Episode 252 - (SUPERVISION) Planning and Running Awesome Meetings

Summary

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ABA Inside Track, Episode 252 - (SUPERVISION) Planning and Running Awesome Meetings

Date: September 13, 2023
Hosts: Robert Perry Crews, Diana, Jackie
Theme: How to plan and conduct effective meetings in behavior analytic supervision—and beyond.

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on practical strategies for planning and running engaging, productive, and purposeful meetings, with a special emphasis on their role in supervision for behavior analysts. The hosts review key literature and best practices, offer real-world examples, and discuss actionable tools—including checklists and behavioral rehearsal—to level up your meeting game and train supervisees to do the same.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Why Talk About Meetings? (02:00–07:30)

• Meetings are a universal workplace experience—often dreaded, sometimes vital.
• Bad meetings waste time and diminish job satisfaction; good meetings catalyze ideas, foster collaboration, and improve outcomes.
  • “There is nothing inherent about meetings that makes them bad. So it is entirely possible to transform them into compelling, productive and fun activities.” – Rob (12:42), citing Lencioni via Leblanc & Nosek.
• In helping professions (including ABA), up to 47% of one’s workday may be spent in meetings (07:15).

Quote:

“If you hate going to meetings and you spend about 50% of your day in meetings, you hate half of your job.” — Rob (09:04)

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2. Types of Meetings in Behavior Analysis (11:20–22:04)

Based on LeBlanc & Nosek (2019):

• Supervision and Performance Management Meetings
  One-on-one, focused on supervision goals, relationship building, feedback, and shaping professional skills.
• Communication Meetings
  For updates, announcements, or sharing important news—should only be in-person if content can’t be effectively handled in an email. (“If you can write the same thing that you're going to talk about in a 30 minute meeting in a 50 to 125-word email, just send the email.” – Rob, 12:52)
• Problem-Solving Meetings
  For brainstorming and tackling issues as a group. Caveat: Often called in a rush; can be unproductive if not enough info is gathered in advance.
  • “If you get called into a meeting to talk about an emergency and the take home is, well, we all need to go gather information. You had a bad meeting, in my opinion.” — Rob (17:12)
• Project Management/Product Generation Meetings
  Working sessions for longer-term tasks; tend to be more collaborative and semi-structured.

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3. What Makes a Meeting “Good”? (27:14–33:34)

• Five Key Characteristics (per research):

  1. Punctuality: Starts/ends on time, appropriate scheduling, functional technology, comfortable environment (29:21).
  2. Clear Agenda: Sent in advance, specifies purpose, content, roles, and timeframes.
  3. Minutes Kept and Shared: Documenting proceedings and action items (30:31).
  4. Designated Leader: Someone who guides, opens, and closes the meeting.
  5. Purposeful Participation: Attendees are selected for relevance; those without a clear role may leave early.

• Transparency & Purpose:
  Regular meetings with unclear or “unstated” purposes sap trust. Be explicit about goals and content (31:23).

• Planning Ahead:
  Avoid “short-notice” meetings unless necessary; respect stakeholders’ schedules to maximize attendance and engagement (32:04).

  Quote:

  “If you have too many short notice meetings, it's very stressful…it cuts up work productivity.” — Jackie (32:13)

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4. Planning: Before the Meeting (35:12–42:00)

• Crafting the Agenda:

  • Supervisee Should Build Agenda: Train supervisees to prepare the agenda at least 24 hours in advance; supervisors add or adjust as needed (35:12–36:19).
  • Agenda Components: Purpose, list of items/tasks, time, place, attendees, expected end time.

  Quote:

  “If [the supervisee doesn't] fill the agenda in, you don't have the meeting.” – Jackie (37:20)

• Invite Only Needed Participants:
  Use a checklist approach; only include those with something to add.

• Virtual vs. In-person:
  Hybrid meetings are suboptimal; prefer all in-person or all online depending on meeting needs (41:15).

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5. Leading & Managing During the Meeting (43:06–49:12)

• Opening the Meeting:

  • Start on time (“don't punish punctual attendees”—Rob, 43:47)
  • State rules and contingencies.
  • Set expectations and review agenda.
  • Keep introductions brief unless relationship-building is a primary objective.

• Facilitation Tips:

  • Assign (or rotate) roles: note-taker, timekeeper, etc.
  • Use prompts for redirection (“Could you clarify that point a little bit more?”) as suggested in LeBlanc & Nosek’s Table 1 (48:19–49:12).
  • Model adherence to meeting rules and deal privately with adult behavior issues as necessary.

• Wrap-Up:

  • Summarize proceedings and next steps.
  • Share meeting minutes within 24–48 hours.

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6. Follow-Up and Feedback (49:39–53:49)

• Schedule needed follow-ups at meeting’s end.
• **Optional: Send post-meeting survey for feedback on meeting effectiveness.
• Use published checklists to guide planning and leading.

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7. Supervision-Specific Strategies (53:49–67:42)

• Modeling: Supervisor should demonstrate both professional and caring behaviors (smile, be attentive, give positive and constructive feedback) (54:29–59:16).
• Professionalism: Model punctuality, honor commitments, and timely provide/return materials.
• Trainee Practice:
  • Give trainees concrete opportunities to lead, time-keep, note-take, set agenda, or “open” and “close” meetings.
  • Debrief and provide specific feedback using checklists and self-assessments.
  • Solicit feedback from trainees about your own meeting leadership.
• Behavioral Skills Training: Rehearse, observe, provide feedback, and adjust.

Quote:

“Just watching someone else do something well doesn't automatically mean that you are then going to be able to do it well yourself. You have to actually go through the process of learning how to do it.” — Diana (60:47)

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8. Additional Resources and Memorable Moments

• Notable Literature Discussed:

  • LeBlanc & Nosek, "Planning and Leading Effective Meetings" (2019)
  • Francisco Francisco, "How to Create and Facilitate Meetings that Matter" (2007)
  • Sellers, Valentino, LeBlanc, "Recommended Practices for Individual Supervision..." (2016)

• Favorite Tool:
  The meeting planning checklists and flowcharts (e.g., “Does this meeting need to happen? Yes/No? If no, cancel.”) — 61:26

• Humorous Asides:

  • Recurring jokes about “bad meetings” and the pop song “Bad Day” (17:16)
  • Tips for hiding online shopping during virtual meetings (04:15)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “There is nothing inherent about meetings that makes them bad.” – Rob (12:42), quoting Lencioni
• “If you can write the same thing...in a 50 to 125 word email, just send the email. Don’t have that meeting.” – Rob (12:52)
• “If you have too many short notice meetings, it’s very stressful… it cuts up work productivity.” – Jackie (32:13)
• “If [the supervisee] doesn’t fill the agenda in, you don’t have the meeting.” – Jackie (37:20)
• “Just watching someone else do something well doesn’t automatically mean that you are then going to be able to do it well yourself.” – Diana (60:47)
• “Could have been an email. This podcast could have been an email. Just kidding.” – Diana (67:42)

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Key Takeaways

• Solid preparation (agenda, purpose, attendees, logistics) is the key to effective meetings.
• Only hold a meeting if it really needs to happen.
• Train supervisees to plan, structure, and lead meetings by providing real opportunities and timely feedback.
• Meetings should be structured, purposeful, and have only the necessary participants.
• Leverage checklists and frameworks from the literature.
• Don’t forget to model pleasant, attentive, and professional behavior in all meetings.

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Listen for These Notable Segments

• Types of Meetings & When/Why to Hold Them – 11:20–22:04
• Agenda-Building & Participant Selection – 35:12–42:00
• Leading & Managing the Meeting – 43:06–49:12
• Training Supervisees: Practice & Feedback – 53:49–67:42

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to ABA Inside Track, the podcast that's like reading in your car but safer. I'm your host, Robert Perry Crews. With me, as always, are my fabulous co hosts.

[C]

Hey, Rob, it's me, Diana.

[A]

Hey, Rob, it's me, Jackie.

[B]

Jackie, you're back in your. In your wind tunnel again, I see.

[A]

I am in my wind tunnel. Tunneling wind. That's my new job. I'm a wind tunnel operator. Wouldn't that be amazing?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I am terrified. So, fun fact for all you listeners. I am terrified of windmills.

[C]

Oh.

[A]

Both tiny ones and big ones.

[B]

Windmills, like the nice wooden looking one?

[A]

No, those are okay. But like the big ones that. Like, when you see windmill farms and when I drive to my hometown, I go through, like, three windmill farms and I get hot and sweaty and feel like I'm gonna throw up every time.

[B]

So did you ever see Mission Impossible 3?

[A]

Nope. I haven't even seen Mission Impossible 1.

[B]

Oh. That's the only one I'd ever seen. But one of my kids wanted to watch them all, and I said I should. I hear these are good. So we just watched three, and there's a scene where there's, like, a helicopter chase through a giant windmill farm.

[A]

I don't even like the helicopter things. Like, I don't really like ceiling fans. Like, all those things make me slightly anxious.

[B]

Okay, so that'd be the top of your anxiety hierarchy, would be helicopter chase in a giant windmill farm. It's just spinning blades as far as the.

[A]

I would barf. It's like a running joke. When we get through there, my husband's like, oh, my gosh, look at that bird. And then I look over and I'm like, I hate you.

[B]

Oh, well. But this isn't a podcast about phobias. Windmills. This is a podcast about behavior analysis and behavior analytic research, where every week we pick a topic and discuss some relevant research articles. And since when this is released, at least you are listening to an episode. Or this episode is going to be produced in September. That must mean we're in the middle of supervision September. Or are we at the beginning? I can't remember. We're somewhere in supervision September. I'd have to look at that.

[A]

That's when we're in September.

[B]

We're in September. When this is coming out, we're in September. Which means all episodes, all about super vision. So you can listen to our September episodes and get all your supervision ces. We cram it all in to this wonderful month, and today we're going to Be talking about a facet of supervision that is both a facet of supervision as well as a facet of just having a job. In most places, which is holding effective meetings or running effective meetings, we're going to be talking all about why you would or wouldn't hold a meeting, the general steps in running the best meeting ever, and then more specifically, how to turn your new knowledge of what makes a good meeting into effective behavior analyst supervision activities, both in running good supervision meetings and in teaching your supervisee. Hey, when I'm gone, I'll need you to take on the mantle of running great meetings

[A]

and just to, like, be, like, a good colleague.

[B]

Well, yeah, ideally, everyone runs a good meeting whether you're a supervisor or not.

[A]

Yeah, right. Like just going to a bad meeting. We've all felt that. We've all felt the bad meeting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's why there's so many memes about bad meetings being emails. Right? Because it's a. It's a. It's ubiquitous.

[C]

There is nothing worse than being trapped in a bad meeting.

[B]

Well, now you can do it on Zoom, so at least you can be trapped in a meeting and completely screwing around and nobody knows. Although, as someone who's done that maybe once or twice, I have been told that they all know.

[C]

Yeah, because people can see you looking at other things on your screen.

[A]

I pretend that they think that I'm just being pensive.

[B]

What am I buying on Amazon right now?

[A]

Don't wear glasses because then you can actually see it.

[C]

I know. I gave you that pro tip.

[A]

You did? Cause I was wearing glasses, and you're like, are you shopping?

[B]

Oh, no, I can't see my screen without my glasses. I'm doomed.

[A]

I am shopping. Thanks for pointing it out.

[B]

So, at the very least, after listening to this episode, you will know exactly what to say to somebody when you are totally blowing off a meeting on Zoom, provided they haven't done all of the things that we're going to talk about from the literature. Because then if they haven't, you can throw that right back in their face and then, ba boom. Your bad behavior was a product of a bad meeting environment, and it's not your fault. I guess I don't know if your boss will agree with that sentiment, but you can give it a try. I mean, hey, you're getting in trouble for messing around on a Zoom meeting, so you might as well go for broken.

[C]

All right, well, Diana, let's try to avoid that altogether.

[B]

Let's.

[C]

Let's do planning and running good, efficient meetings.

[B]

I want Every episode to have, like, you should do these 10 things, but in an emergency, here's one just like, what was that? Crucial Conversations. It was the only book we've ever done where literally it was like, here's a whole bunch of stuff you totally should do, but if you forget every single one of them, here's two that you totally should remember. It's like, thank you, I appreciate it.

[C]

I was totally listening. But just in case, tell it to me all again. Sure. So we have three articles that are going to be part of our conversation for today. They include Planning and Leading effective meetings by LeBlanc and Nosek, published in Behavior Analysis and Practice 2019. It's like they read our minds. Also to, you know, back that one up. How to Create and Facilitate Meetings that Matter. That's by Francisco Francisco, published in the Information management journal in 2007. This is a long standing problem.

[B]

And solved it all after Francisco's article.

[C]

Finally, you know, to kind of bring it around and include issues related to supervision. We will revisit recommended practices for individual supervision of aspiring behavior analysts by sellers, Valentino and LeBlanc. That was also published in Behavior Analysis and Practice 2016.

[B]

All right, so let's lead off with talking a little, little bit about what a meeting is. So The Francisco LeBlanc Nozick articles kind of all cover a lot of the same ground. So rather than sort of here's one article and here's the next, which is, which is a lot of the ways we often format this. We've kind of just smooshed them together because they, again, they cover a lot of the same main points. The level of detail changes across one. We have our own takes on the different parts. But it just made sense to say, let's just do. Let's just talk about all of the concepts of a meeting in one super meeting article. So the article is kind of quote, a meeting. And this is from a definition by Hindle from the late 90s. A meeting is two or more people coming together at a prearranged time in place to resolve problems or make decisions. Which sounds silly, like, why do we do a definition? But you know what, I don't think I actually understood what the point of a meeting was until I read that definition. I was like, we just get together. We're doing stuff. Which might be why I don't always run good meetings.

[A]

You know what? We. We're in a meeting right now.

[B]

I don't. Does this count as a meet because we're not coming. It's prearranged time, there's two or more coming together. We're not resolving any problems or making any decisions, though we are.

[A]

We're resolving the problem of bad meetings. Everybody else.

[B]

That's true, but that'd be like saying a radio show like, like Drive Time Radio is a meeting if you've got more than one host. I, I think we're not quite a meeting. Oh, no, we've had meetings related to the development of the show, but I, I don't know if this counts necessarily. All right, now, when we talk about how many meetings are there in the world, there was a survey in 2017 by the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which surveyed companies that had 500 or more employees. And in companies like that, you got about 17% of your time reported as spent in meetings. Looking at the U.S. bureau of Labor Statistics in that same year, there was another statistic that if you were in a helping profession, your time in meetings goes up from 17% to 47% of your day. Because as we'll talk about, there are lots of different types of meetings that you are probably being asked or invited to or inviting other people to in just the completion of your daily job. Now, meetings have pros and cons. Certainly one of the pros is there's a great return of investment if you are able to have a good meeting because you're getting together a lot of people to generate a lot of ideas. You're able to use multiple people to solve problems. You're able to delegate and assign tasks in the context of a meeting. So one person is doing everything. It's a great way to make sure everyone is doing the same thing. Updating trainings. So a great way to monitor performance depending on the type of meeting you're having, and teach new behavior. It's also a good way. Some people just, you know, it's a nice break of the day where you get a little bit of time to build rapport and sort of work on the interpersonal work relationship. So a good meeting, you're going to get all of that done and say, for. Even though it took us an hour or two to run this meeting, we now have a bunch of great ideas, great steps that we're going to go implement, and everyone is going to be happy. However, 57% of respondents in that Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development survey did not feel that meetings had that ROI and called the meetings, quote, wasteful. There are many, unquote. Wasteful is the only part of the quote. There are lots of books you Know, if you go to, like your business section of your, your Barnes and Noble or Amazon, you know, half the books are going to be my meetings are the worst or running not crappy meetings. You know, it's a big hit topic because everyone sort of hates meetings because so many of them are run so poorly. And when they're run poorly, unlike all those great things, it can increase the amount of. Or, sorry, it can have a decrease effect in terms of decreasing employee performance. If you're in a meeting, you're not doing the rest of your job, it can decrease job satisfaction. If you hate going to meetings and you spend about 50% of your day in meetings, you hate half of your job. It can decrease attendance at future meetings, which again, might not be a problem for, for the person who's going to these terrible meetings, but might be a problem when trying to engage in some of those positive interactions and positive activities that we talked about. It can also decrease appropriate meeting behavior. You know, we talked about that. With the advent of the zoom meeting, how many of us have clearly just checked out of meetings and done something totally unrelated to work because it is a bad meeting, or we feel it is not a useful meeting, or someone's talking about something that we're like, why am I here? I don't have anything to do with this. I'm just going to do something else on my computer. And that'll change our meeting behavior, which again, eventually we're going to be asked to engage in good meeting behavior. But if we're mostly reinforced for bad meeting behavior, that's what we will do. And it also will just continue to decrease the effectiveness of future meetings. So making bad meetings good becomes even harder. So some people even say, what if we just don't have meetings anymore? And there's a quote, I believe it was in Lavonca Nozick from Lencioni, who is a leadership writer. She's written a lot of leadership books. There is nothing inherent about meetings that makes them bad. So it is entirely possible to transform them into compelling, productive and fun activities. So our goal is going to be making meetings more productive and fun, which was the goal of Leblanc, Nozick, the School of Francisco, the goal of Lencioni, and I'm sure your goal as well. So we've got a couple different types of meetings that as behavior analysts, and this is, this is from Leblanc and Nozick that you are going to be called upon to be a part of. So I'm going to quickly go over the types of Meetings that you are either going to be running or you're going to be attending. And then we'll talk about sort of how to make sure you run a good meeting, knowing those, knowing that content. So one of the types of meetings we're going to talk a lot about are going to be supervision and performance management meetings. Now these meetings are usually closer to the two than the more part of the meetings it occurs with a supervisee and a supervisor. Our goals are pretty clear. We want to strengthen relationships between the supervisee and supervisor. We want to set performance expectations. It's a great time to monitor performance. We're shaping professional and technical repertoires. We're helping our supervisee generate new ideas for their clients and their work. We're looking at the products that they put together. And again, these are very important meetings because as of, you know, the time of this article being published in 2016, 2017, bad supervision was the most cited ethical complaint or technically the getting adequate supervision. I don't know if they said bad supervision in the complaints. So that's one type of meeting and the one we'll spend a lot of time on, kind of the back end of the show. But again, there are lots of other meetings, simple communication meetings where you get a bunch of people together to give updates, talk about any changes, maybe do a training, maybe have some big discussions about what's going on. Communication meetings, I think are probably the meetings that at least according to the authors and from I think at least my own experience are the ones where you do have to ask yourself, is this a meeting that could have been summed up in an email? So again, if you're, if you can write the same thing that you're going to talk about in a 30 minute meeting, in a 50 to 125 word email, just send the email. Don't, don't have that meeting. It's not worth it. However, there are going to be lots of meetings where you have communication. That 125 word email isn't going to cut it. We're firing 50% of our staff. Technically you can fit it in the character count. I don't think you send that one out as an email. You want to get people together for that one. We're changing all of our systems probably want to get together for a meeting rather than just send it in an email. So when you get together with folks, you're usually going to have some sort of stakeholder present that is gathering information ahead of time, then sharing information during the meeting. It may be a good time to talk about controversial changes because again, as a meeting leader, you don't want to just throw things out into the ether and assume it's all great if you know there's a chance that there's going to be confusion. A communication meeting can be a great time to get people together so you can pay attention to how they're responding. Do they look like they need more information? Do they look frustrated? So you can respond to it in the moment. So really these are those meetings where you're going to talk about, you know, the high, high intensity, nuanced things. So hopefully you read your, you know, your good communication book or listen to our book club episode.

[C]

Things can be so easily misconstrued in an email, even if you don't mean for it to be like, the tone just automatically goes to condescending and judgmental. I feel like in an email a lot of times. And that might not be the intention at all. So if you're worried about that and it's a sensitive matter, then you may have more success in really explaining your position and being able to help people see multiple sides and answer their questions in a meeting rather than an email.

[A]

Yeah, I really liked in the Le Zack and. Or the LeBlanca Nozick article when they talked about how if you are talking about something sensitive or anything that people might have thoughts on that you can like read the room. So that's like, not that you're just giving out them, you know, the sensitive thing, but you can like see how people feel about it and then, you know, adjust accordingly. Which I was like that. That makes a lot of sense.

[B]

Yeah, you can pull out your. I don't want this meeting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To be. I do want us to. Yeah, you can pull out the kind of the don't do Safety in communication. Another meeting type that the authors mentioned that is probably my favorite meeting type, but can also go very wrong and become kind of wasteful are the problem solving meetings. So when there is a big problem or when there is a need for people to get together to come up with ideas, these can be really great because you're getting a lot of people together, you're able to talk about the relevant variables, you're able to come up with a number of solutions, more than you probably could come up with by yourself. You have a lot of people giving information about the pros and cons of each solution. And then when you come up with the final solution, you're able to delegate. Okay, who's going to do what to make sure we're all able to implement this new solution and, and track it and then we'll do a follow up meeting to look at the results. So it becomes a meeting that then lends itself to later meetings where you have a very clear agenda. However, a lot of times with problem solving meetings, when do we call a problem solving meeting? When there's a big emergency problem. Quick, everyone get in the conference room. We have a big problem. What do you think? And those meetings can become very awful because you're like, I didn't even know this was a problem. I don't have any ideas. I was in the middle of doing something else and I'm not in the mind frame to, you know, talk about this. Half of the things you're asking or the questions we're coming up with, nobody has any information to answer. And there are in reality going to be times where you do need to group together to talk about what information we need, which is going to be one of our public project management, product generation meetings might be a better place for that. Problem solving meetings about, we need to come up with some answer and then implement an answer. So you don't want to be talking about, well, let's gather information. Because if you get called into a meeting to talk about an emergency and the take home is, well, we all need to go gather information. You had a bad meeting. In my opinion. I think the authors would probably agree with me because everyone just came in, got no information, have no idea what to do next, and are just frustrated that now they have more work to do that is not well guided potentially. So that's a bad meeting. Don't have that meeting. You probably want to do your work as the leader of the meeting to gather enough information to, to have a productive problem solving meeting, which again will include a lot of steps that you'll be able to share that information before the meeting. And if you're like, no, this has to be solved right now, great, go talk to like one other person, which technically I guess is a meeting, but maybe go talk to another colleague or another stakeholder or an expert in the field and get some information there before you pull in the whole, you know, the whole team.

[C]

It may not be ready for the big scale rollout.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I love that every time you say when you had a bad meeting, I'm thinking that song when you had a bad meeting.

[B]

Would that make the meeting better if that song went on when I was sitting there? I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna lean my head back, zoom in while that song Plays over my footage. That'll be a better meeting. Who sang that when you had a bad day lit? No.

[C]

Guy named Freddy something.

[B]

No. If only there were a way we could look that up. But we're in the middle of a pop.

[C]

I know. That's it. I know. I've got a bad reputation.

[A]

Daniel Pouter.

[B]

Daniel Pouter? Nope, Never heard of him. It was a great song.

[A]

It is.

[B]

The other piece with problem solving meetings is you need to make sure that the meeting has, you know, that goal so you have the information and. And then you need to give people time to actually implement whatever came out of the problem solving meeting. A big pet peeve of mine is when I have a meeting to talk about a problem and then we come up with solutions. And then someone else, maybe because they couldn't come to that meeting, they call a meeting the next day and it's like, what is different from two hours ago than when we had a meeting? Nothing. The fact that you could have emailed me and I could have sent you the thing I'm about to do tomorrow. So again, it does feel like sometimes people have meetings and we'll talk about who do you invite to meetings? Because there's also a problem if you don't get the right people to the meeting. Somebody who thinks they need to be a part of the solution is going to want to have another meeting to reiterate exactly what went on at the last meeting you just attended to. And there won't be any new information which makes it a bad meeting. And that everyone doesn't need to be there. Doesn't mean there couldn't be a meeting format. But maybe that's one of the two people meetings rather than an everybody get back together meetings. And then finally, project management and product generation meetings are the last category that behavior analysts will probably take part in. And these are sort of the meetings where you're getting together with folks. You know you're going to have multiple opportunities and multiple meetings because you're collaborating on something. The meeting should serve to kind of motivate everyone to continue working. So the meetings, like when you think about meetings you probably enjoyed a lot, it's when you got together with some colleagues to shoot the breeze about a problem you had, and then you came up with some solutions, then you presented those solutions and then you talked about how the solutions went. More like a work, like a working group would be a kind of a good example of that type of a meeting. You're going to still want to have deadlines, but there's a lot more social reinforcement because you're. It's a little more fluid in terms of, you know, what did you do? Share. I'll let's hear about it. That's awesome. I want to use some of that information. So again, it's a great way to work on your collaboration skills and gathering information, but also working under a timetable. So it doesn't really change from some of the other steps we're going to talk about that you have to do in a meeting because they are still professional. These typically are the longer meetings you'd have because I don't know about you, but I hate trying to schedule a 30 minute meeting with. When I'm like, I am looking at the list of things we need to talk about and the research we have to review and the plan we have to go like 30 minutes. We're not going to get through this. I don't care how good your agenda and timekeeping skills are. It's just not enough time. So those are usually the meetings that will last for, you know, two hours, an hour and a half because you're talking about bigger goals, because there's usually a product that has to be finished that day, you'll often have a lot of presentations. So those are the general types of meetings that you're going to find as a behavior analyst. And which means you will need to probably run these meetings as a supervisor. You will need to teach your supervisee how to behave in these meetings and then run them themselves. And you will also be called upon to just be in these meetings. And especially if you've brought your supervisee along to model good behavior. Guess what? You have to behave in the meeting, even if it's not a good meeting, and then give feedback to your supervisee about why that was or was not a good meeting. So knowing that, shall we talk about what goes into making these meetings good meetings?

[A]

Sure, yeah.

[C]

Can I elaborate on one of the types of meetings that you described? Sorry, I couldn't really get an edge in there.

[B]

That's because I'm running a very tight podcast right now. It's not on the agenda.

[C]

I think it probably falls into the last category, the performance, project management, product generation. So I don't know if anyone else this happens to. You have the meeting to talk about the things that you need to do. Right. And so then everyone has an assignment afterwards. But then you sort of experience a post reinforcement pause because you had the meeting and the meeting was hard. And so you're like, well, that's great. I don't need to do the thing that I have to do because I already had the meeting. So then you end up not actually doing the thing that the meeting was designed to, like, make everyone do. Right. So what I've been trying to do is to have like a, like a half and half type of meeting. So the first half of the meeting you talk about what you're gonna do, but then the second half of the meeting, you actually start doing it. So either you, like, partner up and do breakout rooms or something, and each person works on some section of the thing you need to do, or you even all just have, like silent work time together, but you're like in the room together or you're in the zoom together. So there's an accountability component to it. So then not only have you made the plan, but you've, like, forced yourself through what would have been the post reinforcement pause to just go ahead and start doing the darn thing. And then you can experience the reinforcement of doing that. Because that is a piece where I often get stuck.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I think the nice thing about when we talk about good meanings is the content of the meeting is not what we'll be talking about. Because if you have a way you want to run the meeting or you have a way you think will be most efficient to complete the goal of the meeting, great. That's totally up to you. What's going to be important? A lot of it is going to be what do you do before the meeting? And then only a few things you actually have to do during the meeting because you already did all your hard work. And then how do you follow up with the meeting? Those are really the big areas. Once you're in the meeting, if you've done everything else however you want to run it, it's like a roller coaster.

[C]

You're good, you're strapped in.

[B]

You just need to scaffold. You need to scaffold. And then, yeah, you're a roller coaster. Oh, good.

[C]

Thank you. That's all I wanted to say.

[B]

That is perfect. And actually, you know what? Now that I look at my agenda, we're moved. Diana made a point. We moved that up on the agenda. So why don't we move to the part, oh, it's time for snack. It's time for snack and break. We're going to all take a little break. And then when we come back, we will talk about what makes a good meeting. We'll be right back.

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[B]

And we're back talking about running effective meetings. But before we do that, we want to make sure that everyone remembers aba. Inside Track is ACE and Kwaba approved. And by listening to the show, you're able to earn one super vision ceu. This one specifically. Not every show, but this one specifically. All you need to do is finish listening and then go to our website, abainsidetrack.com or click the link in your podcast show notes player to go right to our Get CEUS page. And there you're going to need to enter in some key information, including two secret code words. I'm going to give the first one now. It's opportunity. O p P O R T U N I T Y Opportunity. Like every meeting is an opportunity to model great leading meeting behavior or to generate new ideas. Sometimes opportunity even knocks.

[C]

Oh my goodness.

[A]

I was wondering if you were gonna say that.

[B]

Of course. There it is. All right. That's opportunity. So getting back to our agenda, this is the part of the meeting, the podcast meeting, where we're gonna talk about actually creating great meeting spaces.

[A]

Yeah, okay. That's me. That's me. And one thing. Just gonna pull this one out because this one was a shocker to me. And this is the only thing that I was like, I am not doing, but I should be, and I love it when people do it, is that when you have a meeting, if, let's say your meeting is an hour long, you only plan for 50 minutes of content. I never do that and never even thought to consider that so that then other people can move on with their day and start transitioning. But whoa. As everyone can attest, if you've ever been to my meetings, I'm like, right up to the minute or like very early, but I don't ever do that. Like plan for the 10 minutes of transition. Like, how nice is that? It's very.

[B]

It's hard to. I think it's hard to do that because I know when I read this article maybe a year or two ago, and then I've really been trying to up my agenda game, but I feel like I write these agendas that are like, this will take 15 minutes. This will take 20 minutes. And my times are never right. And I think being in a human service agency or being in a school system, it is very hard to determine how long will it take to do some of these things, because there's this organic nature to many of the problems and challenges we face. You also then always run the risk of if you're doing, say, a training, which that shouldn't take too long. And I always feel bad being like, this training's gonna be five minutes, and then you get the one person who's really struggling with the skill, and you're like, listen, I only budgeted five minutes, so I guess you're fired. You're not gonna do that. So then it extends that time, and it's hard to stay on your agenda.

[C]

And then.

[B]

Yeah, and then it comes down to, I've got to finish everything. So, yeah, that. That last. Those last 10 minutes, just go right back into the. Into the meeting or last 10% of the meeting, whatever the.

[A]

Yeah, so I appreciated that. Yeah, so I appreciated that part.

[B]

It's hard. That's a hard. That's a hard one to do. But I think that might mean sometimes planning less, doing less in meetings. Like, the meeting is about this and that's it.

[C]

Or more efficient.

[A]

That's all we're having time, more efficient meetings. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So when you're having a meeting, researchers have reached out and said that there are five characteristics that lead to a perception of a meeting as being good or bad, and being good, meaning that these characteristics are present, and bad, meaning that the characteristics are absent. And so the first thing I think we all would be not surprised about is punctuality. Right. So did the meeting start on time? Did it end on time? Was it the appropriate meeting environment? Not too hot, not too cold? Did the technology work? Did you have enough space for the people to. People to do whatever you need to do? So that's important.

[B]

That's my least favorite part of planning a meeting, is finding a space.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

I. It's hard to find spaces. It's hard to schedule space. I mean, we have. We have people whose jobs, like, they mostly work to find spaces, and they they work magic sometimes with the spaces they can get. But you get those days that you're dreading where it's like, there is nothing free. It's a big test day. I'm in schools. So it's. It's this national test day. So every space is taken up, but you still have to have that meeting because you have to have a meeting too, you know?

[A]

Yeah, but. Yeah, right. So if you have an inappropriate meeting space, people don't love that. Whether there was an agenda or not. And if the agenda was set out beforehand, people love an agenda. Whether meeting minutes were kept. I didn't even, I mean, like, yeah, that part, it's part of a meeting. But I didn't. I wouldn't say, like, it was a bad meeting if I didn't get the meeting. The meeting minutes after the meeting. But that is one of the characteristics. And then having a general meeting leader, that someone that opens the meeting, organizes the meeting in a way, like keeps everyone on tasks. Right. Puts everyone in their place in the meeting and then. Then closes the meeting in an effective

[B]

way puts everyone in their place.

[A]

So that is like the three steps of a meeting. Right. And if you have those things, you should be okay. Another thing is they didn't put this in here, but I think it's. It implied is that you should have a purpose to the meeting that you're having. Right.

[B]

Why are we here?

[A]

Yeah, why are we here? So you should have specific goals outlined in the invitation and in the agenda, which informs what you're going to be doing in the meeting. And in, in the article, the Nozack article. I love this. They're like, you know, you may have meetings that you don't want to state the purpose of the meeting. There's unstated purposes that you have to have, like, such as motivation or you want to remind people about, like a rule. But beware. I like. It was like. It felt like it was like a Halloween tale. But beware. If you have too many meetings that are just for these unstated purposes, people are going to start perceiving the meetings as bad because they're not going to be. They're not.

[B]

There's trust falls in every meeting and that wasn't on the agenda and we're just, we're just tired of it.

[A]

So I just like that. So overall, you should be fairly transparent about your meetings and keep those unstated purposes to a minimum. They also said that meetings should be planned ahead of time. Of course you're going to have those short notice Meetings when there's like an emergency or a problem that needs to be solved. But and I agree with this, I was thinking about On My Life and people inviting me to meetings. If you have too many short notice meetings, it's very stressful. It's stressful because they're like, why are we meeting Again? This wasn't on my schedule. It decreases, it cuts up work productivity. Right. So when you're scheduling the meeting, which is also an important part about planning and leading effective meetings, when you're scheduling that meeting, make sure that you've taken into consideration the schedule of your employees. Right. Don't make it at 3pm on a Friday. Right. Because people might not want to come or view it as aversive or make it, you know, like smack dad in the middle of the workday. If you're supposed to be working with kids, like if you're a teacher. Right. Like you can't really do those types of meetings. So be mindful of that. And I love that they said, you know, when you're thinking about the meeting, think about who actually needs to be there. Not every single person in the world needs to be at this meeting probably. And if you can, the people that don't necessarily need to be at the whole meeting, let them leave early.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Let them sit through all of the things that don't pertain to them. Because what that can do is actually reinforce off task behaviors in meetings such as buying a dress. Right. Or yeah.

[C]

I like how in outlook you can invite people to meetings and know if they are required to attend or optional to attend. Because then sometimes you want to let people know that the meeting's happening but they don't have to attend it. And that's a good way to have that happen.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I'm never offended when I'm listed as optional.

[B]

Yeah, then I'm not going. I appreciated the additional piece of sort of the checklist. Like as you're doing your agenda, we'll talk a little bit what goes into an agenda. But as you're going through it, ask yourself with the people who are there, will this person have anything to add to these sections? And if the answer is no for almost all of them, don't invite them to the meeting because they won't enjoy being at that meeting. On the flip side, they also mentioned that sometimes you will have to invite people who you might not need like all of their input because of maybe their role in your organization, but because they are a decision maker in the end. So whatever the, whatever the product they're going to have to have the final say. You might want to just have them at that meeting anyway. And you might want to work with them to talk about when can they come. Can they come to the end to do the summer? But get someone who's a decision maker, even if they can't participate fully in the meeting, because maybe they don't have all the information, because otherwise you have a meeting where everyone does a lot of work, and then you still have to have another meeting with that decision maker. And if they say, no, I don't like this idea. Then again, you inadvertently ran a bad meeting when you didn't meet. You ran a great meeting in the moment. But contextually your meeting has become a bad meeting because everyone wasted their time.

[A]

Yeah, that's so true. Very, very true. All right, so let's start off with planning the meeting. And before you actually have the meeting, you need to decide what you're going to put on your agenda. Right. One thing I really appreciated that I want to stress and highlight is when it's a supervision meeting, the supervisee should be filling out the agenda the supervisee should be filling out the agenda of the meeting at least 24 hours in advance and bringing that to the supervision meeting so that then the supervisor can provide feedback on the layout of the agenda and add their own pieces. And I think that is sometimes sorely missing. Supervisees are like, I'm coming to this meeting. Why? What do I have to do more? This is a meeting where I learn from you. But if you aren't actively doing things, then it's harder to give feedback. So I really love that part. And I would encourage all supervisors to take that role and assign creating the agenda for the supervisees to the supervisees so that they get that experience. And also they're taking ownership in their meeting.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

So where do you do that in the supervision relationship? Because that is one of those things that I'm inconsistent with myself. But I also worry about doing it too early. You know, I want to make sure that I've modeled it.

[A]

Never be too early.

[B]

Really, I think you should have to model. Like, this is typically what these meetings will look like. Here's a model agenda. It might like, you don't set that up the first meeting or two. Like, do you give them one or two under their belts? Then from now on you will be doing that.

[A]

Yeah, I would give them one. Like the first meeting, be like, hey, here's what an agenda looks like. You're now responsible for creating the agenda in our second meeting. And I'll give you feedback. Obviously I'm going to have a pretty, I mean, I have a thought out agenda of what I want to do before that, but. Right. I would start as early as possible only because the longer you wait, the less accountability there is. And then it's not part of like this is what is expected. Right. So yeah, give them a model meeting, have them fill it in and then if they don't fill the agenda in, you don't have the meeting.

[B]

Oh, see, I like that part.

[A]

Right. Because if you haven't done what you're supposed to do. Oh, we don't have an agenda. This won't be a very effective meeting.

[B]

So we're not meeting.

[A]

So we're not going to have the meeting. Right, yeah.

[B]

And I think that's great in terms of accountability too. There's nothing worse than sort of showing up to a meeting and having your supervisees sort of be dithering around and they're still learning the job. And if you haven't set that expectation of I need this ahead of time. Yeah. Then it becomes, well, I just don't want to have a meeting. And then as a supervisor, you're not modeling good, meaning behavior, you're modeling bad participant behavior. Even though, yes, they should be running a better meeting, but you haven't shown them how, you haven't taught them how. So making sure that's a part of it. And then giving them feedback on those initial agendas. And then after a couple meetings. All right, this is a hard and fast you. If this isn't to me, and it doesn't look like that, it's not clear why I'd be here, Then there's no need for a meeting.

[A]

There's no need. So that means we're. Then you know, that's what you would do in real life. Right. If you're meeting with outside professionals, like if you don't have a reason why to meet with them, why are you meeting with them? Don't waste everybody's time.

[B]

All right, so that agenda, specifically the supervisee writing the agenda.

[A]

Yep. And then with that agenda, what should

[B]

be on the agenda? What should I put.

[A]

Yeah. So on that agenda should be the purpose of the meeting. It should have a list of the tasks or agenda items that you want to cover. It should have the time of the meeting, the place of the meeting, who's going to be at the meeting and then when you expect the meeting to end. Right. So that's really what the agenda should have on it. And there shouldn't Be much more. Right. It should just be like, okay, here's what my meeting is going to look like. And then I'll have that set beforehand so when I send out the invite, I can put that agenda right in there. So everybody is aware. What they suggest, research suggests is that if particip. I don't know if this is true or not yet, but that what they suggest is that if there is an agenda, it may alter the behavior of the participant because they'll know what to expect. They can prepare for the meeting. They can gather information and distribute information appropriately. They have time to think about the task items on the agenda so that then when you come to the meeting, they're more productive in the meeting. Right. Because they've had an opportunity to see it and it promotes more collaboration during the meeting.

[B]

Mm.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

When an agenda comes out before a meeting, it is a signal to me that I'm probably gonna be less likely to be able to get the meeting supervisor off task.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

To talk about random things, which, as we all know, is one of the most reinforcing things that you can have happen.

[B]

But it gets old, and it gets old at different times for different people. Like, I know I've been in meetings and I'm like, I'm having so much fun. And then all of a sudden I'll be like, I don't wanna be here anymore. I don't wanna be in meeting. And then, you know, it can just turn on and turn off.

[C]

Okay, well, fair enough. But if an agenda comes out, you're like, oh, man, it's a serious one.

[B]

This is what we're working on.

[C]

Buckle down. We're doing the things on the list.

[B]

Yeah. And then the activities too. You can even put names. Or like, this is where I, you know, this presentation will go. You give it ahead of time. That way everyone knows when they're expected to sort of present or when there's going to be more. More room for discussion versus hearing information. Yeah. It gives everyone those expectations ahead of time.

[A]

Yeah. And one thing you should do. This is something that I kept forgetting to do in my role of planning large meetings, is reminding the people that they're going to be speaking. So if you've put someone on a schedule, make sure. Then you follow up with them and say, like, hey, I have you on this meeting agenda. I kept like, I got the agenda done, sent it out, high five me. I'm doing the best. But did not inform everyone that they were, like, presenting a large portion of that meeting. And that can be also Stress inducing as well. So take it from me, I got some emails being like, I'm on this meeting. Like, why yes, you are. You asked to be lucky you. So that's something else. Another thing that I found interesting when they're talking about the, the environment specifically, and I can attest to this, is that a hybrid environment or a meeting is where there are some people in person and some people online are frustrating for everyone, notoriously. What they've research suggests that those in the online environment pay less attention and have less opportunity to collaborate and it makes everything frustrating. So you should pick one of the two avenues. The article suggests that if you can be in person, you should because you'll see more dynamic engagement with an in person meeting versus an online meeting. But if some people cannot attend in person, then the meeting should be moved to online.

[B]

Yeah. And they seem to think if the goal of the meeting was like, if you had to watch people engage with a skill, don't do that online. But if it was something where it's mostly going to be like just communication and sharing idea, now you share your idea, I'll say my idea, and we're just like presenting information that we can then go to, you're probably okay to do that, do that online. The simpler it is, the better it is to do it online. The more complex, the more you should do it in person.

[A]

Right. So once you always have the opportunity.

[B]

No, no, I mean, that's the rule of thumb, you know. But again, as the person running the meeting, if you know it's incredibly complex, you may decide, as much as I want to hold this meeting tomorrow, when I could do it online, I will wait a week to hold it in a place that has all the good environmental formats, has the technology I need so that I can be in person. Because I know I'm going to need to engage in a lot of additional leader behaviors to make sure everyone stays on task, no one's getting frustrated. Personal issues don't rise to the surface, which you're just not going to be able to do very effectively online.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. So now that we've prepped the meeting, we've got all our materials ready, we've got our agenda out, we've sent out our schedule, People know where, when you

[B]

picked a good time. You mentioned that a little earlier, Jackie. You picked a good time for the meeting. People aren't sleepy or ready to leave.

[A]

So we've done all of that. Now it is time for us to actually lead the meeting. So during the meeting, our primary task will Be to open the meeting, to manage the meeting, put everyone in line, and then again to close the meeting. Right? So in that opening meeting, it's not just about saying hi and welcoming people. It's also establishing the rules or contingencies that might be in place in the meeting. You might, you are going to outline how the meeting will go. Like, here's what the meeting, you're going to review the agenda, review what's going to happen, right? You want to thank everyone for coming. You want to start promptly so that, that shows that you value people's time.

[B]

I always struggle with, because I always feel like when there's a meeting, you get like, half the people are there and you're like, ugh, I feel bad if I start the meeting without these other people, then they'll feel bad. But I think reading this article recognize, well, the people who show up on time are. Now you're punishing them for their behavior. And it's not. I mean, I've never been late to a meeting and then stormed in and said, how dare you start without me? I usually, if I'm late to a meeting, I sneak in, I go, sorry, sorry.

[A]

I like that.

[B]

I.

[A]

Without me, who do you. Don't you know who I am?

[B]

But then I don't know. Why wouldn't I just start the meeting on time? Even though people might be mad that they miss me. Well, they were late. I said what time it was. I sent them the agenda they showed up on. I'm not mad at them. I'm just, I didn't wait because the people who showed up, they should be rewarded for coming up punctually. And it's. You're not going to teach other people to show up punctually if every meeting is like, it doesn't matter if I'm five minutes. Like, those meetings never start on time. Why live my life that way? It doesn't matter if I'm late. It never starts on time.

[A]

But if things start starting on time, then you might be starting to shape

[B]

up my behavior pretty quickly.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

That'd be a challenge to everyone, inviting me to a meeting. Start your meeting on time and then I'll eventually show up on time. But not the first one or probably the second one, maybe the third one.

[A]

They do. They do. They do mention that if you're meeting, if you've not met people before, it is helpful for introductions. Right. But keep them minimally. Unless the purpose of the meeting is skill building and relationship building. And then you can include icebreakers, but please don't include icebreakers. They were like, please don't include icebreakers at every meeting. Nobody needs that in their lives. Which I appreciate. Right. Because I have been in those meetings where I'm like, I know y'. All. I like, I don't want to sketch. I, like, know what you have for lunch. I don't need to also now have this icebreaker.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where I know your favorite color and, like, what's underneath your bed. Right. Like. But it is helpful if people don't know each other to start that way.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I wanted to ask you both because I know you're also in a lot of meetings and, you know, there's a list of them. We'll go over the list in the article. The rules or setting the rules for the meeting, setting jobs for the meeting, like, who will be the note taker, the timekeeper? Do you often do that? Because reading that again, I mostly focused on, like, the prep ahead of time when I had originally read this article. And reading it this time, I really recognize a lot of pieces that I want to see in a meeting. However, just thinking about how would I say that it felt a little awkward. How do you all manage that? Of like, here are the rules. Here are the expectations for discussion, all that.

[A]

Yeah. I run a very large meeting frequently. Not anymore, thank the Lord. And what we usually did is at the start of every new school year, we'll lay out the rules of the meeting, lay out contingencies, like, okay, everyone needs to have their camera on. If it's on, zoom. Everyone needs to listen to one another. You need to follow Robert's rules, which are, you know, general decor, decorum, meeting rules. And then we'll bring that. We'll bring those contingencies up again when needed. But we usually bring it, like, once a year, we say, here's what the rules are. And then when people start breaking the rules, we remind them what those rules are.

[C]

Right?

[A]

And then that's part. One thing I love about this is part of managing the meeting, right? And then we have, in some cases, had to, outside of the meeting time, remind individuals about what the rules and contingencies are of the meetings. And remind them that if they can't follow these rules and they can't come to the meeting. So I. I have had to do that to adults. But one thing.

[B]

Yeah, that's. That's got to be an awkward conversation.

[A]

It's not great, but. Right. But that's. I mean, that's your job as the mean. The. The leader of this meeting. Right. Is to. To make sure it's helpful and beneficial for all and you're not taking too much time. One thing I love about the LeBlanc and NoSoc article, there's so many, so much resource in here, but they have like Table 1 on page 702 is the common meeting problems and suggested strategies. So if people are interrupting you, if they're providing distractions, if they're doing off task behavior, they give you suggested strategies and language that you can use during the meeting. So like, if you are interrupting me, I would make sure that first I lay those ground rules that you don't interrupt anyone else. But then if it continues to happen, I can say, could you hold that thought for a moment or let's come back to that later in the meeting. I just love that they give you like strategies for, you know, if technology isn't working, if there's combative responses off task behavior. So I would encourage everyone to go look at that. If you are running meetings and you find yourself tasked with some problems.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So that's really fun.

[B]

I liked when someone is giving ideas that are not very specific, ideas that are sort of vague or they're just making general statements of I just to make sure I understand. Or could you, could you clarify that point a little bit more? Like they really had a lot of great lists and they all felt very like great prompts. They just, I can't imagine hearing those prompts and thinking anything other than like, well, this is a natural question that somebody is asking me rather than this person is so mad at me. And now I'm mad. I'm going to be reactive to them and I'm going to cross my arms and check Amazon. I don't need to do this, you know, because they're just very like natural, conversational kind of starters. Put a pin in that. I'd like to hear more from, you know, Suzanne and marketing and she's got that. So yeah, very, very good. Like redirection prompt. Please everyone take a look at that. So there's a lot of lists, a lot of. Between these two articles, it is just like list after list after table after appendix, which is so helpful.

[A]

And then for closing the meeting, right. You want to again, end early if you can. The meeting manager should summarize what happened in the meeting and then any follow up items that need to occur after the meeting and when they need to occur. And then the authors recommend that the meeting minutes are distributed within 24 to 48 hours of the meeting so that meeting participants can digest. Yeah. And then you'll obviously have to schedule follow up meetings for that meeting which

[B]

you should do during. At the end of the current meeting. If you think, if you know there is a follow up meeting, schedule it during the current meeting rather than later. If you're not sure, then okay, maybe you thought that was the end of the meeting, but then the new initiative didn't roll out as effectively and a month later you're going to have to have another meeting.

[A]

Yeah. And then something that you should think about. Not every meeting, but you can send a follow up survey of how you think the meeting went if it was conducted. Well, if we use the time, if the people that were supposed to be there where you know, should have been there. So I don't think you should do that every time, but that's helpful.

[B]

And both these articles have a great checklist too. So if you're hearing this and you're like I remember some of it, I can't remember all of it or I want to double check, you know, because it's going to be a month before I lead a meeting. Both articles have so many great just checklists and just easy ways to remember. Do I have all of these things? And again, a lot of it is before the meeting even starts.

[A]

Yeah. So there's in the, I know in the LeBlanc and Nozick article there's a meeting planning and leading evaluation checklist and then there's also a meeting agenda and notes checklist that you could use.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Another piece that I thought was helpful for super supervision is that if you are bringing someone to a meeting like a supervisee that you just want to see a meeting but they're not necessarily going to be able to participate. You can give them the task of could you be the timekeeper, could you be the note taker? And then you can model good leader note taker behavior, occasionally checking in with the note taker to make sure that they got everything down, that they understood what was just said or they understood what the steps were. So that when, when you have all those notes, boom. Doesn't take very long to send those minutes out. You know, I mean you could probably send them way sooner than 24 to 48 hours if you had to. But you don't have to. But because it's all there, you just quickly review it and then you can send it out with the follow up steps. All that good stuff.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I have. That's how you plan an effective meeting and run an effective meeting. Yeah.

[B]

There was one thing that I Did find in here that was helpful because I know, like, Diana, you were talking about sort of what's the content of the meeting or what are the pieces that should be in a meeting? And I think both articles kind of got at it, though they said it in different ways and different levels of specificity. But in terms of your agenda, thinking about the flow of the conversation and then making sure that you have time for those sort of creative aspects, especially in a job like ours, there are lots of possible solutions to a given situation. So making sure that there's enough time for some creative thinking, but also making sure there's enough time for that critical thinking. So you need to, like, make sure there's time for people to brainstorm, come up with options. And everyone understands this is the part where we're not crapping on everyone's options as they throw it. Because nobody likes to be in that meeting where it's like, what if we did the token system and then you get something? We already did that. Like, save it for the pros and cons part. I hate meetings like that. They just become very negative and nasty very quickly. So as the leader, you probably want to pull out that. Let's hold on to the pros and cons till the next section and it's on your agenda. Like, here's brainstorming, or however you want to call it. Here is the, you know, component analysis or the, you know, investment of time and whatever, whatever you want to call it. Because then it's very clear that you come up with enough solutions that everyone has a lot of ideas, but not so many that they're overwhelmed. And then you can do the pros and cons, the more critical thinking, so that again, it's not. It's not negative. No one feels like they're being punished for coming up with ideas. And then you're not just giving them, you know, here are the two options. I like them both, and I don't actually care your opinion, because nobody wants to be in a meeting where it was clear that the decision was already made. Because, again, that's a bad meeting, because you could have just emailed what the decision was in 25 words and saved us all a lot of time sitting here coming up with ideas that nobody's going to follow through with.

[A]

Right?

[B]

So building in that, in that time in your agenda and thinking about where those conversations could go. I did like how they both sort of characterized that idea. If you want. A lot of. You want good a number of ideas, but not too many, and you want A time to sort of pick apart ideas, but not too much.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then make them different times. So everyone knows how they should be behaving. So there's a purpose. All right, so we talked about what goes into a good meaning. We talked a little bit about how to do that as a supervisee. But what we thought would be good is, all right, now that we know this, how do you teach your supervisees to do all of these skills and how do you ensure that you're modeling these skills?

[C]

Yeah. So you know, the focus of the Sellers article is a lot broader than just talking about meetings. It's talking about all variations upon which someone might want to evaluate their trainees behavior and how you can incorporate varying aspects of individual supervision. So it's a much broader scope. We just wanted to focus on how we're thinking about meetings, how that kind of might fit into the supervision model. And there's lots and lots of opportunities for meetings. What do you know? Right. There's meetings here and meetings there. So meetings.

[B]

Meetings everywhere.

[C]

Exactly. So you are going to be probably doing multiple things. You're going to be meeting individually with your trainee presumably. And then you're probably also going to be in meetings with your trainee and other people. And in those larger meetings, it could be the case that you, the supervisor are running the meeting or it could be the case that, well, it could be somebody else who's running a meeting and you're just there as a participant. Or it could be that there's an opportunity for your trainee to run a meeting. So any of those are going to be great supervisory activities because one of a few things is going to happen. Your trainee is going to be able to watch you, the supervisor, and see what behavior you're modeling for them as good meeting running or meeting attending behavior. Or your trainee is actually going to get the opportunity to practice these skills themselves. After which you as a supervisor can then give feedback on how that meeting went. So any of those, although they're not, you know, the direct things that we often think about when we think about supervision. These are really important skills and ones that someone who's going to be moving into a clinical and administrative position are going to need to have so they can 100% fit within the realm of things that we work work to address as we're building our trainees professional repertoire. Repertoire. Okay. So as a supervisor, we want to make sure that we are modeling good meet, meaning behavior. Right. And we'll talk about what that might entail. And we are ensuring that we are Creating opportunities for our trainees to practice the meeting running skills too. So both of those things really. So when we think about modeling this type of behavior, Sellers et al kind of give us two categories of behavior that comes into being in a meeting with someone. Sort of like big categories. And so the first is if you are running a meeting, particularly one of these like one on one supervision meetings with your trainee, first and foremost, please be pleasant and caring. A lot of things fall into those categories, but they summarize as being pleasant and caring. And we've all been in meetings with people who are neither in that you notice, right? You notice right away. And we've also been in meetings where people are very pleasant and caring and you notice that right away too. And it completely changes the tone of the meeting. So these are situations where your trainee is going to be observing what you are doing, whether you're being pleasant and caring and potentially modeling that behavior for themselves in future meetings. So this would involve things like ensuring that you are greeting your trainee when they come into the meeting, that you are smiling, that you are being pleasant and approachable. You are giving both the meeting and your trainee 100% of your attention. And this is one I think people have a hard time with because we just have so many distractions built in. Right? Your email is always going off, your phone is always going off. If you have an Apple Watch, you can't even like put your phone away because then your Apple watch is going up with text, text, you know, and there's just a lot happening. And I'm guilty of this too. We're all just trying to like schedule so many different things. But trying to put all of that aside and really focusing on the meaning is, is modeling best practice. And that's what we should be doing for our trainees. And you also want to, in the realm of being pleasant and caring, point out your trainees accomplishments and things that they have been doing well as well as acknowledging challenging situations too. That's all just part of being like a caring, you know, mentor and supervisor to your trainee. So we're gonna step it up and model all of those things underneath the pleasant and caring umbrella. And then the other umbrella is to be professional. There are also many, many things that fit into this category and a lot of them we've already touched on, but they include being on time to the meetings.

[B]

Well, that's me, I guess. I am not a professional.

[C]

Sometimes it's not your fault like we said. Right. Like I didn't comment before, but I've. I'VE been in agencies and cultures where every meeting starts five minutes late or five to ten minutes late. Yeah, it's because the preceding meeting went right up to the last minute.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Of that hour. But people just naturally need a little bit of time in between meetings to go to the bathroom or get a drink or check their email that they have been trying to have shut off during the meeting, et cetera. So you really do need that buffer on one end or the other. So it's not always your fault. But if you can try to be on time to the meeting. If you tell someone that you're going to get something for them, like materials or resources, actually do that and have those ready and provide them. Same thing. If your supervisee or your trainee gives you something to be edited. Edited, do it right. Don't just say you're gonna do it, but actually do it and give it back to them with appropriate feedback in a timely manner.

[B]

But they also need to be timely with when they're giving you their project. Because I've certainly gotten the emails of like, I know we're meeting in four hours. Here's the thing that you asked for two days ago. And usually in those times, I will not be able to look at this. You know, this. We may need to change. You need to change your agenda, I guess.

[C]

Yeah, good point. That. That's another one that wasn't listed. But giving people specific dates of things being due is probably a good one to include here as well. And then providing frequent and specific praise and feedback for your trainees too. So all of those things are a behavior that you can be modeling when you're meeting with them or when you have them with you in larger meetings. And people are very observant, so they are going to see what you're doing and hopefully pick up on some of that. But as we all know, just watching someone else do something well doesn't automatically mean that you are then going to be able to do it well yourself. You have to actually go through the process of learning how to do it. So the other way in which you can really focus on this with your. With their trainees is to help them to set up specific goals related to running a meeting for themselves. And I know we just like laid out a bunch of things that are important here. If you're looking for a quick version, go check out that LeBlanc. And no sick checklist that they have. Which is the reason why I wanted to do this episode was because I think that checklist is so cool.

[A]

It is very Cool.

[C]

Task analysis of like all the different portions of the meeting and what needs to happen in preparation and during and after so that you hit all of the goals. It's really great. My favorite, absolute favorite part of it is does this meeting need to happen? Yes or no? If no, see, yeah, I want a

[B]

flowchart so I can have the know of like cancel the meeting.

[C]

Yeah. So. But you and your trainee could go over that checklist together and potentially identify areas that they feel that they maybe don't have the skills yet or need opportunities to practice those skills more. You could have them in a meeting with you and have them you know, practice presenting part of the meeting and then review the checklist together afterwards. So you sort of have an observation piece and from there you may be able to identify with your trainee things specifically for them to work on. That is a great way for them to set up goals for themselves that would be part of their professional development that could be addressed within the context of this future meetings that you have with them. And that kind of ties into Jackie's recommendation from earlier too. Right. Which is have them set up the agenda for future meetings. And one of those pieces of that agenda could be how are we going to work on your meeting running skills? And let's ensure that we're finding opportunities for you to do that. Another important component here is not just that you as Sellers et al Said that you are providing feedback for your trainees during this meeting, although that is very important. But another great response to model is to ask for feedback from them, solicit feedback, see what your trainees have to say and then respond to it. So then you are modeling so many important things steps there. You're modeling asking someone how you're doing, which is sometimes hard. You're modeling listening to that response and then you're modeling taking action on that as needed and hopefully making modifications to your behavior.

[B]

Have you, have you guys ever done like role plays but, but sort of with you hadn't informed your supervisee and you started engaging in non good meeting behavior and then when you asked for feedback to see if they said well I felt you weren't really paying attention or you were checking up. I wouldn't do this for an entire meeting, but I could see some value in letting them know like you know, it's one of our upcoming meetings this month, we're practicing meetings this month or this semester, whatever. I am going to make sure that I show some of the inappropriate behaviors because I would like you to either give me in the moment or give me feedback after because I don't want you to be scared of that and giving them that permission. Like, I want the feedback because I think the permission of just, do you have any feedback for me is good. But you know, I mean, come on, we've all had someone ask us, could you give me any feedback? And we're like, just everything you do, it's the best, you know, because you don't want.

[A]

Amazing. You're the one most wonderful person I've ever met.

[B]

This meeting that I hated, best meeting I've ever been in. Of course they mentioned, and they mentioned that too in the article that, like, why do people keep having bad meetings? It's like, well, a lot of the feedback you get is probably people engaging in, you know, social niceties of like nodding my head because I'm in a meeting, not because it's a good meeting, but because I've either been yelled at for not nodding my head or because it's not worth it to me to tell you how bad a meeting this is. I'll just like sit here quietly and it will eventually. This too shall pass. So our feedback's not always very good meeting boss. Yeah, great. Oh, really great. You know, how's that promotion? Is that, Is anyone, anyone lined up for that? I know I was really great in this meeting that I loved. That couldn't have been done in an email where people are yelling at each other and you didn't step in or say anything. It's just awesome, just great. And we have no notes or timekeeper. It just kept going and going. And it's Friday at 6 o'.

[A]

Clock.

[B]

I'm just really just awesome job.

[C]

Okay. And so you might be saying, well, yeah, this all sounds good, but like, how could I actually give my trainee these opportunities in meetings? So there are some additional ideas as well and things you could do. So you could have your supervisee, you give them the task of being the note taker during a meeting. That's actually a really important and not easy job.

[A]

Right.

[C]

But it's a great skill to learn. They could be the timekeeper for the meeting. So that might be one in which they were just, you know, observing what a meeting looked like. They could do that. You could have them practice making their own agenda and then provide feedback to them. You could give them a chance to open or close the meeting. That is kind of a nice introductory but important skill. And then as they build upon their meeting running skills, then they could start taking on some more of the meat of the meeting where maybe they need to do some problem solving or group task building activity together. But that would be more appropriate as they're starting to build that. But these articles do a great job of just giving you additional ideas and breaking down what is really the structure of a meeting and what are all the skills and behaviors that go into that. So you could tackle it from a lot of different angles.

[B]

Yeah. In my setting, I really enjoy when we're doing meeting practice, to tack it on, to say, assessment or to tack it onto something that's going to be very factual, something that they've spent a lot of time on already. Something that we've practiced, we've already talked about. How do you talk to different stakeholders? How do you use jargon, not jargon? How do you talk about graphs? So it becomes kind of that culmination of now that you've done all of the skills, all you have to do is do it with the right audience, with some of the other meeting pieces we've talked about. And again a lot of times with assessments too. They don't even need to be in charge of the whole agenda. They sort of can make their own, you know, mini agenda within the overall agenda of a meeting. And I can just have them come, just share that part and then leave the meeting if it's not appropriate for them to be there. So that, that often is. I think a lot of my trainees, that's their first like meeting experience outside of a supervision meeting is presenting on an assessment or presenting a behavior plan because it is something they spend a lot of time on and they can do and they've practiced and role played. So it's taking out a lot of the guesswork of here's something you've never done and you need to do it in the context of a meeting that needs to be effective, which we've all talked about. You probably don't want to, don't want. You don't want to overburden someone new at something with all the skills. You pick a few at a time.

[C]

Yeah. Could have been an email. Could have been an email. This podcast could have been an email. Just kidding.

[B]

We had more than 25 to 150 words, or 125 words, whatever it is. But what do you do now? We now see now, now what we need is we need an episode on how to write good emails. Because I, I love to write really, really long emails, which is not, I know, is not a preferred email response, but I also don't feel comfortable being like everyone. I can't Share these thoughts in an email. We need to have a meeting. Though I have done it a few times, I've gotten better at it. I'm trying.

[C]

I'm trying, actually. What should happen?

[B]

You should have a meeting.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But then it's one of those emergency situations, in which case, I guess I just talked to the stake. Wow, I've learned so much today. Thanks. Podcast that I host.

[C]

All right, are you ready to move into.

[B]

All right. And I guess now that we've gone over articles, it's time to move into dissemination station. Oh, here we are. I think this is a pretty easy dissemination station in that this is one of those episodes where everything that we talked about from the article, you should do that and that's the dissemination. But I guess the key point is if you forget everything that we talked about, just remember the citations. They're in your podcast player too. So you can click on those links to get the articles and just get those checklists and just post them somewhere before you, before you do a meeting, whether it's with your supervisee. And then if you're working with your trainee on these skills, great, you've got a checklist. You can give them that checklist. You can model each behavior and just behavior skills. Train it throughout all of your meetings and throughout the meetings you ask them to join you on or the meetings you ask them to lead and just make it a part of your sort of overall supervision, scope and sequence of activities and just put it in the right places.

[C]

So although while we've said this whole time like these are great suggestions, this is, this is what you should do. There is not a lot of research in this area.

[B]

It's a lot of social validity.

[C]

We can imagine what we would do, right, like what you just described, and we would imagine that that would have high social validity. But you know, evidence wise, we don't have a lot to back that up specifically.

[B]

It's just that people were in or not in good meetings. And I think with a lot of changes where if we've all been in a lot of bad meetings, if you then run a good meeting, one of two things will happen. Either people will say, that was the best meeting I've ever been in. I love it. I hope every meeting's like this, or people will say, this is not the kind of meeting I'm used to and I'm terrified of the change. And even though maybe research says this was a good meeting, I'm uncomfortable about the fact it's not like our old ineffectual Meetings. There's also different reinforcers. Some of us do like to go to meetings. Usually it's not everyone at the same time, but we've had a really, really hard day. And just the idea of I can be in a space, I can just sit still for some period of time. Amazing. Even if it's a poorly run meeting and nothing gets resolved just because you got to escape some of the other stressors in your life for a little bit of time. Ideally it's both. All right, so get those checklists. You can re listen to the podcast, you can look at the checklists. All that stuff will be good to improve your meetings. We believe as far as we know from the research out there and from our own, you know, meeting running abilities. Let's move into the last section of the show. Pairings. Pairings.

[C]

You don't have to say it that way.

[B]

I don't know. I wanted to say it that way. We don't have a sound effect to go into pairings. We do like a clinky wine glass or something.

[C]

Oh, that would be great. Can you make us that?

[B]

Let's just go get some wine glasses next time and we'll clink them.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

All right. So if you liked this episode, you might want to hear some of our other episodes related to supervision. You could totally go back and listen to into bringing out the Best in People, which was a two parter. Episodes 140 and 141. You could also, if you wanted to listen to us talk about how we didn't really like how to win friends and influence people, which is episode 177.

[B]

I liked it.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That's. That's the theme of every book club. I liked it and nobody else did.

[C]

But the one that I think might be highly Relevant is episode 1007 that we switched how we did the book club numberings at that point. So that's pretty crucial. Conversations Book club. It is also two hours. I don't know if that's out on the free feed yet. Maybe soon. No maybe soon. Episode 179, the Ethics of Supervision. Just because that one. You can. You can choose either ethics or supervision. Cease. And finally, 184, receiving feedback with Dr. Tyra Sellers and Dr. Seth Walker. You might want to check the that one out too. And we would be remiss if we didn't offer up a snack to go with our pairings. So the snacks today, if you were to go over and you know, take a look at the snack table, there's gonna be a Cheese Danish. It's, like, a little bit dried out, so the cheese is, like, cracked on the top.

[B]

Who brought these snacks? Was it on the agenda? Who was bringing the snacks? My goodness.

[C]

Of, like, a poorly cut, like, diagonally sliced raisin bagel, but, like, one half's really thick and one half's really thin. And then some burnt coffee.

[B]

Where. What are you. Are you. Are you having a meeting in the Glengarry Glen Ross movie set office? This is terrible.

[A]

That's all that's left.

[C]

You got there late. That's what happens.

[B]

Oh, that's what you get.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Good. Snacks are gone. All right, all right. Well, thank you. Thank you for those delightful pairings. The episodes. Yes. The snacks less.

[C]

So why don't we let Jackie go?

[B]

Well, I gotta end it so we can shut it down. So we go. I'll do it real fast. All right, everyone, thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed our Supervision September episode here. We've got more Supervision September coming your way. Remember, if you want get our. If you want to get a supervision CE for listening to this episode, you're going to need some code words. I'm going to give you the second one now. It's peg, P, E G. It's like a wooden thing you put in to hold up other wooden things. Or like a peg leg, which is what I was thinking of because I was looking at old Disney comics with peg Leg Pete when I thought of that code word. Any way you think about it, PG Peg or the mom for Married with Children. There's another one, too. Anyway, thank you all so much for listening. We'd appreciate it and would love it if you subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you like to get your podcast. You can find us a lot of other places, including on YouTube, with YouTube subtitling features, and on all the socials. You can go to our website abainsidetrack.com to get links to all of our previous episodes, links to all of the articles we've discussed, and to purchase CES. You can get even more ABA InsideTrack content by joining us also on our Patreon page, patreon.com abainsidetrack where you can subscribe for $5 a month to get episodes a week ahead of time, as well as access to vote in all of our polls for book clubs and live episodes, and to get access to a quarterly live episode where you can EAS watch us tape the show or watch the video after the fact. You get a free CE for that or at the $10 level. Join us on all of our seasonal book clubs. If you're listening to this in September 2023, you just missed Walden 2. But don't worry, subscribe today and you can go hear what we thought all about B.F. skinner's utopian novel Walden 2, as well as all of our previous book clubs and two CES at no additional charge. Again, that's patreon.com/aba inside track and of course our email ABA inside track gmail.com Some final thanks. Thanks to Dr. Jim Carr for recording our intro and outro music, Kyle Sturry for interstitial music, and Dan, the Abbot of the podcast Doctors for his amazing editing work. We'll be back next week with another fun filled supervision episode, but until then, keep responding. Bye bye.