A Surprising (and often ignored) Rule for Smart Growth

As I reflect on the past month, I feel very grateful for being able to return to in person client events!

Last week, I facilitated an offsite leadership session for one of my tech CEO clients. The following day, I led our Marketing Growth Leaders quarterly gathering. Yesterday, I co-hosted "The 3 New Rules for Smart Growth" luncheon with @Michael Taylor in Atlanta. I've been clocking the miles.

One challenge persists as we enter the second half of the year: teams are feeling burned out and disengaged. They are witnessing first-hand how the post-COVID trauma and chain of world events are negatively affecting their culture and putting their board commitments to the test. Best-laid growth plans are simply sputtering.

Burnout appears in many forms. For me, it manifests as insomnia and indigestion. My clients tell me that it appears as short-temperedness, increased sick days, and a lack of initiative.

Mental health concerns have reached all-time highs; that’s for certain. And personally, I never knew that spotting and addressing trauma and burnout would ever become part of my role as an entrepreneur, adviser, and coach.

But it is now. And medical experts predict that burnout will stick around for several more years.

So what can we do about it? Here’s my view:

As a leader, you are not responsible for the well-being and health of your teams. But you ARE responsible for creating the conditions for effectiveness, trust, and well-being.

Start by acknowledging that burnout needs to be addressed openly. Please do not deny nor brush it off, or cover it up with alcohol-induced outings and dinner parties.

Second, look for the holes in your organization’s practices--such as how you conduct meetings. This could be the low hanging fruit you need to re-energize your teams.

Meetings provide the venue where you typically frame the top strategic goals, stress test project plans, discuss customer needs, celebrate wins, and address shortcomings. You have the power to transform these meeting practices.

Steven Rogelberg, author of The Surprising Science of Meetings, recently spoke with our Marketing Growth Leaders and provided countless, powerful evidence-based meeting strategy tips. Consider these basic rules to set the stage for growth discussions:

1. When sending the invitation, distribute the agenda in the form of QUESTIONS you want them to review in advance. No questions to ponder? Cancel the darn meeting!

2. Publish your guidelines for "what are the conditions for a compelling meeting?" For example, does this meeting advance one of our top 3 strategic goals? Will it help us launch our product faster? Will it allow us to collectively resolve a sticky customer situation that puts millions of Q3 revenue at risk? Some meetings are worth skipping, and might be better done via messaging or Slack. Put them to the test.

3. Re-visit all standing meetings and challenge their value every 90 days. Don’t accept lame excuses, such as “the boss likes to see everyone in the conference room on Monday mornings!”

4. When you exceed a certain group size, question whether a meeting is the ideal method of collaborating and communicating. Rogelberg shared that Microsoft Japan requires senior leadership approvals when the attendee list exceeds 8 people.

5. Implement “No Meeting Fridays.” One of my clients in the real estate industry just started this practice. Her team is breathing a collective sigh. They use that time to catch up on messages, reflect, and prepare for the upcoming week.

6. Chop meeting times by at least 30%-50%. Parkinson’s Law, the concept that work effort fills the time allotted, insidiously consumes and chomps at our creativity and reflection time.

To test this law, I made some changes to my client schedules in 2021. I shifted many of my coaching sessions from 60 minutes to 20 minutes. Clients are experiencing the same value! Granted, they require a different level of preparation from myself and my clients—and it’s worth it.

On the surface, these tips may sound too tactical for a C-level leader. Yet these low-hanging fruit might make the difference between a top performer staying or leaving.

Still sound trivial? Look at the numbers.

My CEO clients tell me that losing a good person costs them between $500K-$1M. Poor engagement and burnout due to a lousy relationship with their boss and lazy meeting etiquette are often the causes. Discretionary time is worth its weight in gold to every high performer.

Over the coming month, you will hear more insights and tips from our “3 New Rules of Growth” sessions. Let me know which ones resonate.

Now, I’m headed to my first meeting of the day – and it’s 11:30 am ET.

P.S. Here are 3 ways I can help you build a stronger company and a better life:

1. Subscribe to my podcast, The Mindful Marketer. Find me on your favorite podcast app, or on Apple Podcasts here.
2. Connect with other CEOs and marketing leaders in my (free) private online group. You can post jobs, ask questions, share insights, and find colleagues. Or, follow me on LinkedIn. You will also receive invites to our in-person events and future Linked In Livestream episodes.
3. Work with me privately. Contact me via lisa@lisanirell.com. I'll forward details to book a time.