CHAPTER

MANAGE
G E T T H I N G S D O N E … W I T H P E O P L E
 CONTENTS
4 MEETINGS
7 EMAIL AND CHAT
10 MOTIVATION

LINK & LEARN

Required Tips & Examples Activity
Reading Optional

This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribute and
ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This is Chapter 9
Attribute the original source at mcom320.net. Email
[email protected] if you would like to adopt the curriculum. This chapter updated 11 May 2020.
2
 “The key to successful
Manage and lead effectively. leadership is
“Leadership is a series
As your career progresses, you’ll be asked to
INFLUENCE, of behaviors rather
not authority.” than a role for heroes.”
manage projects, which ultimately means
managing people. In this chapter you’ll learn to
KENNETH H. BLANCHARD MARGARET WHEATLEY
manage communications in meetings and with
email and chat. We’ll also discuss motivating at
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing
critical moments.
yourself. When you become a leader, SUCCESS IS ALL
Take a minute to read the advice at right about
ABOUT GROWING OTHERS.”
leadership from experienced leaders. JACK WELCH

“May we be men and

“A leader is best when people women of
barely know he exists. When his HONESTY and
work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say: INTEGRITY
WE DID IT OURSELVES.” in everything we do.”

LAO TZU PRES. THOMAS S. MONSON

“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take

these great people we have and to push them and
MAKE THEM EVEN BETTER.”
STEVE JOBS

3
SECTION ONE

MEETINGS
Meetings can be valuable. They’re also costly in time As a manager, you might feel that calling a meeting is
and human resources. Long, disorganized meetings the logical next step in any project, but are you sure?
burn through precious resources and are excruciating. An unnecessary meeting creates inefficiency,
resentment, and lack of trust. Make sure you run
According to a 2016 study published by the Harvard meetings that are well-planned and effective. Ask
Business Review (Collaborative Overload), “Time spent yourself these questions:
by managers and employees in collaborative activities
has ballooned by 50% or more” over the last two
decades. Consulting with others can consume up to
80% of an individual’s time, leaving very little time for
productive, independent effort. The complexity of
global business has led to more team-based decision
making and action . . . and that means more meetings.

4
 SHOULD I HOLD A MEETING?
Call meetings when you need to collaborate on solutions, When calling a team meeting, try to keep the number of
create new ideas, make decisions, or assign actions. attendees small (though you should publish the results as
Generally, don’t call a meeting to convey information—unless widely as necessary). In large groups, social loafing occurs:
your message is sensitive. Weekly meetings can help keep a Participants reduce their effort and avoid responsibilities. An
group cohesive and moving forward, but consider less time- odd number of people, close to five, is a good size for a
consuming ways to stay in touch (e.g., shared documents or discussion-based meeting. Guard against inviting too many
project-management software). Don’t let a regular meeting people (trying not to offend anybody), or too few (inviting
become a recurring time drain. Question the necessity of only those you’re comfortable with).
every meeting you call.

WHOM SHOULD I INVITE? BE SURE YOUR ATTENDANCE LIST INCLUDES . . .

The smallest meetings are 1:1, a formal individual meeting
1. The decision maker (authorized to make key
with a subordinate instead of just “catching up” in the break
decisions)
room. Andy Grove, the legendary founder of Intel, believed
1:1 meetings pay off handsomely. “Ninety minutes of your 2. People who can frame the current issues,
time can enhance the quality of your subordinate’s work for provide context, and propose specific solutions
two weeks, or for some eighty-plus hours.” High Output 3. People required to implement the decisions
Management

5
“An odd-numbered group size, close to 5, is useful for discussion and decision making.”
Sheila Margolis
What Is the Optimal Group Size for Decision Making?

55
WHEN SHOULD WE MEET?
According to an article in Fast Company (“The Best Time of Day to Do Everything at Work"), Tuesday afternoons at 3 p.m. is a good
time to hold meetings. Attendees have time to prepare for them after the weekend, and they still have a few days before the end of
the week to execute assignments. Avoid Friday afternoons and Monday mornings if at all possible. Use the company calendar invitation
system or a facilitator like Doodle, Calendly, or NeedToMeet to efficiently set a time when all invitees can attend.

Explore the interfaces of Doodle, Calendly,

NeedToMeet, or WhenIsGood and decide
which you’ll use.
Activity 8.1

THE BEST TIME OF DAY TO DO EVERYTHING AT WORK

Schedule a meeting? Tuesday at 3 p.m.
Scheduling a meeting on Tuesday allows time to prepare after
S M T W Th F Sa the weekend and act on the decisions made in the same week.
MEETINGS

MEETINGS
MEETINGS

Send an email for a quick response? 6 - 7 a.m.

MEETINGS

You’ll compete with fewer emails in the morning inbox, and

reply rates are highest, about 45%.

Make a tough decision? After lunch.

Judges make more consistent decisions when they have full
tummies. You probably will too.

Brainstorm new ideas? When you’re tired.

A tired brain won’t jump to logical solutions but will start
throwing out random and innovative ideas.

Source: Stephanie Vozza, Fast Company 23 June 2015, “The Best Time of Day to Do Everything at Work”

6
WHERE SHALL WE MEET?
Choose the right place for your meeting. You have options.

ALUMNI ADVICE
Office meetings Schedule a right-sized room—avoid one that's
so big that participants mentally check out. Make sure the room
has enough chairs and that you have what you need: projector,
strong WiFi, water, paper, etc.
“I love walking meetings.
Standup meetings For brief progress report meetings, try
They allow participants to dodge
stand-up meetings. Stand-ups are short meetings in which interruptions and focus more tightly
participants remain standing in a common area. The idea is that on the discussion. The increased
everyone will conduct business more efficiently since they don’t heart rate and blood flow make me
want to stay standing too long! feel sharper, too.”
Walking meetings Another alternative meeting location, much
favored in Silicon Valley, is outside. Walking meetings work best
for 1:1 or 1:2 meetings in mild weather. Plan a route beforehand
that will last about the length of your meeting, and warn
participants in advance so they’ll wear comfortable shoes.
Walking meetings can spur creative thought, increase
friendship, and give participants a break from the office.

David B. Andersen,
Former Intel technologist and current entrepreneur.
MS Electrical Engineering
BYU, Class of 1981

7
ENGAGING REMOTE PARTICIPANTS Lunch Meetings A good meal can help people relax and
feel closer. At a restaurant, consider scheduling early or
Research by Rosanne Siino at Stanford suggests that late—you’ll have more room, a quieter space, and more
emotional engagement is the key to effective meetings, attentive service. If you order lunch to be brought in, be
and that remote participants have trouble staying
aware that people need downtime, so don’t frequently
engaged. She recommends four ways to make remote
overschedule their lunch hours.
meetings more effective:

1. Avoid “mixed” meetings with some participants on Remote meetings Remote meetings are increasingly
video and others in the room. Think all or nothing: common in decentralized teams. If you are calling a
either everyone’s in the room or everyone’s remote. meeting for a new team, make the effort to use a video
conferencing platform like Zoom, Google Hangouts,
2. Have remote participants introduce themselves at
the beginning and identify their role (e.g., note- Skype, Facetime, or Join.me. The extra hassle is worth
taker, timekeeper, etc.). the increased information you will acquire by reading
body and facial language as you spend time getting to
3. Discourage calling in via mobile phones, which know each other. As you become comfortable working
have unpredictable connections. When you
together, phone meetings will become more common
combine a thick accent with a low-quality line,
and efficient. Become familiar with screen-sharing
everyone quickly becomes mentally exhausted. Use
VOIP if at all possible. technology so you can all discuss a single document, flow
chart, or spreadsheet.
4. Keep track of who talks and who doesn’t. Draw in
non-participants by asking questions and seeking
their opinions.
Practice holding a remote meeting with a team
you work on. Create a document and share
your screen with the others in the meeting.
Activity 9.1 Have everyone contribute to a single
document using Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

8
HOW LONG SHALL WE MEET? WHAT SHOULD I DO
BEFORE THE MEETING?
The length of time you should plan for your meeting is, of Create and publish an agenda. Include the meeting purpose,
course, determined by your purpose. Here are some invitees, roles, location, length, and links to minutes from the
examples: previous meeting so participants can review their
assignments. Conclude your agenda with a few questions
‣ 15 minutes: Status updates. Help a colleague with a
you’d like participants to be thinking about before the
single roadblock. Readjust assignment loads.
meeting and links to any material they’ll need to review.
‣ 30 minutes: Brainstorm. Create a project schedule.
Conduct a performance review. Review a report before
MEETING AGENDA
publication.
When: May 21, 2017, 3 p.m. EDT
‣ 50 minutes: First team meeting on a new project. Work Where: Sky Meeting Room + call + video
through a recurrent multi-faceted problem. Hold a Call-in Info: 555.123.4567; web link here
discussion including more than five people. Preparation: Bring project status updates and roadblocks
Who: Arianna (host), Libby, Clark, Anish, Jen G.

Try to plan meetings that feel a little short for the task.
1. Project Status Update (3:00 p.m. - 30 min)
Meeting participants are more likely to stay focused, alert,
• Individual role updates
and grateful.
• Roadblocks to address
2. Calendared Project Items (3:30 p.m. - 15 min)
Time’s up and you’re not finished with the agenda? Table the
• Review existing items
rest of the items and resolve to do better next time. By
• Add or delete items
ending the meeting on time, you communicate respect for
• Address conflicts
your colleagues’ time and your trustworthiness in using it.
3. Project Next Steps & Next Meeting (3:45 p.m. - 10 min)

Create an agenda for an upcoming meeting.

If you are having trouble getting through Send it out to prepare attendees, then follow it
meetings on time, create a timed agenda. during the meeting.
Activity 9.2
9
HOW DO I RUN A MEETING?
As a manager, you‘re responsible for guiding the meeting, but
don’t assume that means you should be joyless or strictly limit
discussion to the work project. To get the best from your team
during a meeting, pay attention to relationships, roles, and
results.

Relationships: A few years ago, Google spent millions of

dollars gathering and analyzing data, trying to optimize its
teams. Its data on successful teams did not easily yield
commonalities. After years of research, Google found only two
common factors in its most successful teams:
‣ Equality in the distribution of conversational turn taking.
Everyone on the team spoke about the same amount over
time.
‣ A high average social sensitivity. Members quickly and
accurately read how other teams members felt, as
indicated by tone, expression, and nonverbal cues.
Women are often naturally skilled in this, which is why
they make such valuable team members. See more of
Google’s results here: Why Some Teams are Smarter Than
Others.
Source: http://brandongaille.com/how-to-have-and-run-an-effective-meeting/

RELATIONSHIPS ROLES RESULTS

10
 Roles: Make sure people at your meetings know what their HOW SHOULD I
responsibilities are. Some managers like to assign roles like
timekeeper, facilitator, recorder, questioner, etc. For solving
FOLLOW UP?
Don’t lose all that meeting goodness. People may leave
problems or group writing, some like the model of assigning
meetings motivated to do their assignments, but they can use
figurative roles like architect, madman, carpenter, and judge.
your help in providing them with reminders and tools. So be
Or randomly divide the team into Blue Hats (who are free to
sure to delegate and publish the next steps and due dates that
find flaws and criticize) and Red Hats (who can only comment
team members have agreed to. Enter assignments in your
on positives, despite personal opinions). Ensure that everyone
project software or send a clear follow-up email like the one
has input.
below. Peer pressure (sometimes) works wonders.

Results: While simultaneously paying attention to the

relationships and roles in your group, you must also move
your tasks to completion. Quickly refocus wandering
conversations and keep desired results visible so you’ll all YES
move toward them. “Let’s check the agenda and move on.” To [email protected]
“Our main goal here is to . . .” Write your meeting’s purpose From [email protected]

on a whiteboard or a poster. Try using project management Subject Assignments from June 15 Meeting

software like Trello, Asana, or TeamGantt.

Hi, Team. Great meeting this morning! Here are our next steps:

Dave: File the patent application by June 20. Here’s an example.

Corinne: Make the changes we discussed to the UI by June 25.

Visit the splash pages of some project Paulo: Contact ProCorps by June 27 about support for the additional
management software services: Trello, Asana, features. Call Brady James (123.555.4321) and mention me.
Wrike, TeamGantt, Zoho. Which do you like best Me: Write up project report and share for team review by June 19.
Activity 9.3 and how do you see yourself using it?
Let me know if you run into any roadblocks. I’ll check with each of you two
days before your deadline. Our next meeting is July 1 at 3 p.m.

I’ll bring bacon donuts because…bacon.

Ask attendees to put their phones in Do Not Hannah

Disturb mode during meetings.

11
 3 Email Management Tips
SECTION TWO
Email response rates start dropping with

EMAIL
every word over 125. Use links and
attachments to say more, if necessary.

AND CHAT
“7 Tips for Getting More Responses to Your Emails
(With Data!)” Alex Moore

Check your email 3 times a day

instead of 30 to save a lot of time.

EMAIL MANAGEMENT Unsubscribe from unwanted

Good managers need to fully understand the zen of email. It newsletters and junk email and cut
must be your servant, not your master. We’ve already your email workload drastically.
discussed how to write clear, concise emails in CH 04: BUILD. “Block Unwanted Emails.” Google Help
Here are some email management tips.

36 16
Breathe. We tend to breathe very shallowly when reading
email. So that you don’t become a victim of Email Apnea,
remember to breathe deeply and stretch occasionally.

Times the average Minutes spent

Search rather than sort. Rely on Gmail’s incredible search
employee checks refocusing after
capabilities to find emails you need rather than spending their email in an handling incoming
time sorting and maintaining topic folders. hour email

https://www.atlassian.com/time-wasting-at-work-infographic

12
 Fence your email time. Don’t let email take over your day. Resist the
impulse to check email constantly—choose the hours you’ll spend
working on your inbox.

Achieve and maintain Inbox Zero. If you routinely ignore email in your
inbox, you might ignore something important or forget it as it drifts ACHIEVE AND MAINTAIN
down your long inbox list. Read Anthony Casalena, founder and CEO of

INBOX ZERO
Squarespace, who deals with about 300 emails a day, on  How to
Achieve Inbox Zero. Let your email software filter for you (Google has
great tools). Keep your inbox to under 10 items.

CHAT MANAGEMENT
Instant messaging is common in business settings, probably because NIRVANA
so many more people are working remotely. Texting is instantaneous,
but also asynchronous. It accommodates groups, records threads, and
0
is appealing to those who don’t speak English as a first language. But
does it decrease productivity? If you manage notification settings, IM
can be a productivity boost rather than hindrance. Read and follow
Lifewire’s  8 Etiquette Rules for Using Messaging at Work.

SLACK is a popular messaging, archive, and search

tool for teams. Watch this Introducing Slack video.
Activity 9.4

13
SECTION THREE

MOTIVATION
Motivational communication is a topic that makes many
people cringe. They picture the slick motivational
speaker, oozing with counterfeit charisma, or a
televangelist, manipulating emotions for self-gain. (see
Shia LaBeouf’s “Just Do It” motivational speech).

But the ability to inspire and motivate others is one of

the hallmarks of extraordinary leaders. More
importantly, research by leadership experts Jack Zenger
and Joe Folkman shows that inspiring and motivating
others requires powerful communication. Zenger and
Folkman’s book, The Inspiring Leader, suggests the
following six best practices.

14
INSPIRING LEADERSHIP

COMMUNICATE OFTEN Inspiring leaders are prolific communicators. They are in touch with their people, listening to them, sharing ideas,
providing encouragement, and reminding them of the bigger picture.

BE POSITIVE Pessimists and critics are rarely inspiring. Research by University of Michigan professor Kim Cameron on
leadership teams (Positive Leadership) finds that in the highest-performing teams, the ratio of positive to
negative comments is 5:1. In medium-performing teams, the ratio is 2:1. And in low-performing teams, the ratio
is 1:3 in favor of the negative. Follow the 5:1 rule and keep it positive.

ASK QUESTIONS Stereotypes suggest that inspiring leaders give lofty speeches and articulate grand visions. Turns out they actually
ask a lot of questions. Questions inspire because they indicate openness and encourage a two-way dialogue.
Social scientists Marcial Losada and Emily Heaphy find that in high-performing organizations, leaders ask a
question for each instruction they give; in low-performing organizations, the ratio is closer to 20 instructions for
each question.

CELEBRATE! Shine the spotlight on others rather than on yourself. Being generous with praise and giving credit to often-
anonymous co-workers are powerful ways to inspire and motivate others.

TELL STORIES Inspiring leaders tell stories that draw the audience in. Stories are concrete and real, and therefore more
memorable than lists of facts or well-honed logical arguments. Stories often evoke emotions; they’re funny, sad,
embarrassing, shocking, admirable, etc. Stories provide a sense of completion because they have a beginning, a
middle, and an end. To be more inspiring, keep a fresh stock of anecdotes that you can deploy in your formal and
informal communications.

SHOW PASSION Inspiration means “to exert an animating, enlivening, or exalting influence” (merriam-webster.com). Your passion
as a communicator has a direct effect on how animated and enlivened your audience feels. Remember that
communicating with passion doesn’t require high-energy histrionics. Quiet authenticity and consistent
commitment are proven ways to convey personal conviction for what you’re communicating.

15
IN CONCLUSION
Your career will include managerial roles. The ability to facilitate effective meetings will
make you stand out in a world where time-wasting meetings are the norm. Managing
your email and messaging will help you survive and thrive in our era of communication
saturation. And if you can inspire and motivate others to achieve important goals, you’ll
always be in demand for getting things done . . . with people.