And like Brian here says, in that 90-day leadership refresh guide, it is packed with kind of guidance and templates on how you do this. It really kind of impact how your team operates and the results that you have.
And then the final meeting is the Cascade meeting. And there's a couple of different ways that you can run this, but this meeting is about, as a leader, cascading the kind of corporate messages, keynotes, key information, and other items of news that will be important to your team, cascading that and sharing that to your team and being able to connect the work of your team to those wider corporate objectives. And so I think there are a few different
ways that this could look like. Like it doesn't have to be a meeting per se. In my team, like we run it as a standup. So once a week we'll get together and I'll do like a 20 minute cascade. We'll do some wins to celebrate things and then we'll all get on with our day. And that's a good connective way because we're quite distributed. Like it's quite a good way to get people together. But in other teams, I've seen people do it like as an email actually. And so what they ask people to do is to make sure on a Friday, for example,
LeadTheRoom (16:17.208)
that they grab a coffee and they sit down and read the email for 20 minutes and people have a commitment to doing that. You could do it on Teams, you could write it in the Slack channel, you could do it as like a vlog or like a little podcast for your team, depends how innovative you want to be with it. But it doesn't have to be an in-person meeting, but it is a kind of meeting function that you need in your team because you need as a leader to be able to A, connect the work they're doing back into kind of wider corporate goals.
but B, to make sure that the corporate messages that are going to be important for your team and important for the organization get cascaded to them. I actually do love that your team asked you to introduce that though. Yeah, well, we did a sort of, as a team, we did a ways of working review and actually I asked two of my senior leaders to look at that because I just felt like as a team, we had got to the point where we had like about six or seven different team meetings in the calendar.
And it just wasn't working for us and that purpose for each one just wasn't clear. And so people weren't able to show up and contribute impactfully. They weren't sure what was expected of them at each one. And on top of that, I think people were just feeling like, gosh, I've got three team meetings this week, but what's the difference between them? Like, it's not a good use of my time. So we did a bit of a whole review of it as a team. And, and my brilliant leaders came up with this structure, like we've got the cascade meeting. We've got this.
kind of the quarterly thing, obviously you've got the one-to-ones and then we've got the team meeting, which we're resetting the purpose of in this way. And so it's been really good because it feels like it's really streamlined and everybody knows when they come to each of the meetings, like what the purpose is, why they're there, what preparation they need to do beforehand. I love it. It's been great. Yeah, they're expecting to hear from that meeting. So Lindsay, that's the four meetings that you need in your life as a leader.
Can you just like, it's so simple. It's so simple. It's not going to take up 17 hours of your week. It's really clear. It's really structured. The purpose is there. If you implement this framework, your team, you're to have loads of great connection in your team. You're going to feel much more like you've got it as a leader and you're going to feel like you've got a load of time back too. Yeah. So no bird washes, no, no bird wash. So no bird, those are hot washes in sight.
LeadTheRoom (18:36.93)
which is wonderful. You don't need fancy titles. Just like you said, just say what it is. Like if you have to entice your team to your meeting, something is going wrong. Exactly. Just call it the weekly team meeting. It doesn't need a fancy title. OK, so at the end of every episode, we have our feature of Walk the Week, which is all about things we're celebrating, learning and growing.
So Bryony, kick us off with what you're celebrating this week, please. Well, this week I'm celebrating actually what we've just been talking about is that, like I said, a few weeks, a few months ago, we put in a new kind of rhythm and routine and schedule for our team meetings and how we gather and how we infuse purpose into that and connection and creativity. And I got some really good feedback from the team this week about how the positive impact that it's had and how it's brought us together more as a team that they feel
like the time is well spent and purposeful, but they're really enjoying the connection and the vulnerability that they're able to, we've built in the meeting so they feel they're more able to open up and share things and lean on each other. So I was just, feel really proud of that actually, like the work that we've done as a team and it's really paid off. Yeah, that's brilliant. And I think to my example, I'm very proud because we've actually got, we survived the six week review.
The six week audit, we obviously showed that it was a value and we're still going strong with our team meeting, which I never thought I'd be celebrating the fact that a team meeting was still in the diary. But on a, like, I guess on a more serious note, like it did, it has obviously brought us together as a team. And actually even just that insight into how the leader of our team was feeling in terms of that, just feeling that overwhelm. And we know how that feels, that overwhelm, that feeling is awful.
And now actually we can really tap into that in the meeting and instantly allows us to be like, well, how can we support you this week? How can you support us? So it's not just sometimes I think people think that you as the leader are there with kind of the magic wand that you're there to help everyone. Well, but you as the leader need help. Like it's not, it's to be two ways. So I actually think like for pretty rocky start and an odd start to those team meetings, it has actually worked in our favor as a team.
LeadTheRoom (21:00.142)
So what about learning, Brian Eve? What are you learning this week? Well, so I've been trying to get this new, quite innovative, quite disruptive project off the ground. And it's definitely the right thing to do, but it is hard going. And it's just a reminder of like when you're doing those countercultural, like disruptive things, and even though they might be the right things, when you're hitting up against all these like systemic...
barriers and issues, it can just feel so frustrating. And I have really had this sense of like rising frustration this week. And I've just had to really manage my emotions so that it doesn't boil over. And then I contribute to making the problem worse. Yeah. Yeah. But it's been hard. It's been hard. And often in those situations, people give up quite quickly. Yeah.
Yeah, because it's hard. Yeah. This week, I have been actually having some issues building a bit of a relationship, bit of a connection with a team. And it was kind of getting to me. Like, they just weren't very responsive. I just couldn't really understand why they weren't kind of biting my hand off to have a meeting to talk about this one about our project.
I was almost like just, I was being a bit persistent and kind of just like kind of pushing like, come on, respond to me. Like, let's speak about this. And rather than just keep going, as I was getting, like my patience was getting kind of shorter, I thought, do you know what? This is actually a good opportunity just to take a step back and do a little bit of an audit of what is going on here. It's not just, they're not reading my, like, why are they not responding to me? What's at play here? Is my approach...
correct for the type of team? Like, could I go and find out a bit more information about this team, the personalities in it? Is there a different approach to take? So rather than just kind of being like headstrong, just come on, let's get on, I need to build this connection. Being a bit more thoughtful in my approach, doing a bit of research. So yeah, that's kind of, I've learned that it's okay to stop. You might need to stop and pause and do bit of an audit before you can actually take that next step forward. Yeah.
LeadTheRoom (23:18.604)
I think sometimes these things are a great moment, aren't they, to pause. I think that really builds into where I feel like I'm trying to grow this week because in the same way as you, I feel like I'm hitting up against these systemic problems on this project. I don't want my frustration to spill into things and make the situation more difficult for myself. I'm really trying to see it as an invitation to connect with the people who don't really...
who may be showing up as like difficult or like hard or, and I just want to understand like what's going on for them? Like, why don't they feel energized by this idea? What problems, what flaws can they see? And then really using it to connect with them and go from there. Yeah, it's such an important, I'm sure that will resonate with so many listeners. my growth this week, Briony. So we've spoken before and we speak a lot about kind of healthy habits for resilience as a leader.
person and sleep being a huge one. And now I can't even say it's because my baby's up all night. He's not, he's a wonderful little sleeper, but I am really struggling with sleep and I have tried so, so many different things and I've been really kind of, I think I feel like I've been quite like experimental with lots of the things and different approaches to getting better sleep and they're just not working.
And I really feel like it's impacting me, not just in terms of like, I guess my energy, my resilience, but I'm now getting into my own head about it. Like, why can't I sleep? Is this, is it going to be like this forever? Like what's wrong? So yeah, I think I just, I've been speaking to a couple of people and just some reading some different things and almost just trying to, this sounds weird, but I'm almost trying to take the pressure off sleeping.
Because when you put that pressure on you to be like, I must get this sleep, I must get sleep. Then you just don't, then it's worse. So I just feel like I'm totally in my head. And I'm just trying to really go quite wide with my kind of research and options for kind of helping my sleep. Because it's really easy to say, prioritise sleep. But if you're someone who really struggles to sleep.
LeadTheRoom (25:41.24)
That is actually a point. That's a hard thing to do, isn't it? It is really hard. like, know, Lindsay, we've spoken personally about like my struggles with sleep, particularly when I came back from parental leave, because you just got so much on your mind, haven't you? And it like, but you're right, it really starts to just wear you down. Like just don't feel like yourself. And so I really, love that you're trying to prioritize just getting it sorted out, but really try and take the pressure off in the way that you do it. So everything crossed that.
you know, over the next week, things feel a bit better. I hope so. Fabulous. So we really hope that was useful and we'd love to hear how you're getting on with this, how you're trying it out, how you're implementing it. But please get back to your laptops, get back to your computers and delete all of those meetings that you just think, I don't need them. We need these four meetings as a team. And this is going to revolutionize how we connect and how we deliver as a team.
Let us know how you get on by dropping us a DM on Instagram, sending us an email at hello at leadtheroom.co.uk or leave us a comment on YouTube. We will see you next week for Meetings Part 2. Until next time, keep experimenting and we'd love to hear how you're getting on. Take care. Bye.
team full of purpose and results, people who are buzzing with ideas and the courage to try them out, and a place where you and the team can't wait for the weekly meeting. By listening to this episode, you are building your skills to become the leader that can make all of this and more happen. But we want to hear from you. Tag us in your stories, send us a DM about your walk the week on Instagram so we can learn what's resonating with you most. And if you're up for helping us out and taking a moment to rate and review the podcast,
Send us a screenshot to hello at leadtheroom.co.uk so we can send you our 90-day leadership refresh as a thank you. Keep experimenting and we can't wait to see you next week.
