Former Google Exec's Two Pieces of Advice for Engaging Meetings

Business Insider: David Singleton wants leaders to stop and think before they attend a meeting. Singleton, the former CTO of Stripe and vice president of engineering at Google, recently appeared on "The Peterman Pod," where he offered two tips to leaders who want to command attention and engagement at their all-hands meetings.

Simple ways to make meetings better

www.fastcompany.com: Meetings, am I right? As the world has adapted to remote life, there’s nothing quite as soul-sucking as seeing your calendar lined up with a day full of back-to-back Zoom meetings. Part of the dread is that you don’t even know if they’re going to be a good use of your time—or worse, you know they won’t be but still feel like you have to show your face.

How to Kill Endless Meetings and Stay Productive

www.lifehack.org: We’re in the middle of a meeting epidemic. Executives now spend an average of 23 hours a week in meetings, with 71 percent reporting that those meetings are generally unproductive and inefficient.[1]

Despite their drawbacks, meetings remain an integral part of any modern workplace. The rise of office silos and remote workers make regular check-ins an absolute must for keeping everyone on the same page. Meetings aren’t going away anytime soon, so how can we work to cut down on their time and productivity drains?

Easy Meeting Scheduling With Doodle

Arts Hacker: If I can put on my grumpy Gen-X arts admin hat for a moment, I have to say that the older I get, the less I enjoy trying new apps. Instead, finding something that works and sticking with it holds a lot of value. Having said that, when I do run across something new that makes me want to switch, it’s really exciting.

How to create an elevator pitch that doesn’t sound cheesy

www.fastcompany.com: At its best, an elevator pitch is a pithy, memorable answer to the dreaded, “Tell me about yourself.” At its worst, it’s cheesy, jargon-filled nonsense. (e.g., I’m not a writer. I’m a “word crafter on a mission to eradicate sentence-ending prepositions from the planet.”)

Two approaches to leading meetings

ThoughtForm, Inc.: No matter your company’s size, industry, or location, chances are that meetings are at least a small part of your work life—or more likely, a huge part. And unfortunately, the reality is that a lot of those meetings aren’t as effective as they could be. Bad meetings come in all shapes and sizes.

Visual Thinking in Meeting Facilitation

ThoughtForm, Inc.: So a quick glance at the internet will tell you that meetings may be the most hated thing in any workplace today. People think they are inefficient, they’re boring, they’re a waste of time… I don’t think there is anything worse than going to a meeting. Maybe someone not bringing donuts to that meeting, but that’s about it.