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Hello and welcome to the Skirt Strategies podcast, the podcast to help you get the support, validation, and skills you need to accomplish your goals and really succeed in a male-dominated world, all without having to give up your incredible female strengths.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another podcast of Skirt Strategies for women in leadership.<\/p>\n

Katie: Skirt Strategies podcast \u2013 another installment.<\/p>\n

Carol: Of Skirt Strategies the book, Tip Number 8.<\/p>\n

Katie: I\u2019m Katie.<\/p>\n

Carol: And I\u2019m Carol.<\/p>\n

Katie: Bringing to you some tips as women in leadership. Tip Number 8.<\/p>\n

Carol: Set an example of always being punctual to meetings as well as starting and ending your meetings on time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Katie: This is a very straightforward tip. It\u2019s not very interesting. All you have to do is go do it, which is why we are adding Number 9 onto this. So 8 and 9 in this episode \u2013<\/p>\n

Carol: Yes so 9 is respect other\u2019s time by always having an agenda at meetings<\/em>. So 8 and 9 really go together. It has to do with respecting other people\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t care if you are always late to your \u2013<\/p>\n

Katie: To your own meeting?<\/p>\n

Carol: I don\u2019t care if you are late when you get home. I think it is very, very important that if you have an appointment, you are on time.<\/p>\n

Katie: Don\u2019t you get a little edgy if you are running late?<\/p>\n

Carol: I get horrified.<\/p>\n

Katie: If somebody is waiting on me I don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

Carol: My father was a marine sergeant so we were on time always.<\/p>\n

Katie: Did you also have your phones out on rings, so that they rang in the middle of a podcast?<\/p>\n

Katie: Oh I threw you under the bus.<\/p>\n

Carol: You just did.<\/p>\n

Katie: I am so sorry. I think there\u2019s a tip about that.<\/p>\n

Katie: That\u2019s entertaining. Don\u2019t insult somebody in public.<\/p>\n

Katie: We\u2019re not in public. It\u2019s just you and me in this room together.<\/p>\n

Some of the tips in Skirt Strategies are more practical. Some of them are kind of lofty. Some of them are quirky. Some of them are, think about this. This is one of those practical ones.<\/p>\n

Carol: Yes, professional.<\/p>\n

Katie: Professional and practical. You may know it but maintaining it, sustaining, keep on doing it, sometimes you need to hear it and get it repeated. That\u2019s what this is about.<\/p>\n

Somebody counted up for me, you\u2019ve probably seen this done before but let\u2019s say you call a meeting of the managers in your organization or a team or it doesn\u2019t matter, and there are ten people in a room for three hours. That\u2019s 30 hours of man hours, or ten women hours because we are more effective. I\u2019ll backtrack on that. That\u2019s 30 people hours. That\u2019s pretty expensive. And what if two or three of them didn\u2019t need to be there? You\u2019ve really wasted their time.<\/p>\n

So when I do some bigger corporation stuff, Fortune 500 or bigger companies, it\u2019s funny because a VP is seen as walking on water or we\u2019re waiting for the president to come into the meeting and they are just revered like, \u201cOh my God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well for some reason their schedule, and usually they have an admin that keeps them on time very nicely, but I\u2019ve been in meetings before where they were a whole bunch of top level managers waiting for this VP to come in and sometimes we\u2019ll get a massage that says, \u201cJim is running late. He won\u2019t be here for another half an hour.\u201d Now everyone is sitting there for half an hour.<\/p>\n

So Jim\u2019s half an hour is costing ten VP\u2019s around the room, however that\u2019s an exaggeration, but ten VPs around the room at whatever astronomical rate they are paid, why is his half an hour more important?<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m just complaining a little bit.<\/p>\n

Carol: We have some public officials that are consistently late and it\u2019s not fair to hold everybody up because you think you are so important.<\/p>\n

Katie: I do understand that people have crazy schedules and I have had people in very high level say, \u201cYou have no idea what my day is like.\u201d I understand, but I also know those people have a lot of help. Some of them have 2 admins. Once you get up in a big company at a big level, you have a lot of people helping you and you have a lot of people you can delegate to.<\/p>\n

Carol: So at the least, have somebody call and say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m not going to make it on time and is there somebody else that can go on before me to prep the audience or whatever.\u201d I just think no matter how big you are you need to make your schedule.<\/p>\n

And I have to tell everybody that I called you today at 20 minutes until we were going to meet and I said, \u201cOh my God, I am running late. I\u2019ve got a conference call scheduled and I am not going to make it on time.\u201d But I did try to give you some time to \u2013 do as I say, not as I do.<\/p>\n

Katie: It happens.<\/p>\n

Carol: It does happen. I think the least you can do is make that call, give somebody else the heads up, \u201cI\u2019m not going to make it.\u201d It gives you a little more time to do whatever you are doing, sit at your desk and not have to rush to meet me.<\/p>\n

Katie: It\u2019s a good reminder that using an invite in a calendar is a great little tool. I have an appointment tomorrow morning with somebody on our advisory board, Gene Block, wonderful women, and she and I are meeting for coffee and we did that over email. I\u2019m just hoping that she put it on her calendar. I know I have it on my calendar. I should have just sent, one of the two of us, should have initiated a meeting request. The problem is, I don\u2019t know what her technology habits are so I don\u2019t even know if she knows how to use that. My guess is she does.<\/p>\n

Carol: She\u2019s pretty savvy about that, and some people aren\u2019t. What I have come to do now is if I\u2019m on phone with somebody and I\u2019m not necessary in front of a computer, I will ask them if I think they are in front of a computer to sent me an invite or if we are going back and forth about a time, I will say, \u201c2 o\u2019clock on Friday works for me. Send me an invite if it works for you.\u201d That way we don\u2019t go back that extra time and we don\u2019t get it in a schedule.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m getting to the point where I start asking people to send me calendar invites.<\/p>\n

Katie: Then you know they can do it and you can receive it.<\/p>\n

Carol: And if they can\u2019t, I totally understand that but if they can, it gets us both on the same page and we don\u2019t have to think about it again.<\/p>\n

Katie: If you have an iPhone, and you don\u2019t use Siri, I have to tell you it is so easy. If you are one of those people that is listening on an iPhone and you are intimidated by all the options on it, you can hold down that home button for like 3 seconds until you hear this, ding-ding bell and all you have to say is, \u201cSiri, send me a reminder for tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. to call Gene about coffee.\u201d And she understands it.<\/p>\n

Carol: Interesting because she doesn\u2019t understand a freaking thing I say.<\/p>\n

Katie: It\u2019s you.<\/p>\n

Katie: Let\u2019s talk about agenda. That\u2019s a Greek word and the pleural is agenda. Remember I\u2019m cum laude.<\/p>\n

Carol: I\u2019ll never forget now.<\/p>\n

Katie: Never. Agendas don\u2019t have to be, this will sound counter intuitive, agendas don\u2019t have to be well thought out too much.<\/p>\n

Now this is coming from Katie who is the expert at shortcuts, right?<\/p>\n

When I was first doing a whole lot of facilitating with my friends at the Cumberland Group, we\u2019d have classes that we were doing in front of groups and I had a high level of anxiety because I didn\u2019t have a lot of content on the tip of my tongue and I had to stay up at night, the night before and work on, what comes after that, I really had to study.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have to do that so much anymore because I have so much of it in my head, but when I first had to do that, it was a little bit nerve wracking. And then you are a little nervous about am I going to do it the right way and so for the period of time I had a lot of that.<\/p>\n

Then there was a short period of time where business was slow for a couple of months and then I started getting anxiety about getting back into the classroom. So a nightmare that I had the night before getting back into the classroom was that, kind of like the showing up in your underwear thing, but I showed up in a classroom with 20 people, nobody had any books, nobody knew what the topic was, and my facilitation partner was my little sister who has hardly worked a day in her life.<\/p>\n

So there is the ultimate anxiety. In my dream I resolved it by turning to the group and saying, \u201cHere\u2019s our first exercise. I\u2019d like you all to work in some small groups and determine what you think the agenda is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carol: Interesting.<\/p>\n

Katie: It was brilliant, right? My philosophy as a leader of a group taking them through anything is, the answer is almost always with the group. When you are a leader and you\u2019ve got folks reporting to you, if you are in a quandary, they can almost always maybe not give you the right idea, but they\u2019ll give you ideas for how to move things forward.<\/p>\n

So agendas can be the same thing. I will spend, if I end up being in a meeting for some reason and we don\u2019t have an agenda, the group will appreciate listening to, \u201cDoes anyone know what we want to get accomplished today?\u201d<\/p>\n

So spend a couple of minutes asking yourself, what do we want to walk away with? What major elements do we need to talk about? And how much time should we take?<\/p>\n

There will be times when you are in charge of something, a project, if you don\u2019t know that answer ahead of time you really can\u2019t do that until you get in front of the group, just do those three or four questions, and next thing you know, you\u2019ve got something that everybody agrees to. Then you go into the process of the meeting.<\/p>\n

Carol: Nice. I like it. I like the simplicity of putting an agenda together with the people in the room. What are our major outcomes? What do we want our outcome to be for this meeting?<\/p>\n

And then you\u2019ve got their input. They are not just participating in your agenda. They are participating in their agenda.<\/p>\n

Katie: Yes and as we say in the book, in the description of the tip, there is a feeling when you start talking about, \u201cWhat do we want to talk about today?\u201d The group will start to try to talk about that so these three questions and a setup, well actually it\u2019s four questions.<\/p>\n

I want to spend three minutes sketching out the road map for the minute today. That\u2019s a statement not a question. Then the three questions, what do we want to walk away with? What are the major elements we need to talk about? And how much time should we take?<\/p>\n

When they start giving you answers to any of those, they will want to start to talk it \u2013<\/p>\n

Carol: They will want to go back up to two, when you are talking about four.<\/p>\n

Katie: Or they will want to talk about the actual content of the meeting of that.<\/p>\n

Carol: So keep them on track with the agenda.<\/p>\n

Katie: Yes, how might you say it? How would you say that if you were facilitating a group?<\/p>\n

Carol: I would say, \u201cWe want to get into that and we want to do that soon, but right now let\u2019s figure out this agenda and then let\u2019s get back to that. Let\u2019s put that in the parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie: \u201cHold off on that, not yet. Shut up. Quit blabbing. Listen to me.\u201d Whatever your style of facilitation is.<\/p>\n

Carol: So an agenda is important and have one if it is your meeting. If somebody else doesn\u2019t have one, especially if you want to show them up, say, \u201cI notice there is no agenda in this meeting. What are we going to be here for? What do we want to walk away with?\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie: I would say only an imbecile would not have an agenda at this point.<\/p>\n

Katie: I don\u2019t think we have this as a tip in our book but there\u2019s something I call meeting movers. I have had it as a tip at better leadership. It might be on a blog somewhere but I call these statements meeting movers. I learned them from my friend Tim. Kasey, that\u2019s your husband, my friend Tim who was always such a great process thinker and would be the one person in the room that would bring the group back to focus, so a meeting mover question sounds like \u2013 anybody in the room can say this by the way, assuming that you feel comfortable speaking with the group, \u201cWhere do we want to go with this?\u201d That\u2019s a meeting mover.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much time do we want to spend on this specific thing?\u201d That\u2019s a meeting mover but it\u2019s also a structural focus. Let\u2019s get a process for how much time we want to spend.<\/p>\n

Carol: Right, because you could go on forever and if you have a time specific, everybody can respect it.<\/p>\n

Katie: And then some people are very good at this and if you are good at this and you think it but you don\u2019t say it, which is part of your intuition model, part of your style, consider saying it. If you are good at observing groups and summarizing what\u2019s happening in your head, say it out loud. Have you ever heard somebody around a table say, \u201cIt sounds to me like we have three different ideas for making this project happen.\u201d So that is a summarizing statement of what they\u2019ve heard.<\/p>\n

Carol: I always love the person in the room that does that because it wraps it up. \u201cOkay I\u2019m hearing three different things and it\u2019s kind of a theme and here they are and where do we go from here?\u201d Fabulous, love to hear that.<\/p>\n

Katie: If you have any hesitation you can always bring it up as a question like, \u201cDoes it sound to everyone else like we\u2019ve drilled down the same thing over and over again?\u201d Dead horse.<\/p>\n

Carol: Does it sound like we are beating a dead horse?<\/p>\n

Katie: Does anyone else smell a dead horse or is it just me?<\/p>\n

Carol: The other thing \u2013 a facilitator that I have been working with lately, she has a brilliant statement and it is, \u201cIf there are no major objections can we move on?\u201d You would really have to have a major objection to stop, right?<\/p>\n

Katie: You could even say, \u201cSince there are no major objections. . .\u201d That would be the type A personality.<\/p>\n

Carol: But if there are no major objections, or does anybody have a major objection about this? And you are like, \u201cWell not major. Mine is minor.\u201d I guess not. She really moves things through by saying that so it\u2019s kind of fun.<\/p>\n

Katie: What if you are sitting in a meeting and you are not in charge and ladies, don\u2019t think of yourself as a wall flower, ever. What if you are sitting in a meeting and you feel like your role is maybe secondary, you are a support function or you are just there to listen and take notes, could you say, \u201cIf there are no major objections does anybody think we should move forward?\u201d Could you do that in a secondary role or does it look a bit boisterous?<\/p>\n

Carol: I never see myself in a secondary role.<\/p>\n

Katie: That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

Carol: There are probably some times I should. I will always say what I think in a meeting. And a lot of times what I\u2019m doing is maybe not summarizing for groups of thought processes or themes that are going on out there, but a lot of times I\u2019m asking the questions that people are afraid to ask because they think it sounds stupid and I don\u2019t want to sound like I\u2019m the stupid one in the group, but I see somebody head cocked to the side and they are like \u201cI don\u2019t quite understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so I want to clarify for them. If I\u2019m questioning at all I want to make sure that they are clear and that everybody else in the room is clear and usually the question is a good question because everybody is, \u201cI\u2019m so glad you asked that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie: Yes, completely. Well if you are good at reading body language, which many women are, you know this is a great \u2013 we have talked about the intuition model a couple of times in the podcast, in the last one and in this one.<\/p>\n

A reminder for those of you that want to focus more on what your leadership style is, we don\u2019t have like a Myers-Briggs style but we have more of what we call the women\u2019s intuition model, how do you interact with others? How do you sense things and are you a situation person or are you a people person? And our online assessment, Assessmyskills.com is a quick rundown of where you might be on that visual.<\/p>\n

Carol: On that women\u2019s intuition scale.<\/p>\n

Katie: On the scale so of the 16 natural female leadership traits that we identify as or on the forefront, you just do a quick one through five, where you are on it, and it will \u2013 there are a bunch of little people that are behind your screen making the formula and then they create an output for you and so you have a little report on where you are.<\/p>\n

Carol: Yes and we will be getting to those 16 traits in one of our tips coming up very soon.<\/p>\n

Katie: After this station identification. Anything else about agenda? I have worked with companies where it\u2019s a ground rule or I don\u2019t think they\u2019d make it an official policy but they may make it an informal policy, you always have to have an agenda.<\/p>\n

Carol: Nice.<\/p>\n

Katie: I would almost say how much time you want to spend is the most important thing. What would you say was the most important thing on an agenda?<\/p>\n

Carol: Well the interesting thing is people will fill the time that you have given them. So if you have a meeting from 9 to 11, and you only have an hour\u2019s worth of work, you will still fill that extra hour.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s unfortunate. What I say is everybody loves the person who gets them out early. So don\u2019t schedule, over-schedule your meeting but if you can get people out early, if the conversation or the meeting is over, let it be over. Dismiss folks so that they can go and get to other things.<\/p>\n

Katie: Let it be over.<\/p>\n

Carol: Let it be done.<\/p>\n

Katie: Then go listen to what\u2019s being talked about in the hallway because that\u2019s where the real meeting goes on.<\/p>\n

Carol: Well really, a lot of times, after you turn off the conference call, you hang up on everybody then the room has an extra little meeting because you are not under the pressure of the agenda.<\/p>\n

Katie: Have you ever looked at the dynamics of that? Is that why? Is it because you are not under the pressure of the agenda?<\/p>\n

Carol: I this so because the people who can stay then can relax and stay, those people that have to go can go. So \u2013<\/p>\n

Katie: What are they adding to the conversation after the meeting is over? Is it stuff they should have said during the meeting?<\/p>\n

Carol: Not really. I think it\u2019s more gossip. And golf and how was your ski weekend? You get to know people. It\u2019s the relationships that happen.<\/p>\n

Katie: How is your bladder infection? Sorry. I had to say that. I was thinking about what are four things, when we were talking about public speaking in the last tip, I mean it could be anything. You could write four things that I think are great for preventing a bladder infection. Am I off track?<\/p>\n

Carol: You are a little off track.<\/p>\n

Katie: So this was a test. What do you do when someone is off track in a meeting?<\/p>\n

Carol: You bring them back.<\/p>\n

Katie: How?<\/p>\n

Carol: You say, \u201cIf there are no major objections, we are moving on.\u201d No, how do you bring people back?<\/p>\n

Katie: I do that. If it\u2019s a team and someone is kind of going on, or I might go stand behind them, depending on how we are seated. I might go stand behind them and kind of put my hand on their shoulder and often that works for a side conversation by the way, very well. Just having me stand there behind them will make them stop. That\u2019s all it takes. Or I\u2019ll stop the group.<\/p>\n

If somebody is off topic, I might give them a signal. In team training or in high performance groups I do give them non-verbals to give to one another.<\/p>\n

Here is one. Here is another. I am not doing anything.<\/p>\n

Carol: She is not. We both know it\u2019s a podcast and you can\u2019t really do that but wrap up \u2013 the wrap up signal is pretty much the same. Just take your finger and twist it in the noose.<\/p>\n

Katie: The noose works. I actually have a symbol for a dead horse. So if you were to take your left hand and right hand and put them in peace signs, facing each other, and then touching each other it looks like a dead horse. That works real well.<\/p>\n

When groups start using it, someone that might be hesitant to say, \u201cDoes anybody feel like we are off tar get?\u201d might be comfortable doing a nonverbal because it\u2019s just a quick action.<\/p>\n

The other one is peace sign that looks like two little bunny ears, so I curl them just a little bit, then they bounce along like little bunny foo-foo that is going down a rabbit trail. If we are off track \u2013<\/p>\n

Carol: I love it and we are teaching non-verbals on a podcast.<\/p>\n

Katie: Nobody has ever done that before. That\u2019s why we really break barriers at Skirt Strategies.<\/p>\n

Carol: We do. All right. Enough of that. We have talked about being punctual. We have talked about respecting others time.<\/p>\n

Katie: That\u2019s another meeting mover, by the way \u2013 enough of that.<\/p>\n

Carol: We have talked about respecting other\u2019s time so we are respecting your time and ending this podcast.<\/p>\n

Katie: We are ending it.<\/p>\n

Carol: Love you.<\/p>\n

(Music plays)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it for this episode of the Skirt Strategies podcast. Thank you for joining us and please be sure to leave a question or comment at Skirtstrategies.com. Remember that success comes when you lead using your natural female strengths.<\/p>\n

[end of transcript]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this episode Katie and Carol discuss Tips 8 and 9 from Skirt Strategies: 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership. Hear some great ideas and discussion on how to have better and more productive meetings! Tip #8. Set an example of always being punctual to meetings, as well as starting and ending your meetings […]<\/p>\n