Leading Productive Meetings: How to Influence Behavior and Increase Engagement

I’m Melissa Shanahan, and this is The Law Firm Owner Podcast Episode #249.

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Today, I’m going to be covering a few things that will be important for you to think about when it comes to running meetings in your firm. Now, this is coming from a specific angle of a conversation I recently had with a private client that felt really helpful for them, and so I'm hoping it'll feel helpful here for you too.

The complaint, so to speak, that came to me in conversation, was that there was a KPI meeting that their right-hand, their number two in charge, was leading. What happens with those meetings is that they drag out. And sometimes even that person who's leading it is not focused; distracted, working on other things, has legal work open, and just kind of running through the motions.

The owner I was talking to is over it, doesn't want it to be like that, and doesn't exactly know how to coach or mentor this number two, or how to have the right conversations to get them on board with leading a really productive meeting.

Now, no matter where you are, in terms of size or team, this doesn't just have to be if you have a number two. This can also be if you are running a KPI meeting. You can really think of this with any meeting. I'm just going to run with this example because I think it's a really good one, to be able to showcase how you need to think about running a meeting, and how important the result of the meeting is, and that it's heavily based on how it's run.

There are so many times, speaking from experience, you’ll have a meeting and you just feel like engagement is not up. People aren't bringing ideas to the table. Or it's just not going the way that you want it to go. And what I have learned over time, with working with myself on this, but also with clients, is that it is really all about the facilitation and the leadership of the meeting.

Okay, so going back to the scenario. There's a KPI meeting, someone's leading it but they're not doing a really great job. The participants that are there, the other team members, they don't really know everything that they're sort of expected to know. And they are just there passively being led through the meeting.

Now, I wasn't present for the meeting, I don't know exactly how it went. I'm going off of what this client was telling me, so that's how I addressed it. And that is what I'm going to dig into here. Hopefully there's a point or four that will be really useful for you.

The first thing to ask yourself when you are feeling this sort of way, about someone who has a responsibility and you feel like they're not doing a great job with a responsibility…  The first thing you need to make sure of is that you actually have time on the calendar for feedback. And to mentor them, to coach them, and to help them develop themselves so that they can continue to improve their skill sets when it comes to doing leadership kind of things.

If you don't have that time set aside with this individual or these individuals, then you're already almost surely going to have this frustration sort of build and not know really what to do with it. Carving out the space, carving out the time, so that there is a chance for feedback, to work with them, and they know that that's the purpose of this meeting.

It doesn't have to be long; it could be 30 minutes. It could be twice a month, right? You get to decide what you think is necessary. But carving out the space is the most important thing, so that you can give feedback. You can have these conversations and it's not happening on the fly, it's not infringing in your schedule or their schedule, because you deemed it important enough to interrupt something or to give feedback on the fly.

No, it's not the space. You need a container for this kind of thing, and carving out time in your calendar, where you both can expect that that's the point of it, is important. Now, I'm not going to go into how that meeting should look, but you just need it carved out.

Some of the other points I'm going to give here will provide some structure to the kinds of things that you could talk about that meeting. But the one thing I do want to say is, it needs to be positive. It can't be a negative meeting. Even if you have feedback and constructive criticism and coaching and mentorship for them, it needs to be positive.

This is a place for them to develop. This is a place for them to grow. And you are fostering that; everybody wins if you foster that. So, the sense in these meetings needs to be around development. The purpose for these meetings is development. And that will include positive feedback, and feedback where there's areas of opportunity for them.

Okay, to recap point number one, is to have a meeting on the calendar consistently, that you both can rely on for development into the role and the responsibilities that they actually have.

The second thing, is to have a meeting agenda. For every meeting you have, there should be an agenda so that it helps everyone stay on track. Everyone should be following it and you should not veer from it. If you need a bigger conversation around something, that's a different meeting, that's a different conversation.

Because if you start rolling into that conversation then you get thrown off, and you don't even get to what the whole point of the meeting was. So, have a meeting agenda and stick to it.

One of my favorite meeting agendas that I've ever seen and I've ever used is one that Traction, or EOS… They offer it for free as a resource on their site. It's for what they call “Level 10 Meetings”, which is leadership meeting once a week.

But I will tell you, you can morph this agenda, sort of cut out the things that don't make sense unless it's leadership, and you could adapt this for any kind of meeting that you might have. Because, essentially, my favorite parts about the meeting agenda are that everyone reports in on the status of whatever it is that the meeting is about.

And so for KPIs, for example, everybody would go around the room... Let's just imagine for a moment that you have a team and each person owns a different KPI. Then as you go around the room, each person will state their KPI, they will state if it's on track or off track towards the goal, and they will say “drop it down” if they need to talk about it.

And drop it down means, if you see this agenda, you can see there is an “issues” list below. And so, if someone says “drop it down”, it means they would like to discuss it. They're experiencing barriers, or they want to fill people in on something. So, that KPI gets added to the issues list below.

The next person goes and says their metric, says on track or off track, and if they'd like to drop it down. So, that is it, it's just reporting. There is no conversation in this part, it just gets to the point of ‘are we on track or off track with the things that we are meeting about today?’ In this instance, it's KPIs.

And so, once you go through that, then you first revisit action items from the last week. This is a recurring meeting; it came out of this recurring meeting, and you find out are they done or are they not done. And then, once you go through those action items from the last week that you had, then you go into today's issues that were dropped down, and you talk through each of those one by one.

You're supposed to prioritize those issues, because people just drop things down. Usually the owner of the firm will prioritize the issues in the order in which they will be discussed, because you don't have infinite time. And if they can't all be discussed today, which ones must be, right? So, you prioritize them, you will talk through them in that priority order, and as you discuss those things new action items will come about.

So, usually there are some solutions talked about. There are some ideas or barriers that you can overcome by taking action in some sort of way. Those action items will be placed in another section on their template that says “to-do” list; I think that's what they call it. You put the to-do item, and you put who owns the to-do item.

There are just a couple other sections, but I just want to give you the meat of this. Because what I want to help you understand, is that the next week, when it's time for the meeting again, then the action items from the week prior are now listed as last week's action items. And you have to report “done or not done” on those.

So, again, as you go through the meeting, you will first say the thing that you are reporting on; is it on track or off track? Everybody just reports in, no discussion. And if you want to drop it down, things go down to the issues list; there's a section for issues. And then, you go through last week's action items and you make sure that those are done. And if they're not, what needs to happen; tie that up with a bow.

Then you go prioritize the issues that you dropped down and you discuss the issues. New action items come out of that conversation, and you add those to the new to-dos. And so, it's a cycle that you can use week over week.

In many instances, I've worked with clients that they'll set up a Google sheet, and there's a tab at the bottom that will have the date of the meeting, and these sections will be there. Again, this is a resource that you can find. And this is a resource that we can make available to you inside of Velocity Work, actually already in a sheet, if you are a member or client of Velocity Work.

Then, every week there's a tab, and the tab is named the date of the meeting. And it's very easy to have a continuation inside of the sheet with a really great agenda for the meeting. I realize for some of you, if you're not looking at it, it's hard to understand what in the heck I'm talking about, but my point is you need a good agenda.

And you need one that covers the bases. You need one that helps everybody stay on track, and this is a great one. So, I highly recommend it. Again, if you're a client or member, and you're interested in this and you haven't seen it yet, you just say the word to anyone that works in Velocity Work, and we’ll get it in your hands.

Okay, point number three when it comes to doing a really great job with leading meetings, is to be present. When you are in a meeting, no distractions, shut down everything, no pings or dings. You have to know what you are presenting, and you must be present for the meeting.

People get really annoyed, and I hear a lot, that you wish that the team members that were in your meetings were more engaged, more present. Well, it starts with you. If you aren't present and engaged, and if you don't have your distractions shut down, why would anybody else? You have to be present.

And that sounds like a given, but you'd be amazed at how often that isn't the case. They still have mental tabs open in their brain, and this is not the place for it.

Alright, the third thing that will help you do a great job with leading these meetings is understanding that in a meeting, it is less about the information and more about human psychology. For instance, in the example that inspired this episode, the client said that they made a suggestion to their number two to color code the numbers.

So, if they're on track for their goals, it would be green. And if they still had a gap, for example, between where they are and where they want to be it would be red, just to make it easier for the employees. And the number two responded with something to the effect of they already know what it is, they don't need colors in order to get it.

But listen, again, this is less about information or knowledge, and it's more about human psychology. Number one, the team members that you have in this meeting… again, I'm sticking with the KPI example… they have jobs and they are busy with their own stuff day to day. They are not in charge of the KPIs in the firm.

They may have a KPI that they're responsible for, but they are not in charge of them, like the person who might be leading this meeting. And so, to expect them to look at a screen of black and white numbers, and have to expend mental energy sorting through the black and white numbers to figure out what is on track, what is off track, that's just not going to happen. And there's no reason for it.

So, color coding things makes it very easy for the team to pick up on what's going well, and what's not going well, or what's falling short. And to not do that doesn't make any sense. Again, this is about human psychology.

And then also, if you want to them to be more engaged in this whole process and not just sit back, you're going to have to think about human psychology. You're going to have to think about how to influence their behavior, and not just expect them, because they have the knowledge, they're just going to be operating in the ways that they need to be operating, or that you would prefer that they're operating.

I told this client, and I'll tell you here, way back in the day in undergrad, I was in dental school, and we had a pathology class. And in the pathology class, they would go over the gnarliest scenarios like cancer; removing a portion of the jaw due to cancer. There are risk factors for these things, and one of them is smoking.

And so, you know this, right? You're sitting in a dental school learning about this stuff, yet on breaks there were three people in my class that would go out and have smoke breaks. Now, they had the knowledge. They had the information about what's the “right” thing to do, or the smart thing to do or whatever, and they're still smoking.

Knowledge does not influence behavior in the ways that you think it should. So, if you are interested in influencing behavior, increasing engagement, for example, then you need to be interested in human psychology. And knowledge or information isn't enough. In most cases, it's not enough.

So, if you understand that meetings are less about the information given and more about the human psychology, then you will become very good at leading meetings.

Now, given that, and this goes into the fourth point that I have for you. Given that, the question becomes: What ideas do you have to influence the behavior of your team, to engage them with the KPIs? And this is where it becomes fun.

Because if you are willing to come at this meeting from different angles, all with the intention of influencing their behavior, increasing their engagement, or keeping their engagement high if the engagement is good, but it is all about the psychology. So, what can you do?

One of the ideas that we talked about on the call today was, at the top of the meeting, asking the team a quiz on the KPIs. Because technically people should have access to this information prior to the meeting, right? It's not like, if you're just informing them in the meeting, what kind of sense does that make? Everybody should come already knowing the numbers if they're a part of the KPI meeting.

So in this instance, when the team comes, then you can say, for example, if you have a couple of different goals, if you have a couple different practice areas and you have a goal, a revenue goal for each one, ask them about one of the practice areas’ revenue goal and how close you are to it.

So, if you’re Family and Criminal, then maybe you can ask them who knows the gap for Family Law revenue goal this month, and see who answers first. And then, ask them on the other side of it. Who knows the revenue gap for the Criminal revenue goal for this month, and then see what they say. Or if you have a “cases open” goal, you can ask them that.

You could ask them about the KPIs and about the goals, and do a bit of a quiz at the beginning, and maybe give some silly, fun rewards if they get it right first. So, things like that get them engaged. Also, I do think the red and green is a really good idea.

It's this. This is how you have to think about it. How do you engage them? This is not about how do you give them info. How do you engage them, so that they have a part and they are leaning in towards what the goals are, where you're currently sitting, and where you need to go?

And when you do have discussion, once you get into where the gaps are and you're not quite at the revenue goal yet, or you're off track for one, then you could talk about that. You can get input from them. What opportunities do they see? And have the discussion that way; constantly leading the discussion.

This really is the point of leadership, is human psychology, and being interested in that naturally will make you a great leader. And in settings, specifically like a KPI meeting, as an example, it'll make your whole team shine. That's the job. It’s to help them, and foster engagement from them, towards the very topic, the very purpose of the meeting.

Now, this leads me to the next point, which is to have a purpose of the meeting, an understood purpose of the meeting. When I was talking to this client about the purpose… “What is the purpose of this meeting in your eyes?” They said, “To, as a team, review where we are, and come up with creative solutions to close the gap to goals.”

If that language isn't familiar to you, closing the gap, the gap is the distance between where you are now and where you want to be. So, between where you are now and your goal. You want to close that gap. So, coming up with creative ideas and solutions to close that gap.

Now, knowing that that's the purpose of the meeting, okay, great. If everybody understands that is the whole purpose of this meeting, that lets everybody show up in ways that are productive for the purpose of the meeting.

Okay, so far, we've talked about having a regular meeting set, so that your number two, or specific leaders in the company, can receive feedback, and they know that it's for development of themselves in their role, and it's with you.

The second thing, is to have an agenda for the meeting, because it will help keep everybody on point, keep things moving, and keep it efficient.

The third thing, is to be present. No distractions, you want to be all in on the meeting. And if you are modeling that then others will mirror that back to you.

And where they don't, you actually have two feet to stand on to say, “Hey, shut down distractions. We're all doing it. We're all present here at this meeting.”

The fourth thing, is understanding that meetings like this are less about information and knowledge for your team, and more about human psychology. And the more interested you can be in that, the better you will lead these, the more effective you will be at getting engagement from the team.

The fifth, is understanding that, and coming up with ideas to influence behavior of your team, so that they engage with the KPIs, and with the purpose of the meeting. What can you do? How can you put them on the spot in a positive way? Not putting them on the spot with an attitude;  doing that is passive aggressive, that's not what we're doing here.

So, put them on the spot, because that's what we do here. We all contribute. We all know the answers to these questions. And if we don't, we sort of giggle ourselves and think, “Oh my gosh, why do I not know the answer to this?” And then we get back in the game. There's a culture here that you can create. And giving thought to how you want to foster engagement is worth your time.

The last thing I mentioned was, to have a purpose of the meeting. An agreed upon purpose. Everybody understands the purpose, it's stated at the top of the meeting. That helps everybody really understand how to show up, what the meeting is for, and how they can contribute and be most useful, most productive, during that time together.

And the final point… this is really the seventh point. The final point, is to be prepared for the meetings. Do not roll in hot, flipping open your laptop, pulling up reports after the meeting has already started, looking through things, trying to familiarize yourself, and checking on things here and there. Absolutely not.

You be prepared for these meetings, so that you enter them calm and poised, and with enthusiasm around the topic at hand. So, that you are fully engaged and prepared just like you expect them to be.

Alright, everybody. Hopefully, there was some good pointers here for you. Even if there's just one point that I made today, that you see opportunity for lowest hanging fruit, take that and run with it. These are important points. This is the difference maker sometimes.

These points that I'm mentioning can be the difference maker between a team that feels like duds, even though they're not, but they feel like duds, they're dragging through meetings, there's not really high engagement, etc. You can shape that. You can shift that. And as the owner, if you are leading the meeting, you need to take some of these points that feel relevant to you.

But if you have a number two that's leading a meeting, or somebody in your firm that’s leading a meeting, they need to understand these things too. Leading anything is about human psychology. So the more you can plug into that, the better.

And then, of course, just sort of as an overtone, be present, be prepared, be organized, and lean into the human psychology. If you do that, and if you put effort there, you will feel a shift over weeks, maybe months; you will feel a shift. And it's worth it. It will pay off. This is the long game. This is the kind of work that creates Velocity.

All right, everybody. Have a wonderful week. I'll see you here next Tuesday.

Hey, you may not know this, but there's a free guide for a process I teach called Monday Map/Friday Wrap. If you go to VelocityWork.com it's all yours. It's about how to plan your time and honor your plans, so that week over week more work that moves the needle is getting done in less time. Go to VelocityWork.com to get your free copy.

Thank you for listening to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. If you're ready to get clearer on your vision, data, and mindset, then head over to VelocityWork.com where you can plug in to Quarterly Strategic Planning, with accountability and coaching in between. This is the work that creates Velocity.