Cara Shortsleeve

The vast majority of time spent at work is spent in meetings. Bad meetings waste time, burn goodwill, and drain energy... whereas excellent meetings are a total gift. And while there are a ton of things you cannot control as a leader, you can always run EXCELLENT meetings. Here are the easy hacks for excellent meeting hygiene: ➡ Set an agenda. ➡ Name the desired outcome (seeking input? making a decision? conveying information?). ➡ Share the agenda and desired outcomes in advance. ➡ Time bound each topic. ➡ Take notes. ➡ Track the action items. ➡ Follow up. And if you are invited to a meeting, the same hygiene applies. No agenda? No attenda!

I have shared similar sentiments in the past - but it bears repeating: diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams *when managed for difference.* In other words, leaders need to consciously notice and celebrate difference to ensure team members have incentive to articulate diverse ideas. A quick hack. When someone says something, don't say, "great idea! I was thinking the same thing....". Instead, say something closer to, "thanks for sharing that - now who here has a different idea to add?" Simple practices like this one celebrate difference -- and ensuring everyone on the team feels celebrated *for their difference* is the first key to unlocking the performance multiplier of diverse teams.

One of the best definitions I have heard for strategy is that strategy is a plan to win. And part of any plan to win must also include a plan for how/where/when/what to lose. While it may sound counter intuitive, the idea is that to be GREAT at some things, you need to LET GO of others -- so you can flood your attention, resources, etc. towards achieving excellence in the things that matter most. So if you are struggling with strategic choices, remember that resources are finite. Resist the temptation to hedge your bets; determine what matters most and double down.

Use the age-old, timeless 2x2: Importance vs. Urgency. (Draw a 2x2. Label the horizontal access "Important" -- with "low" on the left and "high" on the right. Label the vertical axis: "Urgency" -- with "low" on the bottom and "high" on the top. Then list your tasks in the quadrants where they belong). Whatever is in the top right quadrant (High Urgency & High Importance) -- that is your answer! Prioritize the High Importance + High Urgency tasks.

Practice! As leaders, we tend to prepare for difficult conversations when we anticipate the conversation will be tough *for the recipient.* (Eg, we practice before delivering tough news to a team member, we prepare for a difficult customer negotiation, etc.). And yet so often, we fail to prepare for the conversations that we know will be *difficult for us* (vs. the recipient). Negotiating compensation is hard work, so find a trusted friend and practice. Talking comp may never be easy, but practice will certainly make it less hard.

If you are struggling to meet a tight deadline and need your team to work faster, one of the biggest levers you have is your ability to offer relief on other deadlines. One of the most empowering things you can ask your team is, "what can I take off your plate?" -- or -- "I know this goal is a hard/tough one - what can we deprioritize in the meantime?" Put far more cynically, your team members are already doing the mental math about what corners to cut in order to meet the aggressive deadline - the best thing for everyone is to make that negotiation a joint (transparent, empowering) process. Good luck!