No #143 | September 1, 2024

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

I am currently on a short road trip through the USA with my son, so this week's newsletter is shorter than usual (and I've also recycled some old content😜).

Happy first week of September, and back to regular programming next week.

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 😵Online Meeting Chat Chaos
• 🤔What is a Meme?
• 🏈Football Clichés
• 😆GOAT Comic
• 😎Cool Links

😵Online Meeting Chat Chaos

I was chatting with a colleague the other day about the challenges of leading an online meeting and the conversation reminded me of this article I wrote in 2022:

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In the beforetimes, the leader of an in-person meeting was responsible for three things:

1. Staying on time
2. Sticking to the agenda
3. Listening, leading and moderating the discussion

And then in March 2020, with the transition to WFH, almost every leader on the planet had to learn something new: how to lead a virtual meeting.

A virtual meeting still requires the leader to be mindful of those same three things above. However, in a virtual meeting there is a fourth task which drastically increases the complexity of the role: following and moderating the group chat.

Depending on your organization’s culture, the group chat can be an incredible value-add for participants of a meeting. It provides an opportunity to give immediate feedback, make light of something (GIFs!), share their own insights and connect with colleagues. In certain meetings, the group chat can literally become a meeting within a meeting.

However, while this is great for the participants, for the person leading the meeting, a fast-moving group chat can feel like the iconic I Love Lucy chocolate factory scene: overwhelming.

This is especially true if the meeting includes a lot of attendees and the leader is tasked with doing most of the talking.

For example:

Meeting Leader: "Good morning everyone..."

DING! QUESTION!

DING! GIF!

Meeting Leader: "...I have a few updates today..."

DING! PERSONAL STORY!

DING! FEEDBACK!

Meeting Leader: "...ok what's all the commotion in the chat?"

DING! CAT PHOTO!

So as the leader of a virtual meeting you have two options:

1. You can ignore the group chat or ask people not to use it because it’s distracting and multitasking is hard​
2. Embrace the chaos of the group chat

From my experience, option number 2 is the most desirable. In most circumstances, a healthy group chat in a virtual meeting helps build culture, engagement and transparency.

To make the most of out of a virtual meeting group chat, below are a few strategies I've seen savvy leaders use to leverage it:

• Set up your screens for success. If you know that the meeting is going to have a lot of group chat, make sure that you set up your monitors and applications so that you have a static screen constantly showing the chat so that you can keep up.
• Invite people to participate in the group chat. This is a great way to get people engaged in a meeting. An example is asking everyone to write down in the chat something that they're currently working on that they're proud of. This invitation to participate in the group chat can set the tone in the right direction.
• Watch peoples’ reactions. If everyone in the meeting suddenly smiles, but you didn’t say anything remotely funny, then there is a high probability that someone just posted a cat GIF. Take a moment to acknowledge what everyone else saw, and if you’re really skilled, try to create a segue: “....speaking of funny cats, let’s talk about our Q2 results…”
• Follow-up. At the end of the meeting, review the group chat to make sure there were no questions that got unanswered. If there were, follow-up directly with the person that asked.

So at your next meeting, just channel your inner I Love Lucy and just start consuming the chocolate (group chat) as best and as fast as you can!

🤔What is a meme?

I really like George Mack's description of a what a meme is.

Prediction for the future: kids will be taught how to create memes in school.

🏈Football Clichés

Football!

The NFL season starts this week, and football provides some of the best examples of innovative leadership.

Sean McVay, the coach of the LA Rams, is one of those innovative leaders. One thing McVay does better than any other coach is he creates simple organizational catchphrases that establishes team identity and culture = winning.

Below are some of his best catchphrases:

• ⏰OUR RULE: BE ON TIME - The connection built through mutual respect for each other's time. The character of people who identify as being on time
• 😣EMBRACE THE SUCK - No pain no gain
• 👏WE NOT ME - Team comes first
• 📈THE STANDARD IS THE STANDARD - We set the bar high together
• 😀URGENT ENJOYMENT - Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Enjoy every moment today

Find out more about Sean McVay's approach here.

🤣GOAT Comic

Ok, I think I've used this comic several times in my newsletter, but it truly is one of the greatest comics (by Jon Adams) I've ever seen and I wish that they'd someday make a movie about this.

It's the extra large tape. Gets me every time🤣🤣🤣.

😎Cool Links

😮‍💨The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System. Many of us find it challenging to think clearly when our nervous system has been hijacked by a trigger or an intense situation. Making matters worse is that unproductive thought loops and feelings exacerbate the issue. These reactive states are the underlying cause of ineffectiveness, reactivity, conflict, and regrettable decision-making. Luckily, there is a zero-cost solution to this quandary—an always-accessible operating manual for your nervous system that is more effective than any prescription drug, with no unwanted side effects. In fact, it has been under your nose since you were born: your breath.

🤔Making Process Improvements Stick. A particularly troublesome obstacle to sustained improvement, the researchers say, is initiative fatigue, which occurs when leaders jump too quickly from one improvement fad to another. (One of the researchers has joked about the danger of airport bookstores, which tempt traveling executives to pick up business books that may send them in pursuit of a new improvement plan.) Embarking on a new project is often more exciting than staying the course, but that doesn’t necessarily deliver the best long-term results.

😃Use these 9 little phrases to 'instantly brighten' someone's day, say happiness expert. This is a great article with some very precise advice on words you can say that make other people happy.

💌Share it on LinkedIn​

Thank you!

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