Former Bain consultant and executive coach Anita Kishore knows how to run a good meeting. When a CEO cancelled a standing meeting with her, Anita learned the hard way that planning ahead and communicating meeting objectives are essential for any meeting. As an executive coach, she helps executives maximize their effectiveness through good meeting hygiene. In this episode, find out the two secrets to make any meeting a hit. From project meetings, all-hands, staff meetings or 1:1s, Anita shares strategies for how to maximize effectiveness of any meeting.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why setting an agenda and knowing the meeting objective is table stakes;
• How to know which meetings you need to attend;
• How to manage the clock by “calling a banana”;
• How to draw out the introverts by using technology to encourage participation
• Tune in to learn the skills you need to be a meeting pro.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Escape From Meeting Hell: Run Better Meetings With Anita Kishore, Executive Coach

On our episode of the show, I’m really excited to welcome Anita Kishore. She’s an executive coach and leadership professor. I reached out because I’m having some struggles with running meetings and managing my calendar. Anita was recommended by the amazing Michael Melcher, who has been a guest on this show. Anita and I are going to talk about how to escape from meeting hell, which is what I’m calling it.

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Anita, how are you?

Stacy. I am so excited to be here. Thank you.

The Problem: Why Lawyers Are Not Taught To Run Meetings

Let’s do this. I want first to thank you. You have been an amazing guest to help me prep for this. We had a great intro call, and you made me think about a lot of different things, including right before we got on this morning. I want to lead off by setting the stage and explaining why this was a burning topic for me personally.

I normally try to leave some opaqueness around me when things happen, but I’m just going to be really honest here. I had a recent situation where I am the executive sponsor of a project and leading a lot of different groups on this to accomplish this big project. There was a meeting that my team was leading, and it just did not deliver what I thought it was going to deliver. It felt very unfocused.

I walked away thinking, “I don’t know how to lead people. I don’t know how to lead meetings.” I reached out to a couple of people for help, and Michael was one of them. I want to talk about it for lawyers who are not usually project managers. What can we do to be good meeting runners? Let’s just talk a little bit about your background and why you’re the right person to talk about this. I know you’re a coach now, but you started your career at Bain. Let’s talk about that.

I’m sorry you had that experience. It’s very easy to beat ourselves up when something goes wrong. I appreciate how proactive you are to say, “What can I do? I’m reaching out to my network for help. I love how you’ve channeled this into your podcast.” Before my life as an executive coach, I was a consultant at Bain & Company.

It’s a top-tier management consulting firm, a global management consulting firm. Many people come into management consulting from business backgrounds, and I was a little bit of a fish out of water. I was a newly minted PhD in chemistry. I loved the idea of what consultants do. The recruiters tell you, “You get to help CEOs solve their toughest problems.” What a cool prospect.

That was a nice pitch to get you into that role.

It’s such a good sales pitch. Consulting firms are great at recruiting and selling and encouraging, enticing you to be there with the credibility and trust to walk into the CEO’s office and say, “I’m going to advise you and tell you need to change everything you’re doing.” It takes a lot of work. That doesn’t happen on day one. You have to be very prepared. You have to have done a lot of research.

You also have to have the confidence to be able to walk into that office. You learn all of that in consulting. I was as far away from that as you could probably get, coming from the world of academia. I didn’t really know how to run a meeting. I didn’t understand how to communicate with others. Being a management consultant is a bit of a boot camp crash course in training to be a senior leader, ultimately a CEO or a C-suite executive.

Being a Management Consultant is a bit of a boot camp crash course in training to be a senior leader—ultimately, a CEO or C-suite executive. Share on X

Bain’s Secret Training For Project Management

We talked about this in our prep call. Lawyers don’t get that. I remember one of my first projects as a new associate, the partner came in with a stack of files and gave me an eight-minute overview of the client’s problem and said, “Figure it out.” Certainly, there was no like, “This is how we do meetings,” or “This is how you run a project.” We’d love to hear what Bain taught you about that.

The Non-Negotiables: Objective And Agenda For Every Meeting

Bain gives you great training for how to run a meeting. The recommendation is always to put into the calendar invitation the objective and the agenda. Look, sometimes you forget about things, right? By this point, I’d moved on to working in corporate, and I had a standing meeting with the CEO to share information about ongoing projects, ask for his input, and/or escalate where things aren’t going well.

Those are the objectives of this standing meeting with the CEO. I failed to put that into the calendar invitation because it was a standing meeting, and I thought he knew that when he saw a calendar invitation from Anita, he knew what this topic was about. I forgot that the CEO has a thousand other things that they’re thinking about and just saw this meeting on the calendar, asked his assistant, “What was this meeting about?”

The assistant didn’t know because her role was just to schedule it. She canceled the meeting. I was surprised. I went to the assistant. “What happened? Why was the meeting canceled?” She said, “The CEO didn’t know what it was about.” I got in a lot of trouble, because not from the CEO, because he made his displeasure clear by just canceling the meeting.

I got in a lot of trouble with other people who were counting on decisions from that meeting. There were real consequences to my forgetting, even though I thought it was clear. I learned the hard way. Every meeting, every calendar invitation, in the invitation itself needs to have the objective and the agenda to avoid somebody canceling the meeting.

Saying No: The Service-Oriented Lawyer’s Meeting Dilemma

That’s something that, as if lawyers are running projects or calling meetings, we can certainly take that on. That’s a great takeaway. As we’ve talked before, we are in the service business. We’re providing professional services, either at a law firm or in-house. We come when called, I like to say, if somebody needs us there, invites us, we come.

I worry, and we talked a little bit before we got on about it. For me, every minute is very valuable. If I’m invited to a meeting and nobody has done the good hygiene that you recommended with the objective and the agenda, I feel like my job is to come. I’m also concerned that it’s not going to be a good use of my time, and I could be doing something else with it.

I don’t know that lawyers who bill by the hour have that same worry, but I certainly do as an in-house person. I’m wondering if you have advice for lawyers who are again trained to be service-oriented or supposed to be where the client wants them, but maybe are unclear about what their role is and what they’re doing there.

We’re always bowing to the clock in high-pressure organizations. Time matters. There are probably three things just to keep in mind. We can get into the how of these in a bit. Number one, setting expectations with team members, with whoever is running the meeting or shepherding the meeting or project.

Number two, communication. That gets a little bit into the why and the how of setting expectations. Prioritization, what matters. As a lawyer who is in the role of being the service provider, they may not necessarily be in the position to call the shots around what is a priority or what isn’t a priority. Having conversations around all three of those things with whomever is calling the meeting, the project shepherd, the project manager, what are your expectations of me, and vice versa?

As an introvert, chat features are one of the greatest inventions — they let people share their thoughts in real time without having to say them out loud in a meeting. Share on X

As somebody is asking, reaching out for a meeting, or maybe, I just love this when someone just puts a meeting on the calendar and there’s no context. If somebody’s approaching you about participating in something, how do you set that expectation?

It’s about communicating. Can you just ask? Can you tell me more about this meeting? What project is this? What is the objective of this meeting? What’s the agenda? What do you need from me? It’s very fair to ask those questions. You may not get answers to all of them. If you’re not getting any answers, I think it’s fair to come back and say, “I’ve got a lot of competing commitments. If you can help me understand what my role is in this meeting, it can help me decide whether I need to be there or a team member needs to be there.”

There are two essential things when setting up a meeting: objective and agenda. Share on X

That’s definitely a nice way to say it. Sometimes I find, and I’m sure this is the case for other in-house folks, that people sometimes want you there as like reassurance or just in case. When you’re an in-house resource, you’re a free resource. There’s no consequence to the person who’s inviting you that well. If Stacy’s there, I feel better, and maybe she can give me advice on X, Y, or Z, but they don’t necessarily realize that’s taking me away from something else. I like the framing around, “I have a lot of priorities or commitments.”

I’ve also worked in an organization, having run cross-functional projects where I had to bring in a bunch of people. I was in pharma, and I would have to bring in IP, legal, regulatory, formulation, and marketing. You want everybody there. You want everybody to weigh in to avoid the situation later down the road. “This big thing was discussed, and I didn’t know about it.” As a lawyer, I didn’t have the chance to raise a red flag about it. I get it. There’s that tension where “The one meeting I miss, that really big thing was discussed.”

The Collaborative Trap: Managing “Just In Case” Invitations

Let’s dig into that because you’ve really hit a key theme in many of the organizations I’ve been in, which is that people want to be included. There is a collaborative culture. You don’t want to leave people out. There are political aspects to inviting people. It’s a sign of respect sometimes. I am somebody who likes to get things done.

I really do feel that tension. Going back to that meeting I shared when we started, those big meetings where you have a lot of different attendees and people don’t necessarily know why they’re there. How do you frame that? Like, is there a way to do that at the invite or the kickoff, or how do we avoid just staring at each other? We’re at this meeting, and I have five other things. What are we doing here?

Why am I here? Answering that question at the start so that people don’t have to ask it is the role of the person calling the meeting. Not everybody is aware of these kinds of obligations. Maybe one thing to even establish is just that your title doesn’t include the term project manager in it. One of the skills that employees develop and or need to develop is the ability to run a meeting.

Just because your title doesn't include the term 'project manager,' one of the skills that employees develop, or need to develop, is the ability to run a meeting. Share on X

If you’re a worker, running a meeting is a key expectation. I love setting the objective, sharing at the get-go why people are there, and having an agenda. What else do the workers of today need to know about running a meeting?

You mentioned the political aspect. Who’s in the meeting? Who isn’t in the meeting? There are a couple of tools that can be utilized by the project shepherd, the project manager, or the person calling the meeting. Having a project charter. It’s a one-page, one-slide. What’s the project title? What’s the objective of this project?

Is it to launch a product? Is it to evaluate the business potential, both the upsides and the downsides of this project? Again, clarifying that objective. In addition, on this one-page project charter, who are the people involved? I understand that can be a little bit political, but this is where you’re setting expectations and communicating. You list everybody who’s involved. Let’s say, the working team.

These are the people who are expected to do some of the work, provide input, and be consulted. Are there executive sponsors? Meaning the people who are accountable for making sure things happen and getting all of those names on a page. Sometimes, when you see your name on a slide or in the meeting notes, you pay more attention, so it can raise accountability.

Staff & All-Hands Meetings: Best Practices For Large Groups

Those are project meetings. We talked a little bit about one-on-ones, which I want to come back to. There are also large meetings, the all-hands, staff meetings. Here’s a little bit of a spoiler alert. I find those a little annoying, too. Mainly because it is hard to get a structure, and I find difficulty in people calibrating their participation. I want to dig in, and I’ll give a little bit more about both of those as we go on. What are some best practices for a staff meeting or an all-hands?

Those two could be pretty different because if we start with the all-hands meeting, what’s the expectation of the participants coming in? Is it to get an update from the CEO? Is it more social? Is it something else? Knowing what that is, I would be curious who’s running that process. I’ve seen different examples of this.

I had one client in a government agency who would run quarterly all-hands meetings, and these would be hybrid because many people worked in the organization, worked physically in the building, and many people worked out.  Some things worked, but it was very structured. It was very scripted. There was a component where people could weigh in with questions either live on the spot or by chatting them into the Zoom or Teams structure.

This was a good approach, but they didn’t get there without some pain points. One of the things that they learned in the process was that they had to manage the conversation at times, particularly online conversations, because all-hands meetings can get spicy. When you invite feedback, you might hear things that you may not want to hear or that might poke a little.

One of the things that consulting firms excel at is informal coaching. Share on X

Especially in a large group setting.

Planning in advance, you cannot predict what people are going to ask, say, or comment on in advance. How are you going to handle tough questions? Are you just going to ignore them? Are you going to say, “That’s a great question? I’d love to take that offline. Can you follow up with this one-on-one?”

All hands seem like that needs a whole lot of structure around it and planning, which may be what some larger legal departments do, but I don’t know. Day-to-day in-house lawyers do that. We do have staff meetings, which might be a little less unwieldy than in all hands with the group chat on the Zoom feed. What can we do in staff meetings?

What’s the purpose of the staff meeting? Is it to give everybody an update? If that’s the case, I’ve heard principles from tech companies, agile, and stand-up meetings. One of the classic techniques, I’m not sure classic, but maybe a great technique to ensure that people stick to time, is literally to stand up, 20% to 30% shorter when people are standing.

Meetings can be 20% to 30% shorter when people are standing. Share on X

In a virtual world, I recognize that it may be a little more challenging, and if you have individuals with disabilities, you invite them to do what feels comfortable. Sometimes it can be hard to get people to speak up. Delegating the agenda to somebody else, letting people know that this is a rotating leader for each meeting, and saying, “I’m responsible, I’m going to follow up with you, or I’m accountable for this meeting.”

“I’m going to follow up with you to make sure that you’re on top of things, but I expect you to come up with the agenda and send it to me 1 to 2 days before the meeting.” How can you divide the responsibility among the people on the team? How can you set your expectations as the person who’s accountable to say, “You’re running the show, but I need to know that it’s moving along.” That’s it.

Managing The Clock: Dealing With Dominators And Introverts

I like that. Everything is going back to the setting of expectations and communication. Let’s talk about running the clock in those conversations. I called it calibrating participation because I see two things in meetings, and it may go back to the why am I here phenomenon? I see people who either don’t contribute at all or very minimally contribute.

Certainly, in virtual meetings, it’s quite apparent when people are multitasking, although we all tell ourselves that no one can tell, no one knows. The second thing is I see people who, I don’t know if it’s nerves or people who like the spotlight, but some people just eat up a lot of clock on topics that may or may not be on the agenda, or just take you on all kinds of tangents. Can we talk about managing those two different types of participants?

There’s an element of time management and inclusivity that comes up. On the second one, you mentioned, people speaking a lot or taking up maybe more space than desired. As the leader of a meeting, I think one can adopt some principles of inclusivity and say, “Is there anybody who hasn’t spoken up yet, who has something to say? I’d love to hear from you.” Give the introverts or folks who typically don’t share their ideas in a public forum, give them the spotlight.

Second, as the meeting leader, you wait at least ten seconds. It can feel like the longest ten seconds of your life. Third, make a joke about it. “I just waited ten seconds.” You could say, “I can wait all day.” If you can, make it humorous. Have a little fun with it. Related to that, if you need to cut off some folks who are getting a little more airtime than desired. One thing I’ve just been talking to some team members about is that if you’re physically in a meeting, give people a time limit.

For example, I often facilitate workshops. If you ask everybody to answer the same question, you have to cut them off. Unfortunately, give them a time limit. Twenty people in a room, two minutes each. I’m doing the math. The meeting is only 50 minutes. That’s not going to work. If you notice someone who’s going over, one part of it is, can you set an expectation?

In the absence of setting an expectation, can you keep your answer to 2 to 4 minutes? Do you feel comfortable interrupting? If it’s your meeting and you’re the one managing the clock, you could say, “I appreciate what you’re sharing in the interest of time. I’m sorry, we’re going to need to close this conversation and move on.”

Using our technology, not just being stuck on Zoom, but using some of the other tools there to make it a more engaging experience. I like those. I’m thinking also just picturing myself in one of these group meetings, and I’m guilty, and I know I’m not the only one of somebody who can dominate the conversation. Also, I really want some coaching here.

When you’re talking about that ten-second pause, if I weren’t the leader, but I was in a meeting where the leader just paused, I would feel the pressure of that silence on behalf of the leader. I want to run into the fire and help out by commenting just to warm things up. I’m also aware that for introverts in the room or others that when you have a couple of dominant speakers, that can be a turnoff. Do you have advice for that situation?

It comes back to saying, “I’m going to invite others to speak, maybe who haven’t spoken out before, and I’m going to give a little space.” You can tell them if you wish. I’m going to give it ten seconds. I typically do it after the fact and joke about it to relieve a little tension. There are some people who will be very uncomfortable with the ten-second pause, and then they jump in because they don’t like the pause. They feel the tension.

That’s this girl.

If you haven’t, but you’ve already said, if you haven’t spoken up before. It puts pressure.

I’m off the hook then.

Absolutely. You’re off the hook. By the end of the ten seconds, maybe somebody else will jump in, or maybe people will continue to stay quiet. You’ve given it the space. You’ve created the opportunity, and then you have to keep going.

The RACI Model: Clarifying Project Accountability

That’s super helpful, Anita. I’m definitely going to be better at setting objectives. I loved the suggestion of the project charter and exactly what that is for these larger projects, because they do meander.

Can I share one more?

Please.

In the realm of project management, again, you don’t have to be a project manager. You don’t have to have a PMP to have this as part of your workflow. There is a tool called RACI, and it’s an accountability matrix that helps you figure out what role everybody has in the meeting. You can use this to clarify other people’s roles so they know why they’re in a meeting. RACI is a tool developed by McKinsey.

It stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. It’s nothing fancy. You can literally just do this on a piece of paper. You can do this in an Excel spreadsheet. You can do it in a Word doc, a text note. For everybody who’s participating in the meeting, give them a letter, RACI. Let me explain what each of these means. Responsible. This is the person who’s calling the meeting, the day-to-day responsibility for making sure things happen.

Maybe that’s the project manager, the account leader, the developer. A, the Accountable is who is accountable, and that’s often a project sponsor. It may be someone up a level in the hierarchy, but it may not be. It’s the person who is signing off on things that have already been decided by the working team or that have been recommended by the working team. C is Consulted.

This is in a cross-functional team, in a healthcare organization, where you often have high-risk to reward projects. You cannot have any one person making a decision. You have to consult a lot of people. Lawyers are often consulted. They may not be used to being the R, the responsible. You mentioned that in your role, you’re the sponsor of certain meetings, so you might be the one accountable.

Who’s responsible for that meeting? Maybe there’s a little bit of clarifying or setting expectations around, “You’re responsible for doing this, and this. I’m the one accountable for it. I make sure it happens and that we get to a decision by the state, but I need you, who has the R, to actually move things along and keep me informed.” That’s the last one, the I is Informed. Not everybody needs to be consulted, not everybody is responsible, but sometimes some individuals just need to know that this meeting took place, that this project is happening.

Not everyone needs to be consulted or responsible, but some people simply need to know that the meeting happened. Share on X

I can think about, for example, in pharmaceutical companies, you may have early-stage development and late-stage development. Marketing, for example, needs to be informed about what’s happening in the early stage. They don’t necessarily have a hugely active role to play in the early stage. They may get more involved as it gets closer to the launch phase or the late stage. This tool is extremely useful, effective, and very easy. There are other tools.

As we talked about helping people clarify why they’re there, RACI is a nice model for that. Again, if there’s a theme that runs through this conversation, it’s a lot about expectations for the whole gamut of meetings.

It’s all well and good for me to talk about these best practices from consulting. That works very often because we were starting new projects all the time. One thing that might be helpful is, “Anita, I’ve been running the same meeting forever, for six months, four years. Wouldn’t it be weird if I just suddenly brought this up and started doing this?” What have you got to lose by giving this a try? What’s a desired outcome? If your desired outcome is, “I want better meetings, I can try this.”

Where To Find Anita Kishore

A lot of good ideas for things to try. I really appreciate the conversation. Now that we’re done figuring out how to run great meetings, I’d love to know your pump-up song.

What a fun question. I love the song, The Greatest Show, from the musical movie, The Greatest Showman. It’s got this great drum beat at the beginning, a very loud, energetic chorus, and Hugh Jackman.

I will check that one out. A few years ago, my kids were really into that movie. I probably know that song. Thanks so much for being here. Where can people find you if they’re interested in learning more about executive coaching and leadership?

Thank you. I have a website, and it’s www.AnitaKishore.com.

Great. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Stacy.

 

Important Links

• Anita Kishore
• Anita Kishore on LinkedIn
• Michael Melcher
• Bain & Company
• Network Building Is Essential In The Legal Department: Michael Melcher, Author, Your Invisible Network – Past Episode

 

About Anita Kishore

Anita Kishore is the founder of Access to Opportunity Consulting, LLC, a M/WBE-certified business. A former scientist & management consultant, Anita brings an open, honest and direct approach from her international experience consulting and coaching clients across many industries. Anita blends real-world experience from 1:1 coaching and cutting-edge research from teaching at NYU & iCoachGlobal into her work. Anita coaches senior executives, nonprofit & government leaders, and underrepresented leaders to become trusted leaders whom teams want to follow. She also teaches Leadership Development to public servants in state and local governments, federal government agencies (NIH, DoL), and emerging leaders (NYU Wagner). Prior to coaching, Anita worked in global pharmaceuticals and management consulting at Pfizer, Sandoz, and Bain & Company.

Anita uses strategic thinking, relationship-building, and a structured approach to problem-solving to help her clients pilot new approaches to their leadership mindset and behaviors. Anita’s superpower is being a straight shooter with deep empathy.

Anita grew up in rural Kansas (USA) and brings an international flair from living on three continents. She now lives in Jackson Heights, New York. Anita holds degrees in chemistry from Yale University (BS), the University of Melbourne (MSc with honors), and the University of Georgia (PhD) and an executive MPA from the NYU Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. She is also a certified mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) led by Tara Brach & Jack Kornfield.