SPEAKER_0 [00:00:00]
Dramas, please.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:13]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:20]
This is life
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:22]
with a twist of lemon.
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:24]
Well, John,
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:25]
at the end of the last episode, you asked me a question
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:29]
that you said we would do in a future episode. I figured, well,
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:32]
hot on the heels of where I do my best work, maybe we talk about what makes a good meeting.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:38]
Right. Since your work is mostly meetings these days.
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:42]
I mean, it's it's a balance, but there's definitely more meetings than coding,
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:47]
which is what I used to do the bulk of. This week was a little unusual. It's funny that we're gonna talk about this now because I actually spent the vast majority of this week, banging out code.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:56]
Nice.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:57]
Yeah. And now you're going on vacation. So
SPEAKER_1 [00:01:01]
Well, yes. On vacation either.
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:05]
Yeah. I'm I'm heading up to Traverse City for a week where we will enjoy,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:09]
the cold weather of Michigan. It's so funny. We
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:12]
picked June thinking that it would be warm, and I think the high while we're there will be, like, 72.
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:18]
And it keeps getting cooler each day. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one day. Yeah. So
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:23]
we're we're packing pants and fleece and things of that sort layers.
SPEAKER_1 [00:01:28]
Do you have a good place for a bonfire?
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:31]
I do not. I I I'll be honest with I haven't seen a lot of rentals
SPEAKER_1 [00:01:35]
that encourage you to light fires there. Probably a good call if I was renting out property.
SPEAKER_1 [00:01:42]
I wouldn't want people playing with fire either.
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:45]
That said, the place that we'll go to tomorrow night for dinner is a pizza place that has, like, outdoor fires usually going on when we're there. Now granted, I have small kids,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:55]
so,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:56]
you know, within reason, we'll go buy them, but not necessarily
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:02]
Have dinner by too long. Yeah. Well, exactly.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:06]
But alright. So Nice. What makes a good meeting? Now I'm curious, What made you think about this as we were talking about what makes or where do we do our best work?
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:16]
So you were talking about where you do your best work and how,
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:21]
you're most productive when there's
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:23]
when you have time to get into a flow and it's not,
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:27]
your day isn't broken up by meetings and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:31]
So let me ask you this. You do a lot of client work. Right?
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:36]
Yes.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:37]
Do you not have a lot of meetings with your clients?
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:40]
I
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:41]
have a few meetings with clients, especially for projects. I have one standing meeting,
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:47]
with a client on retainer,
SPEAKER_1 [00:02:49]
that I meet with once a week. Otherwise, a lot of our communication is done via email or impromptu phone call.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:57]
Okay. It's interesting. Impromptu phone calls. I mean, those are pseudo meetings. Right? They they kinda take the form of an ad hoc meeting,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:04]
maybe to a lesser extent like
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:07]
water cooler conversation.
SPEAKER_1 [00:03:09]
Right.
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:10]
So do you do like a daily stand up or any kind of scrum or agile ceremonies?
SPEAKER_1 [00:03:16]
We do a daily stand up would be the really the closest thing to an agile ceremony that we do.
SPEAKER_1 [00:03:23]
We also have kind of these quarterly goals that are company wide, and we touch on those weekly,
SPEAKER_1 [00:03:31]
which isn't really like a sprint planning meeting, but kinda takes the place of that.
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:36]
Okay. Interesting. So for the listener that might not be familiar with the kinda the lingo, the jargon that we just dumped out, sprint, scrum,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:44]
agile, There's a methodology in,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:46]
really, the technology world, I think, software development in particular,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:50]
where you
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:53]
basically do very small tight iterations on your work, and you have lots of feedback loops. Right? That's how I would maybe generalize,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:01]
the the agile world. And the feedback loops are with your team, with your customer,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:06]
basically,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:06]
all the stakeholders in the project. And the idea is if you iterate and you stay close, you come up with a better product more close to what the customer wants and or needs rather than,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:19]
you know, you front load all these requirements. You don't talk to anybody for months on end, and then you deliver something, which tends to not go so well. So that's the jargon. That's what that's what we're referring to there.
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:29]
I ask because stand ups are
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:32]
they happen every day, right, for me in my world. Yep. And ours ours are in person except for on Thursdays. Are you in person or do you do them on, like, Slack?
SPEAKER_1 [00:04:40]
So
SPEAKER_1 [00:04:41]
in person is where the actual meeting takes place. We usually try to prepare by putting, like, main talking points in Slack beforehand.
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:49]
Interesting. Okay. So you sort of create an agenda, if you would. Yep. Okay. That to me is one of the important things that makes a good meeting, an agenda and a desired goal. Right? So why are you getting together, and what are you hoping to accomplish?
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:04]
And a meeting that doesn't have either of those things usually is a smell to me. So do you do you do a lot of, like, meeting invites on the calendar, like that whole type of scheduling thing?
SPEAKER_1 [00:05:15]
Yep.
SPEAKER_1 [00:05:16]
I mean, especially with clients and, I mean, our daily stand up is on the calendar,
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:20]
stuff like that. So if you do an internal meeting, do you ever get a calendar invite that doesn't have a description to it?
SPEAKER_1 [00:05:31]
Not that I know of. I mean, if that happens, then we would have talked about the meeting beforehand in some form.
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:37]
This is, to me, again, another one of those red flags in terms of what makes a good meeting or what makes a bad meeting. Like, I can sense a bad meeting on the horizon based upon the fact that the calendar invite came over with no description.
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:49]
And so, typically, what I do in that situation is I will email back the individual and say, hey, what is this about? And if they can't articulate that, then I usually hit the decline button. That's extreme. Like, I don't do that a lot. But basically, I'm unwilling to commit my time, which I can see pretty valuable. Right? Like, it at least it is to me, to,
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:10]
you know, thirty minutes of, like, open ended nonsense.
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:13]
And that's not to say that someone who sends an invite without a description is signing me up for open ended nonsense, but it, like, it definitely leans that way. Right? Like, a meeting has to have a purpose. If we're gonna disrupt our day and our productivity,
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:26]
then we we should make sure that we know why we're doing it and evaluate the value of doing so.
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:32]
Right.
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:33]
Yeah. So this is where we're a little different.
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:35]
I'm in a smaller company, so I don't have a bunch of people who are trying to get on my calendar,
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:42]
which is a benefit. Whereas you have a bigger team, and at times, you're sitting on multiple teams.
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:49]
So there's more people who would want a piece of your time in any given week.
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:54]
Yep. And
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:56]
here's another thing that's interesting. Don't know if you ever heard of of the way Amazon does meetings with the memos
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:01]
and how they read them upfront. Have you heard about this? I've not heard this about meetings.
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:05]
Was it the,
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:08]
like, new features?
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:10]
Whenever they wanna introduce a new feature, they'll write, like, a news release of what that feature is, and that's kinda like the
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:18]
driving force in how they build it and how they go about creating it.
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:22]
Oh, interesting. Now that I have not heard. What I'm referring to is there is this
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:28]
long understanding rule, especially, I guess, in meetings with be with Bezos.
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:33]
But but I think this this actually permeates across the company. This is all secondhand. Right? So I could be totally wrong, but this is pretty generally accepted knowledge about how Amazon does business. And that they'll prepare a memo, right, like a a statement
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:46]
about the meeting, if you will. And then because nobody ever reads a document before a meeting,
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:52]
they'll actually spend the first, like, ten minutes of the meeting, everybody reading in silence. So everybody that attends the meeting and if you can't make it to the time the meeting starts, right, you're out of the meeting.
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:02]
But you get there, and then they'll basically say, okay. Here's the document that we're going to discuss today. And then they you know, if if it's physical paper,
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:10]
hand it out to them or if it's electronic, whatever. Like, everybody is to sit down and read it at that point.
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:15]
And that way, everybody comes to the table with the baseline knowledge that you were hoping they would have. Now
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:21]
I've done this a couple of times. Not
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:24]
I I don't do this regularly, but I've actually found it pretty effective
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:27]
if the material you have prepared
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:30]
is, like,
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:32]
actually good. So a lot of meetings that I go into. Right? I am either trying to find something out. I'm trying to explain something,
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:39]
or the third one is I'm trying to collaborate. And that collaboration was the one where I find
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:43]
the
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:45]
the material
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:46]
per beforehand is really helpful.
SPEAKER_1 [00:08:50]
Yeah. So that brings up a good point that not all meetings are created equal.
SPEAKER_1 [00:08:55]
There's different purposes for meetings.
SPEAKER_1 [00:08:58]
You just pretty much put them into three different categories,
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:03]
which covers almost everything
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:05]
that you could possibly be meaning about. Right?
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:08]
It it does. But and I think by having those categories, right, it gives you a way to frame what you're going to accomplish, and also helps you kind of articulate that goal, which again, I think is really important.
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:17]
You know, if you get together, have a goal, state it, and then work towards it. Right? And when you think about
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:25]
like, you're in the marketing world, you know what a call to action is. Right? Yep. Like,
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:30]
that's a nice way of framing the meeting too. Like, what is your call to action in this meeting for the other participants? Right? And if you start to think in those terms,
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:40]
I think what you'll find is that not every meeting you would have scheduled, you will schedule. Right? This
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:48]
reminds me of of a meme. Have you seen that meme like, I'm I'm gonna totally destroy it now, but this
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:53]
meeting could have been an email?
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:55]
Yep. Yeah. So I have I have those
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:59]
fairly frequently.
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:01]
I I won't say often, but frequently. Like, they're they're a regular enough of occurrence
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:05]
that
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:06]
I find myself referencing the the meme, the tagline, if you will,
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:11]
more than I should. I think that's another so one one of the three meetings that I described, right, is that, like, where I'm sharing information.
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:19]
Yep. And I've seen this this kind of meeting where you get together for, let's say, a thirty minute block. Right? But really, you have five minutes of material, and you were just in like, you schedule it the same day. So in the morning,
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:34]
you plop it on, say, my calendar,
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:37]
and it's in the afternoon or whatever. And in in reality, all you needed to do was communicate something that was longer than a tweet,
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:45]
but you didn't want to do it, and so you put it in an email. We get through it maybe in the first five to ten minutes. In fact, I would say the that half of that, let's say, ten minutes, is spent with you trying to articulate the thing
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:59]
that you could have, like, spent time writing out and repolishing. Right?
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:03]
And then the rest of twenty minutes is just, like, you know, fill in a void. That to me is a toxic meeting. Like, it's just it's the kind of meeting that you shouldn't do. And I think I think there's a struggle to
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:16]
formulate
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:18]
a thought that has to manifest itself in a meeting. Right? So you you have you have folks who rather than, like, slow down just a bit and try to articulate what they want to say, they get into a meeting and they just, like, do a stream of consciousness.
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:34]
This this
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:35]
relates to another tangent of mine. I I don't you may probably don't have this problem. I I find
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:41]
folks writing ability to be almost, like, atrocious
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:46]
as of Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:48]
It's like
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:49]
and it's not some of it's grammar. Right? It's just like having fragments and run ons and things that are like
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:56]
no
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:57]
grown adult should do. But the other part of it is not being able to clearly and succinctly
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:04]
articulate
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:05]
a thought. I've I've actually started to notice that
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:08]
there sometimes people will prepare a document at the top. They'll do like a t l d r or an executive summary,
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:15]
and I've I've started to come to the conclusion that if
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:18]
you have to do that,
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:20]
then your opening paragraph, first of all, is probably bad.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:23]
Right? Yep. And it
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:26]
means that all of your other supporting detail in your document really is worthless. It's not important for probably the most important person who needs to digest the document. So that's starting to become a smell to me. And I'm not saying don't ever do that because I I definitely will find myself doing that occasionally.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:39]
It it just it just depends on,
SPEAKER_1 [00:12:41]
like, do I have to have the supporting documentation or not in what I'm doing? And if so, sometimes, you know, chewing it on. Whatever. But Yeah. I I think there's that. And then there's also if you're really passing on information that somebody else wrote, you can summarize that,
SPEAKER_1 [00:12:58]
so other people don't have to do all of the grunt work to figure out what's going on too. Yep. Definitely.
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:05]
So, you know, I I knocked on that, but I think there's a place for it. The the real problem, at least from my standpoint, is
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:12]
just folks that don't know how to write clearly,
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:16]
and it just I I don't know, John. It
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:18]
and I'm not like a fantastic writer by any stretch. I I don't I don't sit here pretending
SPEAKER_1 [00:13:24]
to be a fantastic writer. But the thing is nobody ever walks away from me, Stan, wondering what you were trying to say.
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:31]
There there you go.
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:34]
And so, you know, I've I've encouraged engineers that I work with to, like,
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:41]
try to sit down and write it out.
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:43]
Make sure you read what you write. I find a lot of people don't read what they write,
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:48]
and
SPEAKER_1 [00:13:49]
99% emails all the time. Oh, yeah. It's So there's, like, missing subjects
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:54]
and sentences and Exactly. Right? You skip over seriously
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:58]
important details that were in your head when you were writing, but never made it onto the screen or the paper or whatever.
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:04]
And at the very least, I think, you know, you gotta you gotta read what you write. Like, that's so critical. There's no excuse not to do it. I think it also pays dividends to read it out loud.
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:15]
I do this. Especially, like, the more important the thing I'm writing is, even if it's an email. Right? If it's an email to the right person,
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:22]
I will spend time wordsmithing it. One, to make sure that I'm clear. Two, to make sure that I don't carry any, like, unfortunate tones.
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:30]
And and three, just to make sure that I don't have any, like, goofy mistakes. Right? So I'll read it out loud. I'll polish all wordsmith. Sometimes I'll even sit on it, go to lunch, come back, wordsmith it some more. And You've sent me a number of emails that you want me to read through and say, hey, does this make sense? Or Yeah. Exactly. Getting a second opinion is always good too. I it's it would blow your mind how much I have missus Lemon review when I write. Never any, like, trade secrets or anything like that. But just like, hey, I'm preparing a piece of feedback,
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:59]
you know. Is this
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:01]
clear, and is it fairly objective? You know? Or or whatever. Like, that kind of thing I do to get, like, a a baseline. And I would say that's another good thing when you're doing writing,
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:12]
is to have is to have, like, that person that you can trust,
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:15]
your your trusted proofreader, if you will.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:18]
Now we were talking about meetings. I think writing is is a critical part of that. I heard And the part in avoiding meetings is Absolutely.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:27]
Well, it's it's not I wouldn't say avoiding meetings. I would say identifying
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:31]
the meetings that are worthy of your time. Right? And so
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:36]
the meetings that are not worthy of your time often can be replaced with a clear piece of written material.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:43]
Full stop. Right? I
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:46]
think our inability to have effective meetings, like, societally also relates to our inability to write. I think those two things are probably very much related.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:57]
I don't know. I have only anecdotal evidence to back that up. But
SPEAKER_1 [00:16:02]
But this is a podcast,
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:04]
not a Yeah. Right. Reviewed journal. If we were if we were if we were researched and well thought out,
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:11]
it wouldn't be any fun. We would have less less than her than we currently have. Yep. There you go.
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:17]
So I heard a rumor recently
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:19]
from a colleague that apparently Amazon actually requires new hires
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:24]
to take a writing course
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:27]
when they first start employment. I don't know if that's true. Alright? I just to be clear, like, is definitely secondhand.
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:33]
A lot of these things in the tech world tend to have a bit of truth to it, and just knowing the culture of Amazon
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:40]
and some of the other things that we know about the way that they function, this doesn't surprise me. Right? But I thought it was kind of an interesting
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:48]
nuance to their hiring procedures, first of all.
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:51]
Also very telling. I I don't know. What what like, what do you react to the like, what's your reaction to the idea that
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:56]
if you started a new job, you would have to take a writing class?
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:02]
So I think that that
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:05]
serves a couple purposes. One, it makes employees better employees.
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:10]
Two, it makes the potential employee a better individual.
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:14]
And three, it weeds out people who
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:18]
don't wanna work on improving a skill,
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:22]
that they use every day.
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:24]
So you seem pro writing class, John. I I am pro writing class. I think that I mean, forever, you would see these job postings that say a bachelor's degree required,
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:36]
which I think
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:38]
probably initially came from kinda finding this well rounded person.
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:43]
Now you can go through, get your bachelor's degree, and
SPEAKER_1 [00:17:46]
not be well rounded or know how to write.
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:50]
No. I think I think you you're definitely spot on.
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:53]
It's
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:54]
I've seen, like, excellent writing skills listed as a
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:00]
like, on job descriptions very often. I used to see that list on resumes. I don't see that very often anymore.
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:05]
Usually, you can tell from a resume if they can write well or not. Write or not. Yeah. It's all words usually.
SPEAKER_1 [00:18:10]
Yeah. Yeah. But
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:12]
I don't, you know, I don't know. It's man, it's getting a little depressing here.
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:19]
I think I think the the takeaway that I would have is this. First of all, if you are in a
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:25]
setting where meetings are part of your life, two things. One, don't ever schedule a meeting that doesn't have a clearly articulated purpose. And if you can sit down
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:36]
and write an email or a memo or whatever, instead of having the meeting, you should do that, and your colleagues will probably appreciate it.
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:45]
The the the second thing is if you are invited to a meeting that does not have a clear purpose articulated,
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:51]
you should ask what that purpose is. Right? Now you may not be able to get away with some of the things I do where I just decline a meeting if it it doesn't have a purpose or whatever, but I I think you can at least start that conversation
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:03]
and help your colleagues get to a point where maybe they question the meeting, and maybe they decide to write the email instead. So those would be my two pieces of advice kinda coming out of that.
SPEAKER_1 [00:19:14]
So there's a different kind of meeting that I run into that you probably don't run into all that often.
SPEAKER_1 [00:19:19]
It's kind of the client requests my presence at a meeting as a consultant or as a SME
SPEAKER_1 [00:19:27]
subject matter expert,
SPEAKER_1 [00:19:29]
where I am then being paid an hourly rate to sit in on that meeting.
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:34]
Yeah. I definitely don't have that. I'm curious. Like, how often do you sit in a meeting like that and think that it was not a good use of your time?
SPEAKER_1 [00:19:46]
Rarely. I mean, it has happened for sure. Things that could definitely have been solved with an email, and definitely don't need to get
SPEAKER_1 [00:19:54]
six different people from four different
SPEAKER_1 [00:19:59]
organizations
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:00]
or
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:02]
departments or whatever on that meeting because usually that just
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:06]
adds complexity that isn't needed to solve the problem.
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:09]
But you want billable hours. Right?
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:12]
I do. Sure.
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:14]
So
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:15]
I think there's it's an interesting balance.
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:17]
I I would imagine it's an interesting balance. Right? Because you want billable hours at the same time you don't want to
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:22]
waste the customer's
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:25]
funds. Right? Because they have a certain amount of budget to leverage you. And I would imagine there are things that you could do for them that you would prefer to do than sit in a pointless meeting potentially. Correct. Yep. Yeah. So that's I 'd there's definitely a fine line to walk there. This to me sounds like a reason to read that,
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:42]
how to ruin friends and influence people book, John, that we we always constantly mentioning a couple times. You know what I am reading? This is completely up. Actually, maybe I can tie it in. So I I'm reading through creative
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:53]
creative selection, which was another,
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:56]
recommendation from you, kind of about the
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:59]
internal creative processes of Apple and how,
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:03]
their products really
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:05]
come to be, come to face the
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:07]
the customers.
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:10]
And just today, I was reading a chapter
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:12]
where the author, I don't remember his name,
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:16]
was
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:17]
they were trying to
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:20]
improve email when email is really getting HTML heavy.
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:24]
And he goes in, and he's working on this text editor and is all concerned about the insertion point
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:30]
and running into a bunch of bugs that he can't figure out why they're happening when they're happening.
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:35]
And he walks down to some former colleagues and says, hey. I can't figure this out. And they say, well, that's because
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:43]
there's no clear rules about what it should be doing. So kind of an impromptu meeting there between other people,
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:52]
really coming together to solve a problem.
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:55]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:56]
So just to back up a little bit, the book you're referring to is creative selection inside Apple's design process during the golden age of Steve Jobs.
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:04]
Creative Selection is the primary title. But it's by Ken I I think I'm not gonna botch this. Kocienda,
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:09]
k o c I e n d a. And maybe, John, we could drop a link in the show notes or something. We'll link it. It's it is a fantastic book. It's an easy read. It's a pretty quick read too.
SPEAKER_1 [00:22:22]
I should say that if you don't have any, like, development experience,
SPEAKER_1 [00:22:27]
some of the stuff you aren't gonna get at all. You can just skip over those parts and kinda get the overall big picture.
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:33]
There there is some nerd detail. I I won't dispute that. I think the general so here was my big takeaway from that book.
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:41]
They have a demo first mentality and a demo oriented culture,
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:46]
and I think that that
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:48]
designs and drives products in a very different way
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:51]
than one where demos are not a first class citizen. So that that's set aside for a moment. You allude to Ken's, like, inclination
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:01]
to go find someone and help him work through stuff. Ken, actually, I think in the book, a number of times,
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:06]
will,
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:08]
talk about how he didn't really build this thing or didn't wasn't really, like, the the primary force behind it. He just was, like, the first guy there and then pulled in the other people that he needed to accomplish it kinda thing. Right? Correct. So this, like, supportive structure.
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:23]
And you're right. These are ad hoc meetings. They are
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:26]
the
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:27]
at least in my day to day, that type of meeting tends to be the most productive. It tends to be the most
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:35]
satisfying as well. So I'll give you an example. Right? Like an engineer will come to me and say, hey. I have a problem. I need some help thinking through it.
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:43]
And
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:43]
they'll they'll try and, like, type it out on Slack or whatever, and I'll be like, hey. Let's just hop on a Hangout, share some screens, work through it. Right? It's it's the old dry erase board or the old chalkboard scenario Yep. Where you where you get out there and you lay out your ideas and and you talk about it. And Do you have a dry erase board in your office?
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:02]
Yeah. All all the
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:05]
the the walls are painted with that idea paint. No. And I mean, your office that you're sitting in right now. Oh, no. No. I don't. I you know, it surprises me.
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:13]
In it it does. So I probably should do something. I don't really have a big chunk of wall to hang it on. But I did if you remember
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:21]
well, were you ever at the townhome?
SPEAKER_1 [00:24:23]
I was never at the townhome. Saxonburg is the first place that I saw you. In the townhome, when I finished the basement and I got to the
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:31]
electrical box, I was trying to figure out how to cover it up, and it was going to be right to the left of my desk. And I thought, you know what? That's the perfect place for a dry erase board. So I put a big dry erase board over the electrical box,
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:43]
and I could pop it off if I needed to get to it, but it I like it was a big old one. It was great. Loved it.
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:49]
I digress. So these meetings, right, these collaborative meetings, I think, are sometimes the most fruitful
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:55]
that
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:56]
I have in my day.
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:57]
I think the thing about ad hoc meetings is when they arise,
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:03]
they do for a very specific need. So their purpose is already clear. Right?
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:08]
And and maybe, like, I I don't know. Maybe that's a a sniff test you can use with a meeting
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:14]
that is on your agenda. Right? Like, could this have been an ad hoc meeting between a couple people?
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:20]
I don't know. Maybe. If so, maybe it's a good meeting.
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:25]
Alright. Last thing on the meeting front. What what are the what's the largest
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:29]
number of people you have in a meeting?
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:34]
In work,
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:35]
they are all relatively
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:37]
small.
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:38]
I'd say
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:40]
six would be rare if we had that many.
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:45]
I've been in several church meetings where it's considerably more than that up to
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:50]
sixteen,
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:52]
seventeen.
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:54]
See, at that point, I think it's not a meeting. It's like a talk,
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:58]
It's like a speech.
SPEAKER_1 [00:26:00]
Well, one of them was a task force, so it was kind of collaborative with everybody in the room.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:05]
But yeah. Well, it was sold that way, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:10]
I I think when you get those big meetings, right, you find that some people participate,
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:14]
most do not.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:15]
And the meeting could have been rehashed with just those that participated,
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:20]
and it would been it would have been as effective, if not more.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:25]
This is just a hypothesis. I I try to keep meetings small. Right? Exactly the people that need to be there, no more, no less.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:32]
If you need to disseminate information at a in, like, a wide net,
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:37]
then there are better ways of doing it than a meeting.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:41]
So I would scrutinize the number of people
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:43]
you have in a meeting. I think I think we have a tendency to
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:47]
have meetings that are too big, too many people,
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:50]
and they don't accomplish something. Right? Again,
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:54]
there is a time and a place for meeting where you are communicating information,
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:58]
but very often,
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:00]
that can be replaced with an email, with a document, with something else that's more effective and a better use of people's time. So on that note, how do you view the stand up, which is
SPEAKER_1 [00:27:12]
pretty much delivering information
SPEAKER_1 [00:27:14]
from your perspective?
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:16]
Yeah. So the stand up is good because it level sets everybody, right, on a team in a collaborative way. It's intended to be short
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:25]
and very direct.
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:26]
And if you look at the way that a stand up is supposed to go, right, it's not just pure,
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:31]
here's what I've done, here's what I'm going to do, although that's a key component. You're also identifying blockers
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:37]
and posing questions. Right? So you can communicate
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:41]
what is going on or what you've done in other ways.
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:46]
The blockers bit, especially, I think, is something that necessitates
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:49]
conversation.
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:51]
Or, you know, there there is usually in in a good stand up, a,
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:56]
hint or an opportunity to collaborate.
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:59]
And if you have a siloed team,
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:03]
then you're never gonna get that. But that's that's indicative of another problem. Right? So a good stand up, at least I think,
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:09]
has a an actual collaborative element to it that you,
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:14]
wouldn't get in just pure information dissemination.
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:18]
And the other thing, I think that the blockers
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:22]
part is huge about daily stand up. And if you're running a strict agile sort of team,
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:28]
you have a scrum master who's one of their primary roles is to remove blockers from the team, things that are in meeting the team. So Exactly. Exactly. And I think,
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:39]
you know, in kind of the commercialization
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:41]
of scrum and agile,
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:44]
you've like, we were losing a bit of that because it's supposed to be more organic.
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:48]
Stand up is just it's a it's a ceremony of a healthy team. Right? And a healthy team talks.
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:54]
A healthy team collaborates.
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:55]
And if a stand up is not doing those two things, it really isn't worth anybody's time, and you're also not agile, by the way. Yep.
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:02]
So there you go. Yeah. We should go back to the definition of agile, and then I think that'd solve a lot of problems. Well,
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:10]
you know, I mean, there's
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:12]
gotta be
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:13]
agile is just a label on
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:16]
close collaboration. I'm talking about the the word agile,
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:21]
like, that you see in video games or sports.
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:26]
Oh, you wanted to define it right now, you mean, for the podcast? No. I I think that if we went back to that definition of what it actually is,
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:34]
that would solve a lot of the problems that you're running into on these teams that are
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:38]
practicing it. I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:42]
So interestingly,
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:44]
this all kinda ties into something you've had on our docket for a long time about actual productivity versus productivity theater. Because I think and you tell me if I'm wrong. I think a bad meeting, right, would constitute as productivity theater.
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:56]
Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:58]
I think when I first put this I mean, it's been there forever.
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:02]
Now we can take it off. So I think the real reason I put that on there was kind of these
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:08]
micro optimizations
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:10]
all over the place,
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:12]
that made you feel more productive
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:14]
rather than making
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:15]
big changes that actually increase your productivity.
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:19]
Like So
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:21]
Cancel your Facebook page,
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:22]
and you'll probably be more productive just by the nature of not having Facebook. Give me some ideas of of micro changes because I am not a 100% sure that I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:34]
So something like,
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:36]
I don't know, this like, they're all good changes, but they don't make that big of a difference. So, like, as you're organizing your to do list for the day, make sure that everyone starts with a verb.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:48]
Okay.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:49]
So that okay. That's a good example of productivity theater.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:53]
What let let me let me back up though. Let me give you an example that I've seen that I think is similar. Right?
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:59]
A user story that starts with as a,
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:02]
you know, marketer, right, in my world Mhmm. I want to do x in every story. Every story.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:10]
Absolutely everyone. Every single story has to be phrased in that way. That's that's something that I see a lot, and I think the Is that even productivity
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:20]
theater theater? Because that just seems like it could be
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:23]
detrimental
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:25]
to creativity
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:26]
and really kinda making you focus on form rather than
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:31]
substance.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:32]
Well, the intent of the form, if you will, right, is to remind you that you have a customer, and so not to develop in a vacuum.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:39]
But Right. To me, that that's a like, it's addressing a symptom.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:43]
It's not actually
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:45]
getting to the heart of the problem, which is you've forgotten about your customer. Right? Yep.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:50]
And I think the the problem, or at least what I've seen, is we we can I've seen teams
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:56]
that will spend an unusual amount of time
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:00]
refining
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:00]
tickets
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:01]
to
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:03]
fit this pattern. Right? Like, everything's gonna start with a verb or whatever,
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:08]
rather than, like, jot down what you need to accomplish.
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:12]
And and granted, like, if you can't do that and think about your customer,
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:16]
like, you've you've probably messed something up. Right? Right. But there is there is, like, kinda just taking it too far, which I think is is the problem. And so
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:26]
I think there's value, right, in
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:30]
taking your goals and framing them in verbs, but I don't know that
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:34]
I don't know that it's should be like a mandate. Right? And those kind of mandates wind up being it's kinda like office space, man.
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:43]
Right? Yep. Like like, it's the TPS form. That's exactly what that is. That's what you should say, John. The next time that productivity theater comes up, you should be okay. I'll put that on my TPS form.
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:55]
You've please tell me you've seen this movie. Right? Yes. Yes. I have. Okay. I wasn't sure what we're getting into there.
SPEAKER_1 [00:33:04]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_1 [00:33:05]
I had a thought and now it's gone the way of office space. So
SPEAKER_1 [00:33:10]
You're thinking about bashing printers with baseball bats? Oh, I think about bashing printers with baseball bats ever since I started working in IT.
SPEAKER_0 [00:33:19]
Interesting enough, Henry walked in today. There was, like, a community garage sale, and Henry walked in today with one of those small baseball bats, a Louisville slugger bat. Yeah. And I was looking at him, and I'm like, what are you gonna do with that? He goes, I'm gonna smash stuff. I'm like, well, that that's not what it's for.
SPEAKER_0 [00:33:35]
But in the back of my head, I was thinking, I need to find him an old printer. That's what I need to do and just let him go to town. Nice. You don't have one sitting in the basement or something like that? I do not keep that kind of stuff. When that kind of stuff goes bad or dies, I get rid of it as quick as I can. Otherwise, you develop a collection.
SPEAKER_0 [00:33:53]
I have no printer in my house at all. None at all, really? No printer. When was the last time you had a printer, John?
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:02]
Before I was married.
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:04]
Wow.
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:05]
So when Actually, it would've been when I was still living at my parents' house. So it's been over six years.
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:12]
Okay. Was that their printer, or was that your printer?
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:15]
That was their printer, I believe. I mean, it gets fuzzy because I think I bought the router that they still use. So
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:21]
Okay.
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:21]
So I'm I'm curious.
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:23]
Oh, man. We should talk about routers. Gosh.
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:26]
I'm curious, like, why haven't you bought a printer? Is it just because you go to an office where you have access to a printer?
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:33]
Yeah. That's probably the main reason. And even there,
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:37]
like, I don't remember the last time I used the printer at the office.
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:43]
I just don't print stuff.
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:45]
Okay.
SPEAKER_0 [00:34:46]
You ever, like, go to a baseball game where you need to print out tickets, anything like that? It's all on your phone now, man. Or the theater?
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:54]
The theater, you can print them out at the theater.
SPEAKER_1 [00:34:57]
Okay. Alright. Well But last time I did that, I pulled it up on my phone too. So
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:03]
Those are the kind of things I still use my printer for or, like, return slips for Amazon. I've done that. I've had to do that for I have printed one of those out at
SPEAKER_1 [00:35:12]
at work.
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:13]
Okay. So there you go. So I don't have an office to go to, and missus Lemon actually uses the printer for school stuff.
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:20]
But it's interesting.
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:22]
Prior to being financial secretary of church, this printer had not actually been on
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:28]
probably in, like, a solid year. Like, there was a long stint where it hadn't gotten touched.
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:32]
And then financial secretary, I'm, like, running reports,
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:35]
doing statements, all kinds of stuff all the time. So
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:39]
my printer's gotten a new life out of it.
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:41]
Nice.
SPEAKER_1 [00:35:42]
Yeah. Lead to the accountants.
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:45]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:46]
You know,
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:48]
hate shopping for printers. I don't know if ever told you that. I really hate shopping for printers. It's up there with buying a car for me. Yeah. I was gonna ask, car or printer worse?
SPEAKER_0 [00:35:57]
Oh oh, car is worse. Car is worse. Printer is a close second. Right? Because it's a good printer is just expensive enough that if it's not perfect, it really bugs you.
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:07]
Yep. You know? And
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:09]
there's, like nothing
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:11]
has all the features you want. And if you go and, like, log on to Amazon or walmart.com
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:16]
and you start looking at printer reviews, they're all terrible. Right? Like Yep. There's there's not a good printer out there,
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:22]
and there's just endless complaints.
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:25]
Not to mention that the model numbering of these things is completely horrible. Like, you they tell you nothing about the product, so you can't actually figure out, does this wanna have what I want? You know, what is the next model up? All those things. It's very frustrating.
SPEAKER_1 [00:36:39]
May your printer live long and prosper. Yeah. I hope so.
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:43]
The the one I got, I actually got because it had a feed scanner on the top as well as a flatbed scanner.
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:49]
Yeah. And at the time, like, that was really important. Now, every time I gotta scan something, I use the scanner app by Readdle on my phone,
SPEAKER_0 [00:36:56]
and that that actually makes a better scan. So what are you gonna do? Oh, well.
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:03]
So meetings,
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:05]
if they're run well,
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:07]
worth your time,
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:09]
important,
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:10]
accomplish something.
SPEAKER_0 [00:37:13]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:37:14]
And don't give up because you've had a bad meeting. Right? Like, be the change you wanna see in your meetings.
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:22]
Alright.
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:25]
So we got that. We got productivity theater.
SPEAKER_0 [00:37:28]
We even talked about printers. Anything else you wanna talk about this week, Stan? Not this week, but the next time we talk, John, I hope to have a brand new router.
SPEAKER_0 [00:37:36]
Maybe. We'll see. On
SPEAKER_0 [00:37:38]
on what I want, and we can talk about that and also why I felt the need to get a new router. And what a lemon family vacation looks like.
SPEAKER_0 [00:37:48]
It involves a lot of relaxing. We'll talk about that next time.
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:51]
Alright.
SPEAKER_1 [00:37:52]
You have a good time on vacation. We'll talk to you next week, Stan. Thanks, Sean. See you later.