1 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:12,880 Welcome to the Everyday PM Podcast, the podcast where we 2 00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:15,800 discussed project management principles for your everyday 3 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:18,080 life. My name is Anne Campia and I am 4 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:20,400 the host and founder of The Everyday PM. 5 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:23,840 I'm certified as a PM and I am just a project management 6 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:26,960 enthusiast myself, having several years working in very 7 00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:29,120 different industries as a project manager. 8 00:00:29,620 --> 00:00:32,820 I am so excited to welcome our very special guests. 9 00:00:32,820 --> 00:00:35,580 Yes, we have two. We have Rich and Jim who are 10 00:00:35,580 --> 00:00:37,780 joining us. They are here to speak a lot 11 00:00:37,780 --> 00:00:39,500 about their professional journey. 12 00:00:39,500 --> 00:00:43,260 But then we're also going to dive into a quick spoiler alert, 13 00:00:43,460 --> 00:00:45,420 you could probably see it in Rich's background. 14 00:00:45,420 --> 00:00:48,740 There are great meetings, build great teams, which is the book 15 00:00:48,740 --> 00:00:52,300 that they have published. And I'm so excited to share kind 16 00:00:52,300 --> 00:00:55,020 of the details and the contents of that with our audience as 17 00:00:55,020 --> 00:00:58,140 well because I think you're all very much going to enjoy it. 18 00:00:58,140 --> 00:01:00,690 So I I will encourage you to pick up the book. 19 00:01:00,690 --> 00:01:02,610 I will say it again at the end of this podcast. 20 00:01:02,610 --> 00:01:05,770 But that being said, let's go ahead and give Rich and Jim the 21 00:01:05,770 --> 00:01:07,330 platform. So, Rich, starting with you, 22 00:01:07,330 --> 00:01:09,490 please take a brief moment to introduce yourself to our 23 00:01:09,490 --> 00:01:12,970 audience. Stuart Rich Maltzman, coauthor 24 00:01:12,970 --> 00:01:17,610 with Jim Stewart of this this wonderful book but also a 40 25 00:01:17,610 --> 00:01:21,610 year practitioner in Project management, accidentally became 26 00:01:21,610 --> 00:01:25,010 a project manager after starting as an engineer and. 27 00:01:25,890 --> 00:01:29,010 Now a master lecturer at Boston University teaching a suite of 28 00:01:30,010 --> 00:01:31,290 PM courses. Jim. 29 00:01:33,250 --> 00:01:37,290 I spent started my career as an IT network engineer and again 30 00:01:37,290 --> 00:01:38,890 like Rich became the accidental project. 31 00:01:38,890 --> 00:01:41,330 Man didn't use somebody to create a Gantt chart and I said 32 00:01:41,450 --> 00:01:45,210 okay, I'll give that a shot X number of years ago and for the 33 00:01:45,210 --> 00:01:46,810 past 20 years I've been independent. 34 00:01:46,970 --> 00:01:50,890 As of this year, 20 years independent, working from home, 35 00:01:50,890 --> 00:01:54,330 and I do a variety of things, running projects, consulting on 36 00:01:54,330 --> 00:01:56,560 projects. The most recent one of which was 37 00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:59,160 an agile transformation project for a pharmaceutical. 38 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:01,400 I became an agileist about 10 years ago. 39 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:05,120 So I do both of those things and we'll talk about how we got to 40 00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:07,920 writing the book. But I write, speak and do all 41 00:02:07,920 --> 00:02:10,000 those fun things. That's amazing. 42 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,960 I think collectively we have so far one thing in common. 43 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:16,040 Well, maybe two. We both have a passion for 44 00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:17,920 project management. It sounds like we and we all 45 00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:20,000 fell into it. We were all accidental. 46 00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:25,290 And I do think at some point in the span of project management, 47 00:02:25,290 --> 00:02:29,850 however old it is at this point, it's quite generation spanning. 48 00:02:30,170 --> 00:02:33,010 I think that at some point I'm probably going to start to 49 00:02:33,010 --> 00:02:36,570 welcome guests on to here that will say, oh, I wasn't 50 00:02:36,570 --> 00:02:38,930 accidental. I had this planned, I went to 51 00:02:38,930 --> 00:02:41,010 school for this. I didn't have experience and 52 00:02:41,010 --> 00:02:42,650 this is quite amazing to hear that. 53 00:02:42,650 --> 00:02:45,850 But I love that you kind of shared a little glimpse of your 54 00:02:45,850 --> 00:02:48,490 professional journey with our audience, but why don't we dig 55 00:02:48,490 --> 00:02:51,010 in a little bit deeper. So Jim, starting with you, you 56 00:02:51,010 --> 00:02:53,210 said you became an Agile is not too long ago. 57 00:02:53,210 --> 00:02:56,930 So what kind of led you to that, to that perspective? 58 00:02:57,350 --> 00:03:00,950 Honestly, as an independent project manager I have to stay 59 00:03:00,950 --> 00:03:02,790 current with the market and I teach a lot of. 60 00:03:02,870 --> 00:03:06,070 By the way Rich and I teach. He is a teacher professionally 61 00:03:06,070 --> 00:03:10,670 full time. I teach PMP fair amount of time, 62 00:03:10,870 --> 00:03:12,910 not as much as I usually cuz I prefer consulting. 63 00:03:13,150 --> 00:03:17,950 So some years ago Azure was sort of happening, starting to 64 00:03:17,950 --> 00:03:19,070 happen. I had to started telling my 65 00:03:19,070 --> 00:03:21,990 students about it, the little bit that I knew, but I realized 66 00:03:21,990 --> 00:03:23,980 I was being. Disingenuous. 67 00:03:23,980 --> 00:03:26,380 I didn't really know it well, so I went and got my scrum master. 68 00:03:26,380 --> 00:03:29,700 This is 2013. I said, oh, I like this, I like 69 00:03:29,700 --> 00:03:32,300 this. And so then to be honest with 70 00:03:32,300 --> 00:03:34,820 you, recruiters would call me when they eight out of 10 times 71 00:03:34,820 --> 00:03:36,940 they're requesting Agile and they'd hang up me if I didn't 72 00:03:36,940 --> 00:03:39,580 have it. So I said I better get this, so. 73 00:03:40,020 --> 00:03:43,420 And I liked it anyway, so I got various certifications. 74 00:03:43,910 --> 00:03:46,870 And fell into it and enjoy it and I go back and forth. 75 00:03:46,870 --> 00:03:50,270 I mean, my last one was, I mean I'm a certified object coach. 76 00:03:50,270 --> 00:03:51,630 My last one was a transformation. 77 00:03:51,870 --> 00:03:54,790 My next gig could be using a Gantt chart in traditional. 78 00:03:54,830 --> 00:03:57,110 I have no rich and I've discussed this many times. 79 00:03:57,390 --> 00:03:59,670 We are agnostic about the tool that we use. 80 00:03:59,670 --> 00:04:01,790 We're not hung up on agile, We're not hung up on waterfall. 81 00:04:02,070 --> 00:04:03,590 We do what the project calls for. 82 00:04:03,590 --> 00:04:06,430 So that's honestly how I fell into it as a matter of. 83 00:04:06,740 --> 00:04:10,460 If not survival, just increasing my chances of staying conversing 84 00:04:10,460 --> 00:04:12,540 as a consultant. And I did like it. 85 00:04:12,540 --> 00:04:15,820 So that's what brought me to this, that's that's amazing. 86 00:04:15,940 --> 00:04:18,060 It completely makes sense. I mean you're you've been 87 00:04:18,060 --> 00:04:20,980 relevant and have stayed relevant and innovative at the 88 00:04:20,980 --> 00:04:22,660 same time. And I think that's something 89 00:04:22,660 --> 00:04:25,980 that we often forget as project managers is that you don't just 90 00:04:25,980 --> 00:04:27,420 take the exam and then you're done. 91 00:04:27,900 --> 00:04:30,900 You should be learning all the time and try to figure out how 92 00:04:30,900 --> 00:04:33,020 it's evolving as well the industry itself. 93 00:04:33,300 --> 00:04:34,700 Not only that, I've seen too many. 94 00:04:34,700 --> 00:04:36,060 We live in the Massachusetts area. 95 00:04:36,060 --> 00:04:38,660 We're both Rich and I saw the demise of the mini computer 96 00:04:38,660 --> 00:04:40,940 industry because they all said, well, no one will ever want a 97 00:04:40,940 --> 00:04:44,100 computer at home. Famously Ken Olson Digital said 98 00:04:44,100 --> 00:04:47,740 no one and they're all gone. So change your or die. 99 00:04:48,020 --> 00:04:49,820 So you need to change and evolve with the times. 100 00:04:49,820 --> 00:04:52,340 There's some other thing comes along and it's viable. 101 00:04:52,340 --> 00:04:54,620 I'll go for that as well. And I think Rich feels the same 102 00:04:54,620 --> 00:04:56,020 way. Well, I've had to drag him 103 00:04:56,020 --> 00:04:57,260 somewhat at the Agile a little bit. 104 00:04:57,260 --> 00:04:59,500 He still gets a little bit confused, but I do my best. 105 00:05:00,580 --> 00:05:03,500 So Rich, over to you. I mean, what led you to where 106 00:05:03,500 --> 00:05:05,380 you're at today? Master lecturer? 107 00:05:05,380 --> 00:05:07,220 And then and all the great things that you're doing. 108 00:05:07,620 --> 00:05:11,980 Yeah, I think any good project manager is in some ways a 109 00:05:11,980 --> 00:05:14,620 teacher is in some ways a consultant. 110 00:05:15,020 --> 00:05:17,900 And so, even in my engineering days, I found myself for the 1st 111 00:05:17,900 --> 00:05:20,620 10 years of my career before I got the tap on the shoulder 112 00:05:20,620 --> 00:05:22,460 saying, hey, we need a project manager over here. 113 00:05:24,020 --> 00:05:26,860 I found that what I was doing often was solving problems 114 00:05:26,860 --> 00:05:30,180 through education. I remember having problems with 115 00:05:30,180 --> 00:05:34,860 the systems test engineering and we could have solved this with 116 00:05:34,860 --> 00:05:37,380 100 new systems. But I found it was just a matter 117 00:05:37,380 --> 00:05:40,380 of the testers and installers not understanding what they were 118 00:05:40,380 --> 00:05:43,740 testing and installing. So we actually got rid of the 119 00:05:43,740 --> 00:05:49,140 socalled dog pile of of defective components by 120 00:05:49,140 --> 00:05:51,220 instituting a training program and I found that. 121 00:05:51,740 --> 00:05:54,860 That teaching and learning was actually something as Jim just 122 00:05:54,860 --> 00:05:58,340 said, it's lifelong and it's very valuable. 123 00:05:58,420 --> 00:06:02,820 It actually can save a lot of money time and pain if it's if 124 00:06:02,820 --> 00:06:06,620 it's done well. So I I found that I was we use 125 00:06:06,620 --> 00:06:10,900 the term pracademic that I liked the idea of of academics but not 126 00:06:10,900 --> 00:06:15,300 for the pure, you know, you know, 45 page paper aspect of 127 00:06:15,300 --> 00:06:18,390 it, but more for the. There's really a kernel of 128 00:06:18,390 --> 00:06:20,270 knowledge here that people can use. 129 00:06:20,270 --> 00:06:22,270 Same with Agile. I mean, like Jim said, he kind 130 00:06:22,270 --> 00:06:26,030 of had to drag me in there, but there's a lot of really rich, 131 00:06:26,870 --> 00:06:31,630 important information and practices and mindset in Agile 132 00:06:31,910 --> 00:06:33,470 and that everyone could benefit from. 133 00:06:33,470 --> 00:06:39,950 So I I like this idea of lifelong learning, and I've been 134 00:06:39,950 --> 00:06:43,100 actually teaching. In one way or another, not just 135 00:06:43,140 --> 00:06:46,740 as I mentioned in the job, but at community colleges since the 136 00:06:46,740 --> 00:06:50,260 80s. Even teaching, as Jim mentioned, 137 00:06:50,260 --> 00:06:54,020 mini computers, even teaching. This is definitely a frustrating 138 00:06:54,020 --> 00:06:57,980 job, teaching seniors how to use a computer. 139 00:06:58,980 --> 00:07:04,310 Now I is a senior. And I have to keep up with the 140 00:07:04,310 --> 00:07:09,470 technology with ChatGPT and other generative AIAI systems 141 00:07:09,710 --> 00:07:13,110 and and like Jim said as new stuff comes up I think both of 142 00:07:13,110 --> 00:07:16,270 us are just hungry to keep learning that So that's been my 143 00:07:16,270 --> 00:07:21,110 driver and but but getting stuff done just getting stuff done 144 00:07:21,510 --> 00:07:26,190 excites me and I I I love to see in my case it was telecom. 145 00:07:26,190 --> 00:07:29,310 I love to see a telecom network go up and have fiber optic 146 00:07:29,310 --> 00:07:33,820 connections between Los Angeles. And New York or the better city, 147 00:07:33,860 --> 00:07:37,420 Boston in some way, I'd like to see that. 148 00:07:38,140 --> 00:07:39,700 I'd like to see that. I like to. 149 00:07:39,740 --> 00:07:42,020 See for sales. Rich, we just lost our New York. 150 00:07:42,940 --> 00:07:43,940 Sorry. No Yankees. 151 00:07:44,500 --> 00:07:50,500 Anyway. Anyway, I love to see that come 152 00:07:50,500 --> 00:07:52,220 together. I mean, we used to joke around 153 00:07:52,220 --> 00:07:54,740 in our department. We love it when a plan comes 154 00:07:54,740 --> 00:07:58,740 together and and and that idea of starting with literally 155 00:07:58,740 --> 00:08:00,870 vapor. An idea. 156 00:08:01,030 --> 00:08:02,630 And then turning that into reality. 157 00:08:03,590 --> 00:08:05,910 That's what project managers do. And that's why when I made the 158 00:08:05,910 --> 00:08:10,230 shift to project management, I just stayed with it and then did 159 00:08:10,230 --> 00:08:14,150 it and now teach it and do it. And I really enjoy it. 160 00:08:14,830 --> 00:08:17,550 I love that. And our audience is not just 161 00:08:17,910 --> 00:08:21,070 comprised of project managers. And a lot of what you both 162 00:08:21,070 --> 00:08:24,720 shared in your professional journey is very much applicable 163 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:27,760 to people outside of our industry as well in terms of 164 00:08:27,760 --> 00:08:31,480 just wanting to be in a job that where you can see the fruits of 165 00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:34,480 your labor. And and I think you that that 166 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:37,440 kind of it's and sometimes it's really not immediate for PM. 167 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:40,679 Sometimes you're on a job for 10 years, who knows what you're 168 00:08:40,679 --> 00:08:43,600 working on. But just the sheer fact that you 169 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:46,160 know that you created something from nothing. 170 00:08:46,160 --> 00:08:48,360 I I love that, Rich. I love that you shared that 171 00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:53,300 about your journey. So I and I, I also AM a parttime 172 00:08:53,300 --> 00:08:55,940 educator. I think all three of us again 173 00:08:55,940 --> 00:08:59,340 collectively check another thing on on the list about learning 174 00:08:59,340 --> 00:09:01,540 and also wanting to give back to the industry. 175 00:09:01,540 --> 00:09:06,820 So I want to get to the aha moment of when you both decided, 176 00:09:06,860 --> 00:09:11,740 hey, we should write a book. Where did that come from? 177 00:09:11,740 --> 00:09:15,780 Was it several conversations? Did Jim just wake up one day and 178 00:09:15,780 --> 00:09:18,220 call you Rich and say I got an idea, or how did that come 179 00:09:18,220 --> 00:09:20,320 together? It almost was like that. 180 00:09:20,320 --> 00:09:22,760 Isn't that funny? Rich had written several books. 181 00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:25,680 We've been friends for over 20 years and I thought, I guess 182 00:09:25,680 --> 00:09:27,440 Rich doesn't like me. He never approaches me to write 183 00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:30,760 a book. So I kept thinking because I 184 00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:34,520 really wanted a coauthor and so but I didn't know what to write 185 00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:35,960 about. So and I've told the story 186 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:38,080 before. We have Rich and I and another 187 00:09:38,080 --> 00:09:41,240 gentleman all did some consulting work for a woman who 188 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:43,440 runs a life sciences consulting company. 189 00:09:44,190 --> 00:09:46,790 And I used to go out and do big meetings with her at 190 00:09:46,790 --> 00:09:49,670 pharmaceuticals and which is where I got at the farmers by 191 00:09:49,670 --> 00:09:51,510 the way, through her. And thanks to her and I would 192 00:09:51,510 --> 00:09:56,070 help do two big two and three day planning meetings, mostly 2A 193 00:09:56,070 --> 00:09:59,550 day, and facilitate those. And I learned a lot doing that. 194 00:09:59,550 --> 00:10:01,070 So one day I'm at lunch with this friend of mine. 195 00:10:01,070 --> 00:10:03,430 He says, you know what I would read about those big meetings 196 00:10:03,430 --> 00:10:05,270 you do with that woman? I would, I would read about 197 00:10:05,270 --> 00:10:06,670 that. And I said, oh, really? 198 00:10:06,950 --> 00:10:09,950 So using my marketing survey of one person. 199 00:10:10,660 --> 00:10:13,660 I then went to Rich and said I remember this discussion too 200 00:10:13,660 --> 00:10:16,060 because I had a sort of, I wasn't explaining it well to get 201 00:10:16,060 --> 00:10:16,780 through. There's no Rich. 202 00:10:16,780 --> 00:10:19,020 It's about meetings and the big, he says oh I get it. 203 00:10:19,420 --> 00:10:22,340 We both done our meetings and stuff and this is actually the 204 00:10:22,340 --> 00:10:26,900 second book, by the way, we we did 144 or five years ago. 205 00:10:27,100 --> 00:10:29,940 We say everything is either poster pre pandemic but pre 206 00:10:29,940 --> 00:10:33,500 pandemic. And it was more about those big 207 00:10:33,500 --> 00:10:35,700 two day meetings found publisher. 208 00:10:35,700 --> 00:10:37,860 Rich found a publisher. So the heart of it was those two 209 00:10:37,860 --> 00:10:41,580 big two big two day meetings. But then that publisher went out 210 00:10:41,580 --> 00:10:43,260 of business. Let's redo it find a new 211 00:10:43,260 --> 00:10:45,980 publisher. And this one focuses somewhat 212 00:10:45,980 --> 00:10:50,180 more in agile but somewhat more in team building and a variety 213 00:10:50,180 --> 00:10:53,260 of conflict management and what we talked about bullies talked 214 00:10:53,260 --> 00:10:56,540 about that last time too. So less on the two day thing and 215 00:10:56,540 --> 00:11:00,220 one more thing is the good combination Rich and I have is. 216 00:11:00,580 --> 00:11:02,620 You'll sometimes get too academic because if rich, you're 217 00:11:02,620 --> 00:11:04,140 getting too academic uses. Yeah. 218 00:11:04,140 --> 00:11:05,380 But Jim, you have to have some academic. 219 00:11:05,380 --> 00:11:07,620 He'll pull me that way. So you have a good combination 220 00:11:07,620 --> 00:11:10,060 of the science of meetings and the academic stuff with the 221 00:11:10,060 --> 00:11:13,300 footnotes and whatnot and the down and dirty on the ground 222 00:11:13,300 --> 00:11:14,660 type of stuff that we put together. 223 00:11:14,820 --> 00:11:16,300 So that's how the book came to be. 224 00:11:16,300 --> 00:11:20,340 And and and so this one's been out since late June at book two. 225 00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:21,860 So we're we're thrilled about that. 226 00:11:21,860 --> 00:11:25,060 That's incredible, Rich. Did you? 227 00:11:25,060 --> 00:11:29,480 Were you surprised? Did you want to say no to Jim? 228 00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:31,920 But then you felt bad about saying no to Jim about writing a 229 00:11:31,960 --> 00:11:32,960 book. I did not. 230 00:11:32,960 --> 00:11:35,880 I did not want to say no to Jim. I think I said yes pretty 231 00:11:35,880 --> 00:11:38,240 quickly and we got to work on it pretty quickly. 232 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:40,560 And as Jim said it, there's a lot. 233 00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:44,360 Well, you can probably get a little bit of the the, the humor 234 00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:48,320 and the banter that we have that comes across in the book. 235 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:50,800 And it's not just us that's important to know. 236 00:11:51,560 --> 00:11:55,160 We have a lot of war stories from people around the world, 237 00:11:55,160 --> 00:11:56,840 from men and women around the world. 238 00:11:57,550 --> 00:12:00,870 That we, we call them war stories, meetings that have gone 239 00:12:01,110 --> 00:12:05,590 really well, have gone off the rails in weird ways. 240 00:12:07,310 --> 00:12:08,790 And the book is peppered with those. 241 00:12:09,390 --> 00:12:11,390 And that that was one of the things people seem to like in 242 00:12:11,390 --> 00:12:13,710 the first book. So we went out and got more. 243 00:12:13,990 --> 00:12:17,310 We're both pretty active networkers on LinkedIn and 244 00:12:17,310 --> 00:12:20,390 elsewhere, PMI conferences and so forth and we've. 245 00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:24,480 We've gathered, hunted and gathered these some of these 246 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:27,440 stories to to make the the book a little more interesting. 247 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:30,360 I I personally love the structure of it. 248 00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:32,160 So. So let's start with great 249 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:35,640 meetings, build great teams, amazing title, perfect. 250 00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:38,280 It's one of those things that would catch me if I was looking 251 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:42,160 at a laundry list of project management related books and 252 00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:44,200 looking on the shelf that I would definitely pull that off 253 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,560 the shelf #1 because we all have to be in meetings. 254 00:12:48,110 --> 00:12:51,270 A huge part of what we do as project managers is either we 255 00:12:51,270 --> 00:12:54,710 are the ones orchestrating the meeting or we are participating 256 00:12:54,710 --> 00:12:56,910 in it. So we've seen kind of both roles 257 00:12:57,310 --> 00:13:01,830 and everybody wants to understand how do you make for a 258 00:13:01,830 --> 00:13:04,230 successful meeting with your project team. 259 00:13:04,230 --> 00:13:07,630 So the first thing you both claim is that you will let us 260 00:13:07,630 --> 00:13:11,470 know through the book what is the secret behind happier, more 261 00:13:11,590 --> 00:13:14,630 successful project teams. And it sounds like it starts 262 00:13:14,630 --> 00:13:16,910 there, but I'll have you both react to that comment. 263 00:13:17,930 --> 00:13:20,690 I guess if I can go on with that one I I was a little duties 264 00:13:20,690 --> 00:13:24,810 about the about the title at first only because it isn't just 265 00:13:25,610 --> 00:13:28,010 we're not naive to think it's just great means to build great 266 00:13:28,010 --> 00:13:29,450 teams. We say that in the book that 267 00:13:29,450 --> 00:13:34,570 that there's more to it than that but we we felt that this is 268 00:13:34,570 --> 00:13:38,650 a nuts and bolts book. This is a book that 269 00:13:40,010 --> 00:13:41,610 interestingly, I don't know if you know this, Rich. 270 00:13:41,610 --> 00:13:45,290 I looked at the top 20 books on meetings on Amazon. 271 00:13:45,570 --> 00:13:47,130 Almost none of them deal without around a meeting. 272 00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:51,080 TEDx and talks about, but none are nuts and bolts books. 273 00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:54,880 This is nuts and bolts book about how to run a meeting, the 274 00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:58,080 challenges you have to overcome, the type of person you need to 275 00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:02,640 be to do that. So we feel like the it's the 276 00:14:02,640 --> 00:14:05,080 converse. We're trying to fix a problem 277 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:07,040 which is there are too many bad meetings. 278 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:12,570 One of the mantras in Agile. Is that doesn't have to be the 279 00:14:12,570 --> 00:14:14,810 scrum ass that runs a meeting. Anybody can run a meeting. 280 00:14:14,970 --> 00:14:16,490 No. If you want chaos, anybody can 281 00:14:16,490 --> 00:14:18,290 run a meeting. Not everybody can run a meeting. 282 00:14:18,530 --> 00:14:20,650 Not because you have to be a genius, but you have to learn 283 00:14:20,650 --> 00:14:23,970 how to be good at it so people aren't necessary. 284 00:14:23,970 --> 00:14:25,730 I'll tell you a little secret. I go. 285 00:14:25,730 --> 00:14:27,050 I haven't told you this yet Rich. 286 00:14:27,050 --> 00:14:29,290 I go to Weight Watchers. I'm not ashamed to say that I go 287 00:14:29,290 --> 00:14:32,770 to Weight Watchers every week. I went last week and the I've 288 00:14:32,770 --> 00:14:36,730 been seeing the same woman for who The leader there for years. 289 00:14:37,050 --> 00:14:39,090 I said I wrote this book. She said bring it in. 290 00:14:39,090 --> 00:14:41,880 We'll do a show and tell. There were about 40 people 291 00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:44,040 there, and they passed around. It never got back to me. 292 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:46,640 I mean, I got it back, but they were so busy reading it and 293 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:49,800 looking at it that I never took forever to get it back to me. 294 00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:50,960 And one one came up running to me. 295 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:53,000 Yeah, I have these board meetings with my condo unit. 296 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:54,800 Another one was like, I'm an IT project manager. 297 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:58,400 I realized in a room of not just a bunch of guys and gals losing 298 00:14:58,400 --> 00:15:01,440 weight, but people are actually running meetings and don't know 299 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:02,480 how to look. Look at this. 300 00:15:02,560 --> 00:15:04,040 Look at this. Wow. 301 00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,000 I guess in fact, I'm going to raffle one of them off their 302 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:07,640 Ridge next week. So they made. 303 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:09,840 Losing weight and gaining knowledge. 304 00:15:10,220 --> 00:15:11,660 Right, right. Well, I'm at least gaining 305 00:15:11,660 --> 00:15:14,100 knowledge. So anyway, I I'm sorry, I 306 00:15:14,140 --> 00:15:16,820 haven't ramble on, but I think I believe that great meetings 307 00:15:16,820 --> 00:15:18,460 build great teams, that's part of it. 308 00:15:18,460 --> 00:15:21,060 If we can have a longer title, it would say something like what 309 00:15:21,060 --> 00:15:22,420 are the great things about meetings? 310 00:15:22,420 --> 00:15:24,140 They help build great teams and blah, blah, blah. 311 00:15:24,140 --> 00:15:26,260 But we had to, you know, make a shorter thing. 312 00:15:26,260 --> 00:15:28,700 So that's my that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. 313 00:15:29,100 --> 00:15:34,140 Yeah, you're right, Jim. There's a lot more to to this. 314 00:15:34,140 --> 00:15:36,260 That's why this book is focused and it's nuts and bolts on 315 00:15:36,260 --> 00:15:38,060 meetings. I mean when you think about what 316 00:15:38,060 --> 00:15:40,300 what makes a great. Project. 317 00:15:40,820 --> 00:15:43,660 What makes a successful project? And we could have another 318 00:15:43,660 --> 00:15:46,500 argument about what success means and project management. 319 00:15:47,540 --> 00:15:52,740 But what makes a great project is a great team. 320 00:15:52,740 --> 00:15:54,940 But what makes the great team isn't only the meetings. 321 00:15:55,300 --> 00:15:57,780 It's but it's part of it. I mean, you have to have the 322 00:15:57,780 --> 00:15:59,340 right team, you have to have the right people. 323 00:15:59,340 --> 00:16:02,020 It has to be chartered and it has to have a purpose that 324 00:16:02,020 --> 00:16:03,740 people buy into. The people have to. 325 00:16:04,420 --> 00:16:06,580 The right people have to be in an act. 326 00:16:06,850 --> 00:16:10,530 Active in in that team, a lot of that takes place through 327 00:16:10,530 --> 00:16:14,730 meetings And so that's that's kind of the common thread is 328 00:16:14,730 --> 00:16:18,290 that if if you first of all recognize that you're going to 329 00:16:18,290 --> 00:16:21,050 be in a lot of meetings, I mean this is a meeting, a classroom 330 00:16:21,050 --> 00:16:23,090 meeting is a meeting, right. When you sit for dinner with 331 00:16:23,170 --> 00:16:25,370 your family, that's in some ways a meeting. 332 00:16:25,570 --> 00:16:28,850 So just like we make thousands of decisions every day, so it 333 00:16:28,850 --> 00:16:31,930 would make sense to learn more about a good decision making we 334 00:16:32,170 --> 00:16:34,770 we assert. I think correctly that project 335 00:16:34,770 --> 00:16:38,050 managers had better learn how to be good meeting attendees and 336 00:16:38,050 --> 00:16:42,010 good meeting facilitators. And to Jim's point, if you're 337 00:16:42,010 --> 00:16:44,890 not the person to run the meeting, and some of these two 338 00:16:44,890 --> 00:16:48,330 or three day meetings are good examples, you may want someone 339 00:16:48,330 --> 00:16:50,930 else to do it right. And even if you're running a 340 00:16:50,930 --> 00:16:53,610 meeting, one of the tips we give in the book is if you're running 341 00:16:53,610 --> 00:16:57,250 the meeting, you're probably not doing a good job of taking 342 00:16:57,250 --> 00:16:58,810 notes. And vice versa, if you're 343 00:16:58,810 --> 00:17:01,130 spending all your time head down or taking notes, you're not 344 00:17:01,130 --> 00:17:05,030 running the meeting. So maybe it makes sense to have 345 00:17:05,030 --> 00:17:08,190 a deputy or an assistant who's chartered, especially on a 346 00:17:08,190 --> 00:17:10,869 virtual meeting like this, to watch the chat and see what's 347 00:17:10,869 --> 00:17:12,670 going on. Kind of what's the undercurrent, 348 00:17:12,670 --> 00:17:16,990 the hubbub, the buzz. Find out what's happening there 349 00:17:17,710 --> 00:17:20,550 while you are watching people's body language. 350 00:17:22,030 --> 00:17:24,630 People who are like out of the video folks can see or like 351 00:17:24,630 --> 00:17:28,069 this, or closed off of people who are clearly not. 352 00:17:29,170 --> 00:17:31,250 Paying attention. You know they've got one or more 353 00:17:31,250 --> 00:17:34,370 devices ready and they're buying something on Amazon. 354 00:17:34,730 --> 00:17:38,930 So you know you got to you got to be you as the project manager 355 00:17:39,130 --> 00:17:42,810 should own the meeting. This Jim made a really, he he 356 00:17:42,810 --> 00:17:45,890 helped the book significantly, making this point that sometimes 357 00:17:45,890 --> 00:17:49,090 you might not even be everyone's best friend because you've 358 00:17:49,290 --> 00:17:51,850 you've, you've let the meeting go out of get out of hand, 359 00:17:52,050 --> 00:17:54,290 trying to be friendly with everyone and letting everyone 360 00:17:54,290 --> 00:17:55,650 talk. And now you're in, you know 361 00:17:55,650 --> 00:17:57,970 you're in a 45 minute. Extra. 362 00:17:58,470 --> 00:18:00,910 More the point free advice. You know somebody doesn't buy 363 00:18:00,910 --> 00:18:04,190 the book. As one consultant I go to said 364 00:18:04,190 --> 00:18:05,990 stop looking for unconditional love. 365 00:18:06,590 --> 00:18:09,190 So don't go to a meeting wanting everybody to like you. 366 00:18:09,590 --> 00:18:11,790 This guy will like me if I let him go on for 10 minutes. 367 00:18:11,790 --> 00:18:13,390 This person will like me. You get to the end of the 368 00:18:13,390 --> 00:18:14,870 meeting, you've accomplished nothing. 369 00:18:14,990 --> 00:18:18,030 By the way, side point, the woman who runs the the weight 370 00:18:18,030 --> 00:18:20,550 marches meeting, I said to her. You do everything in this book. 371 00:18:20,870 --> 00:18:22,830 She's also a teacher, she said. It's like dealing with a bunch 372 00:18:22,870 --> 00:18:24,270 of eight-year olds or whatever she has. 373 00:18:24,270 --> 00:18:26,190 She did it. She did it to me once. 374 00:18:26,190 --> 00:18:27,750 Rich. I I'll tell the jerk around the 375 00:18:27,750 --> 00:18:30,110 session sometimes. So a couple weeks ago, I was 376 00:18:30,110 --> 00:18:32,310 joking about something. She came over, stood next to me 377 00:18:33,110 --> 00:18:34,270 and put a hand on my shoulder. Right. 378 00:18:34,270 --> 00:18:35,630 She did. That one of our techniques. 379 00:18:36,070 --> 00:18:38,630 She she did that to me, you know, you did that to me. 380 00:18:38,630 --> 00:18:41,710 She said yes, I probably did. So anyway, she's really good at 381 00:18:41,710 --> 00:18:44,510 that and I think that's the one I wanted to jump in with the 382 00:18:44,510 --> 00:18:46,030 piece of advice I wanted to give. 383 00:18:46,500 --> 00:18:48,460 If you never buy the book, be lucky if you do. 384 00:18:48,460 --> 00:18:51,580 But if you never do, stop worrying about being like that 385 00:18:51,580 --> 00:18:54,820 will kill you and being a project manager and doing 386 00:18:54,820 --> 00:18:56,340 anything. You're not there to be liked. 387 00:18:56,980 --> 00:19:00,020 We're not there to be disliked, but they have to respect what 388 00:19:00,020 --> 00:19:02,940 you do and they will walk all over you. 389 00:19:03,100 --> 00:19:05,900 If they see that you're weak at that, or that you're trying to 390 00:19:05,900 --> 00:19:07,660 be liked, people will be looking at you. 391 00:19:07,660 --> 00:19:11,500 Like when is GM there to stop this person from talking? 392 00:19:12,470 --> 00:19:14,630 I've had that happen where I've let people go a little bit too 393 00:19:14,630 --> 00:19:15,990 long in a class. Okay. 394 00:19:15,990 --> 00:19:17,590 I better get this back on track here. 395 00:19:18,070 --> 00:19:21,430 You might hurt that person's feelings, but as often as not, 396 00:19:21,430 --> 00:19:24,230 one more thing, I've lost track. The number of people who said to 397 00:19:24,230 --> 00:19:26,830 me, yeah, I do talk too much, and then they keep talking. 398 00:19:27,030 --> 00:19:28,910 They recognize it, but they never do anything about it. 399 00:19:29,150 --> 00:19:31,070 Yeah. So I've heard of those. 400 00:19:31,150 --> 00:19:34,910 People do one question one. Kind of parent point to all of 401 00:19:34,910 --> 00:19:39,150 this. Your behavior and success at the 402 00:19:39,150 --> 00:19:44,130 meeting is a microcosm. Fancy word, A representation of 403 00:19:44,130 --> 00:19:46,290 how you're viewed as a project manager? 404 00:19:46,890 --> 00:19:51,850 Yeah, so one of the things people will walk away, not 405 00:19:51,850 --> 00:19:55,570 saying out loud, but thinking to themselves maybe in harmony, is 406 00:19:56,330 --> 00:20:00,970 if this person, male, female, can't run the meeting, how are 407 00:20:00,970 --> 00:20:03,610 they running this project? And I want to point out that 408 00:20:03,610 --> 00:20:07,020 rich set of multi syllabic word, which is micro chasm, that's the 409 00:20:07,020 --> 00:20:09,860 kind of dopey dad humor. Just one guy wrote a review, a 410 00:20:09,860 --> 00:20:12,380 guy who interviewed us, He says it's funny and I thought, who's 411 00:20:12,540 --> 00:20:16,220 the dumbest dad humor? This is funny, but okay, we'll 412 00:20:16,220 --> 00:20:18,540 take it right so. Whatever works. 413 00:20:18,900 --> 00:20:20,740 Right. I think a few things to tease 414 00:20:20,740 --> 00:20:24,300 out of what you both said. I mean, the first thing that I 415 00:20:24,300 --> 00:20:28,820 didn't even consider is everyone's in meetings and 416 00:20:28,820 --> 00:20:30,940 meetings. The representation of meetings 417 00:20:30,940 --> 00:20:34,620 doesn't necessarily mean. What you would probably picture 418 00:20:34,620 --> 00:20:37,220 in your head as people are gathered in a conference room 419 00:20:37,220 --> 00:20:39,900 anymore, right? This to richest point, this is a 420 00:20:39,900 --> 00:20:46,140 meeting and for us to spend so much time in meetings every day 421 00:20:46,540 --> 00:20:51,660 and not have any type of training on how to facilitate 422 00:20:51,660 --> 00:20:55,340 meetings, well, correct. That's mind boggling to me. 423 00:20:55,340 --> 00:20:57,900 I don't know why. That just was an ah ha moment 424 00:20:57,900 --> 00:21:00,020 for me. As you were saying, that area of 425 00:21:00,020 --> 00:21:04,140 communications, people come into the workforce, sometimes they 426 00:21:04,140 --> 00:21:06,500 come in that, like, they bring all the high school habits, but 427 00:21:06,740 --> 00:21:08,980 people come into the workforce with really no idea. 428 00:21:09,340 --> 00:21:11,820 This is the microcosm of the fact that, to use Rich's word 429 00:21:11,820 --> 00:21:14,540 that I think he might have made-up his communications, 430 00:21:14,540 --> 00:21:16,620 people don't know how to communicate well. 431 00:21:16,620 --> 00:21:18,020 They don't know how to respond to e-mail. 432 00:21:18,020 --> 00:21:19,820 They don't respond to Texas. Hey, I thought we're in the 433 00:21:19,820 --> 00:21:21,780 middle of a text conversation. You just appeared for like an 434 00:21:21,780 --> 00:21:23,840 hour and a half, so they don't communicate well. 435 00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:26,560 And then within that, nobody's really told them that running a 436 00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:28,600 meeting was something. Of course you know how to run a 437 00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:29,680 meeting. Anybody knows how to run a 438 00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:30,720 meeting. It's a soft skill. 439 00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:32,920 Rich showed me something interesting. 440 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,640 It's not in a book, but Rich showed me something interesting 441 00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:37,640 about the effect of back-to-back meetings. 442 00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:39,320 Rich. On the brain. 443 00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:41,200 On the brain. Yeah, What was that? 444 00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:42,400 I didn't. Get a chance to. 445 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,560 It's just the idea that we are going from meeting to meeting to 446 00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:48,200 meeting. And it's the amount of stress in 447 00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:50,000 the brain as measured by science. 448 00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:53,000 Using Mr. I's and CAT scans, I can't remember which, but it was 449 00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:58,200 it was science. If you look at the images of 450 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:00,360 someone who's gone from a meeting to a meeting to a 451 00:22:00,360 --> 00:22:03,880 meeting to meeting, the stress level is much higher than simply 452 00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:07,280 having a break. And although that isn't in the 453 00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:11,240 book, what is in the book is we talk about the need to have a 454 00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:12,680 break. I mean, I lecture. 455 00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:14,280 I never lectured for more than an hour. 456 00:22:15,580 --> 00:22:18,660 Unless I'm on a podcast and then I, I go for five hours. 457 00:22:18,660 --> 00:22:21,820 I don't know what what happens on a podcast but but seriously, 458 00:22:21,820 --> 00:22:23,780 I, I, I go for an hour. I watch the clock. 459 00:22:23,780 --> 00:22:26,020 I tell my students, remind me we're stopping after an hour. 460 00:22:26,020 --> 00:22:29,780 We're taking 10 minutes for biological reasons and just to 461 00:22:29,820 --> 00:22:35,780 just to let the brain cool off. So yeah, that's that that that 462 00:22:36,380 --> 00:22:39,300 science is there. We mention it, but we don't go 463 00:22:39,300 --> 00:22:41,740 into that, into this idea of back-to-back meetings. 464 00:22:42,550 --> 00:22:45,230 But I do, yeah, that's fascinating myself. 465 00:22:45,230 --> 00:22:47,350 I'm going to look that up after we we hang up today. 466 00:22:47,350 --> 00:22:51,030 But I think one of the things that I love just structurally 467 00:22:51,030 --> 00:22:55,870 about your book is the way that you have kind of laid everything 468 00:22:55,870 --> 00:22:57,950 out. You know, you go through kind of 469 00:22:57,950 --> 00:23:00,630 the key takeaways first, but then you get into kind of the 470 00:23:00,630 --> 00:23:03,910 nittygritty around whatever if you're telling a story around 471 00:23:03,950 --> 00:23:06,840 the the particular. Topic or lesson that you're 472 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:08,920 trying to pass through to your audience. 473 00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:14,760 But anything where a book feels like it is teaching you right in 474 00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:18,160 a way that you can practically apply to whatever it is you're 475 00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:19,920 doing. What type of meeting that you're 476 00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,040 renting or any organization or industry. 477 00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:29,160 I love when books do that, and yours does, and and I love that, 478 00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,160 Jim, you did the research and you said there's no really not a 479 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:36,030 book like this out there. And I know for project managers, 480 00:23:36,030 --> 00:23:38,990 we're hungry for that type of information, right? 481 00:23:38,990 --> 00:23:42,910 Because typically as a PM, you don't often have somebody who's 482 00:23:42,910 --> 00:23:45,750 going to mentor you on how to facilitate great meetings or 483 00:23:45,750 --> 00:23:48,190 build great teams. And that just kind of comes 484 00:23:48,190 --> 00:23:51,070 through time and experience. But just the way that you 485 00:23:51,070 --> 00:23:54,750 thought through how to lay out the information in a way that 486 00:23:54,750 --> 00:23:56,870 makes sense. I'm not surprised, Jim, that 487 00:23:56,870 --> 00:23:59,990 your class, your Weight Watchers class, took it and they ran with 488 00:23:59,990 --> 00:24:01,390 it. They literally took the book 489 00:24:01,430 --> 00:24:03,360 from you. Yeah they were. 490 00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:05,880 I just thought there's a breeze by you know yeah I don't want to 491 00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,680 look at this but yeah it's it's interesting because part of the 492 00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,560 what we're Rich and I are trying to do as part of the marketing 493 00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:14,800 effort a little secret publishers do a certain amount 494 00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,200 of marketing but it's a lot of the onus is on the author so be 495 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:18,840 it. I was in the contract. 496 00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:20,880 We accept that we're trying to get the book into Barnes and 497 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:23,880 Noble bookstores and part of that was and they were formed to 498 00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,000 fill out which in fact I just sent today is rich knows and it 499 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,480 says you know what's the comparison of the other. 500 00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:33,320 So we had done this homework of the other books and I basically 501 00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,880 said if we went up in your store we may be the only one and one 502 00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,560 of the few there that actually tells people exactly how to run 503 00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:41,960 a meeting. So we felt it was important to 504 00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,120 position that that way and I don't know I I think when we 505 00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:47,800 were writing it I don't think we ever really thought. 506 00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:50,720 I thought I was adding to the nth 100th book about writing 507 00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:54,640 meetings running meetings. There just aren't and certainly 508 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:57,080 not in the top 20 at Amazon, let's put it that way. 509 00:24:57,360 --> 00:24:59,920 So we felt the nuts and bolts were important and even though 510 00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:03,720 it's the it's a foundational thing, it's not sexy. 511 00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,440 One woman came up to me and I think I was telling you and she 512 00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,520 was just saying my condo meetings and she only like 513 00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:13,440 trapped me for 5 minutes talking about her condo meeting and I 514 00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:14,760 was like great, great, This is terrific. 515 00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,080 And then some other one, I'm an AT project manager. 516 00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:18,640 She's never know what you're going to run into there. 517 00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,560 So yeah, I I think it's important that if we can get the 518 00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:25,800 word interestingly, you know we get these sales figures, we're 519 00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:30,600 not off the charts, but somebody bought 70 copies in Asia of the 520 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:31,800 Kindle book. I have no idea why. 521 00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:33,640 It must have been for like their entire company thought. 522 00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:35,560 That's great. It's it's a Weight Watchers 523 00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:36,920 conference. Yeah, it must. 524 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:38,720 It must be. I should be doing the Weight 525 00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,890 Watchers circuit, huh? Well, I mean, we need to dig in 526 00:25:41,890 --> 00:25:44,410 there a little bit because I think I don't know if either of 527 00:25:44,410 --> 00:25:47,130 you teach international students, but just thinking 528 00:25:47,130 --> 00:25:49,770 about the way you've, right. So thinking about the layout of 529 00:25:49,770 --> 00:25:52,610 the book, how it's written, it's, it's, it's, I think it is 530 00:25:52,610 --> 00:25:55,130 something that is palatable globally, right? 531 00:25:55,130 --> 00:25:59,530 Like people who do have that language barrier or have 532 00:25:59,890 --> 00:26:03,570 challenges in reading English, like some of my international 533 00:26:03,570 --> 00:26:05,810 students do, I give them a little bit more time to kind of 534 00:26:05,810 --> 00:26:08,410 consume the information, but I think in the way that you put 535 00:26:08,410 --> 00:26:11,000 the information out there. I'm not surprised that it's 536 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,920 selling globally. I'm not at all surprised thought 537 00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,560 about that. Just Rich has a lot of analysis. 538 00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:20,000 One thing I fight to do all the time is make sure there are no 539 00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:24,320 Americanisms in the book. Even when I was at work recently 540 00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:27,040 at my contract ended about a month ago, I was running 541 00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,520 standard operating procedures or somebody else was running them 542 00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,000 too. And I'd say take that out. 543 00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:32,760 It's an Americanism. We're working with a French 544 00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,160 audience, American audience. So we made sure there were no, 545 00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:40,310 it's easy to write them. It's easy to say them and you'll 546 00:26:40,310 --> 00:26:42,110 find this amusing. A little bit of a diversion. 547 00:26:42,390 --> 00:26:46,670 My team of coaches was made-up of me, another American coach 548 00:26:46,670 --> 00:26:49,830 and a French coach, young woman, and we'd be in meetings 549 00:26:49,830 --> 00:26:51,230 together. I would be the scrum master and 550 00:26:51,230 --> 00:26:52,470 he would say, let's blow that off. 551 00:26:52,470 --> 00:26:56,850 So I typed to her and say blow something off means this, let's 552 00:26:56,850 --> 00:26:58,850 run up the flagpole. Run up the flagpole means that 553 00:26:58,850 --> 00:27:01,410 she'd always thank me because I was he shouldn't been using it. 554 00:27:01,570 --> 00:27:04,690 But when he did or I explained this line to him, so I to her. 555 00:27:04,890 --> 00:27:08,010 So I tried to make sure that no American is in fact I'm working 556 00:27:08,010 --> 00:27:11,210 on it with a company that Rich knows we're we're on a board in 557 00:27:11,210 --> 00:27:13,890 an organization and they're working in a simulation. 558 00:27:13,890 --> 00:27:16,410 Every time I see an American is going to say, I recommend you 559 00:27:16,410 --> 00:27:18,410 take this out. They can do what they want, but 560 00:27:18,410 --> 00:27:21,370 I recommend that you not make it a sign that they don't 561 00:27:21,370 --> 00:27:23,490 understand. But on the international student 562 00:27:23,490 --> 00:27:26,700 front, I've had my fair share. But Rich, that's your meat and 563 00:27:26,700 --> 00:27:28,300 potatoes. Like every day of the week. 564 00:27:29,180 --> 00:27:31,740 Yes, actually. And you've been in my class, I 565 00:27:31,740 --> 00:27:35,020 think we turned the laptop around so you could see the 566 00:27:35,100 --> 00:27:39,100 diversity in the class, and that's a big deal. 567 00:27:39,100 --> 00:27:42,100 Now we do talk about virtual meetings in the book, and one of 568 00:27:42,100 --> 00:27:44,220 the things that I've noticed, and you've probably noticed, 569 00:27:44,220 --> 00:27:49,620 especially as a podcaster. Is that in international That in 570 00:27:49,660 --> 00:27:52,780 a virtual meeting, international people are a little more active 571 00:27:52,860 --> 00:27:57,020 because they can use chat, Their accent isn't a problem, their 572 00:27:57,020 --> 00:27:59,140 pronunciation and isn't a problem. 573 00:27:59,140 --> 00:28:02,580 So it's amazing how much more active my international students 574 00:28:02,580 --> 00:28:04,820 are on the online courses than they are. 575 00:28:05,180 --> 00:28:08,300 And again, courses are meetings, so it's a perfect bit here. 576 00:28:09,380 --> 00:28:12,220 So you should be aware that maybe you want to if you're 577 00:28:12,260 --> 00:28:14,460 running a meeting and there are international participants 578 00:28:14,460 --> 00:28:17,810 online. You know, encourage them to use 579 00:28:17,810 --> 00:28:21,010 the chat as opposed to speaking up because they may be a little 580 00:28:21,010 --> 00:28:26,130 uncomfortable, as Jim said, hearing American colloquialisms, 581 00:28:26,170 --> 00:28:30,410 But also, you know, using expressions from their language 582 00:28:31,050 --> 00:28:33,290 where they if they type it in, they have a chance to, by the 583 00:28:33,290 --> 00:28:36,170 way, hit backspace a couple times and try again, whereas 584 00:28:36,170 --> 00:28:38,370 when you speak the word, it's out there. 585 00:28:39,830 --> 00:28:42,470 Yeah, exactly. And I I think that that's a 586 00:28:42,470 --> 00:28:45,830 great way to kind of portray knowing your audience, which I 587 00:28:46,150 --> 00:28:48,790 believe is one of the things that you you all cover in your 588 00:28:48,790 --> 00:28:51,110 book as well. But I want to, you know, before 589 00:28:51,110 --> 00:28:54,350 I let you both go, I want to go into a little bit of a sneak 590 00:28:54,350 --> 00:28:57,790 peek of a section that I really appreciate because I think, 591 00:28:58,030 --> 00:29:00,550 well, all of it really translates if you've ever been 592 00:29:00,550 --> 00:29:02,110 in a meeting or run a meeting yourself. 593 00:29:02,110 --> 00:29:04,990 But I do love the concept of Billy the Bully. 594 00:29:05,730 --> 00:29:09,010 And and kind of the, the story surrounding that person who you 595 00:29:09,010 --> 00:29:12,930 describe as the the person who derails everything, right. 596 00:29:13,170 --> 00:29:15,850 You come into this meeting, you've got an agenda, you put it 597 00:29:15,850 --> 00:29:18,530 all together, You have the purpose, you're ready, you've 598 00:29:18,530 --> 00:29:20,170 got your goal. You want to leave the meeting 599 00:29:20,170 --> 00:29:23,810 with XY&Z, but then you have Billy the Bully or somebody else 600 00:29:23,810 --> 00:29:26,170 in there that is there and derails the meeting. 601 00:29:26,170 --> 00:29:29,530 I think we've all been there. And I love the story around this 602 00:29:29,530 --> 00:29:31,770 concept. So can you talk a little bit 603 00:29:31,770 --> 00:29:34,690 about, I think you mentioned, Jim, that this was mentioned in 604 00:29:34,690 --> 00:29:37,690 your previous book as well, but can you talk a little bit about 605 00:29:37,690 --> 00:29:40,490 that and then kind of some of the key takeaways that you have 606 00:29:40,490 --> 00:29:42,810 in the book around? Let me let me kick that off only 607 00:29:42,810 --> 00:29:45,170 because I have the image behind me to do this. 608 00:29:45,930 --> 00:29:47,730 So and then I'll turn it right over to Jim. 609 00:29:47,730 --> 00:29:51,570 So you you see here Christina Carlson, our artist that we 610 00:29:51,570 --> 00:29:55,610 hired to do this came up with this idea of showing it this 611 00:29:55,610 --> 00:29:57,010 way. We've had the goblins. 612 00:29:57,910 --> 00:30:00,430 Meeting goblins for a while in our last book, and we added 613 00:30:00,430 --> 00:30:02,710 several in this book. But you see the shadows. 614 00:30:02,710 --> 00:30:03,750 I don't know if you can see this. 615 00:30:03,750 --> 00:30:05,430 There's those of you who are listening. 616 00:30:05,430 --> 00:30:10,430 You should hear the shadows. The idea is that people have 617 00:30:10,710 --> 00:30:13,590 people have alternate personalities. 618 00:30:13,590 --> 00:30:16,830 Sometimes when they enter a meeting, they take on a 619 00:30:16,830 --> 00:30:18,990 different personality. And if you don't believe me, 620 00:30:18,990 --> 00:30:22,190 think about how people's personalities change when they 621 00:30:22,190 --> 00:30:23,790 drive. Right. 622 00:30:23,790 --> 00:30:26,670 If you're driving and someone cuts you off, you may use 623 00:30:26,670 --> 00:30:30,070 language and gestures that you generally would not use if you 624 00:30:30,070 --> 00:30:32,830 had bumped into someone walking on the street now. 625 00:30:33,230 --> 00:30:36,270 Or just just pass someone on the street who might be walking too 626 00:30:36,270 --> 00:30:39,710 fast. You wouldn't say all those nasty 627 00:30:39,710 --> 00:30:41,670 things, right? Well, you see, the shadows 628 00:30:42,190 --> 00:30:44,910 behind me are representing the that personality. 629 00:30:45,030 --> 00:30:48,070 We're not saying people are bad. We're not saying Billy the Bully 630 00:30:48,070 --> 00:30:50,680 is always a bully. But Billy the Bully's 631 00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,600 personality comes out in meetings. 632 00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:56,960 So Jim, oh Billy the Bully. So we have a variety of them and 633 00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:58,920 not all. It's just a clarification for 634 00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,000 the for the group. We have people who are 635 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,680 interrupters and people who talk too much and people who bully 636 00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:06,120 and people who sidetrack. You believe the bully is a 637 00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,240 different animal. It doesn't necessarily mean 638 00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,720 he's, I'm beating people up. Although he can come across as 639 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,120 aggressive or he or she can come across as aggressive, 640 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:15,680 increasingly it can be women too. 641 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,840 So I mean that happens in the business world, if not other 642 00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:21,610 worlds. And So what is Billy the bully, 643 00:31:21,610 --> 00:31:23,850 the kind of person who might try to intimidate it of the people 644 00:31:23,850 --> 00:31:26,010 and whatnot. So the first thing I say is, 645 00:31:26,050 --> 00:31:29,370 I'll remind again, you're largely in charge and you don't 646 00:31:29,530 --> 00:31:32,250 aren't trying to be liked. So I go in with that mentality. 647 00:31:32,250 --> 00:31:35,330 My goal isn't to be like necessarily if Billy is 648 00:31:35,330 --> 00:31:38,250 intimidating people or making them feel uncomfortable and 649 00:31:38,250 --> 00:31:39,970 threatened. And I was talking about what I 650 00:31:39,970 --> 00:31:43,890 might do, and I'd ask Chris to talk about it too, is try to 651 00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,520 address this. If not in the group situation, 652 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,520 one of the things is you don't want to humiliate or embarrass 653 00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:54,720 somebody in front of everybody. So it may be a situation where 654 00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,760 you're running a meeting. First thing is, if you're 655 00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:59,200 running a meeting and you're only 10 minutes in and it's a 656 00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:02,360 major problem, don't be. Don't say I better wait another 657 00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:03,600 hour. Stop the meeting. 658 00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:06,160 We're going to take a break right now. 659 00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,200 Other people wonder if Billy, can I talk to you a little bit? 660 00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,210 Other people are privately. Other people are feeling 661 00:32:11,250 --> 00:32:12,770 uncomfortable with your behavior. 662 00:32:13,330 --> 00:32:15,450 What's the issue here? Try to understand the person 663 00:32:15,450 --> 00:32:18,130 where they're coming from. Sometimes it's just like Rich 664 00:32:18,130 --> 00:32:21,370 said, it comes out in a meeting that generally speaking, once 665 00:32:21,370 --> 00:32:25,530 again, all these types of say, I know that I tend to XY&Z now. 666 00:32:25,530 --> 00:32:27,770 I'm not talking about the senior guy or gal here. 667 00:32:28,170 --> 00:32:29,730 The person who. That's tougher. 668 00:32:30,390 --> 00:32:32,870 You go to some of your 3 levels above you and say you may still 669 00:32:32,870 --> 00:32:35,230 want to say that, but you have to couch it differently. 670 00:32:35,470 --> 00:32:37,830 But the person is maybe peer level and maybe even slightly 671 00:32:37,830 --> 00:32:39,750 above you. What's going on here? 672 00:32:39,750 --> 00:32:43,510 Can we address this behavior? You know what's maybe they say 673 00:32:43,510 --> 00:32:44,870 they don't like some particular person. 674 00:32:44,870 --> 00:32:46,630 They don't want to be there, so address it. 675 00:32:46,630 --> 00:32:49,430 Number one. Try to also listen to them, all 676 00:32:49,430 --> 00:32:50,790 of them involved. Listen to the person. 677 00:32:50,790 --> 00:32:53,390 Hear what they say. Sometimes the negative person, 678 00:32:53,390 --> 00:32:56,270 the bully, the talker has something to say. 679 00:32:56,550 --> 00:32:57,670 What are you trying to say, Billy? 680 00:32:58,180 --> 00:33:00,580 Well, you know what? If we send the subversible down 681 00:33:00,580 --> 00:33:02,820 to the Titanic, it's not going to exist anymore. 682 00:33:03,260 --> 00:33:05,460 Oh, have you been trying to say that in my own way? 683 00:33:05,460 --> 00:33:06,860 Yes. So. 684 00:33:07,060 --> 00:33:10,020 And at the end of the day, don't be afraid to report any of these 685 00:33:10,020 --> 00:33:12,020 people to disappear. They really aren't going to like 686 00:33:12,020 --> 00:33:13,580 you. Rich and I have done it before. 687 00:33:14,140 --> 00:33:16,740 But if the person is consistently going to give them 688 00:33:16,740 --> 00:33:19,290 a chance, and if not, they probably know. 689 00:33:19,290 --> 00:33:20,370 I've seen it over and over again. 690 00:33:20,370 --> 00:33:23,250 You go to the boss and says, oh, that's Billy B and Billy, I'll 691 00:33:23,250 --> 00:33:26,010 deal with it. It's a serious issue, so do not 692 00:33:26,010 --> 00:33:27,810 put up with it. It's very, very disruptive. 693 00:33:28,010 --> 00:33:30,010 Rich. Anything to add there on that? 694 00:33:30,370 --> 00:33:33,730 So sometimes Billy just wants the stage, right? 695 00:33:33,730 --> 00:33:35,130 Right. And he's going on and on. 696 00:33:35,130 --> 00:33:38,810 And it could be a combination of some of the other personalities, 697 00:33:38,810 --> 00:33:41,170 these personalities, of course, that we made-up. 698 00:33:41,170 --> 00:33:44,570 But real people are a melange. There we go again, Jim, of all 699 00:33:44,570 --> 00:33:48,520 different personalities. So one of the things that that 700 00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:53,520 someone who's that talkative or directive really wants, it's 701 00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:55,400 just the chance to be in charge, right. 702 00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,720 And they want the stage, find out what they want the stage 703 00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,320 about and say, look, this is fantastic, We love this energy 704 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,720 that you have. This is something and we'd like 705 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:09,000 to have a separate meeting or separate conference where this 706 00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,400 is the main topic you do that you're almost pulling the, 707 00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,360 you're pulling the the energy out of them for this. 708 00:34:15,820 --> 00:34:18,139 Speeches that they're giving at your meeting because oh I'm 709 00:34:18,139 --> 00:34:19,780 going to have a chance. I'm going to have the stage 710 00:34:20,100 --> 00:34:23,380 right. And so if you if, if that's it's 711 00:34:23,380 --> 00:34:26,940 again, it's getting to the root of what's causing that shadow 712 00:34:26,940 --> 00:34:30,020 behavior And if you can get to that root by by having a 713 00:34:30,260 --> 00:34:35,580 one-on-one offline with them and as Jim said you know it's going 714 00:34:35,620 --> 00:34:38,900 to be a little uncomfortable. But guess what, As Jim, I don't 715 00:34:38,900 --> 00:34:42,060 think you said it this time. When you, when you make Billy 716 00:34:42,060 --> 00:34:45,570 like you, you've made. All the other meeting attendees 717 00:34:45,650 --> 00:34:49,610 like you less, so if you're if you're all about being liked, 718 00:34:49,610 --> 00:34:53,969 you actually have a net loss in likedness when you're paying too 719 00:34:53,969 --> 00:34:56,650 much attention to to Billy and and Notice. 720 00:34:56,690 --> 00:34:58,090 That that attention can be offline. 721 00:34:58,490 --> 00:35:00,530 Notice that for this past X amount of time you don't say 722 00:35:00,530 --> 00:35:01,890 anything about game charts or anything. 723 00:35:01,890 --> 00:35:03,410 This is a soft skill as an Arthur. 724 00:35:03,610 --> 00:35:06,890 Rich and I aren't psychologist so we're don't we're not trained 725 00:35:06,890 --> 00:35:11,770 in that I I work with a woman who has clinical depression but 726 00:35:11,770 --> 00:35:15,000 I coach her on project manager. The few times that you came to 727 00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,240 me and sort of tried dragging that area said I'm unqualified 728 00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:20,040 to do that. You need to talk to whoever you 729 00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:22,360 talk to about that. I've never experienced it with 730 00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,080 her. She's great but I'm unqualified 731 00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:25,800 to do that. So Rich and I and anybody 732 00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:29,000 running me can only go so far. It is not my job to analyze 733 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:33,080 Billy to change him to coach him or anything just to recognize 734 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,400 that behavior. But there really is a lot of I 735 00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,160 think you would agree and that there's a lot of psychology 736 00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:41,360 involved in whether it's running meetings running teams. 737 00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:45,290 People are funny animals. You know and and although we 738 00:35:45,290 --> 00:35:50,090 aren't psychologists we've drawn from books that have and and 739 00:35:50,090 --> 00:35:53,690 researchers who have studied the psychology of meetings. 740 00:35:55,090 --> 00:35:58,810 So there's one book in particular, the the the The 741 00:35:59,730 --> 00:36:03,210 Strange Science of Meetings. Something like that by Can't 742 00:36:03,210 --> 00:36:04,970 remember the author now Rogelberg. 743 00:36:05,330 --> 00:36:06,890 Rogelberg. I can't remember Steven 744 00:36:06,890 --> 00:36:10,570 Rogelberg, I believe, and we've drawn a lot from from their 745 00:36:10,570 --> 00:36:13,360 research. So although we're not 746 00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:17,360 psychologists, as Jim said, there's psychology here and it 747 00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:21,320 does require you to to at least learn some of those basics. 748 00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,160 And, and it's a great example, there aren't. 749 00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,040 There aren't, except maybe in our appendix. 750 00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:28,440 I think in our appendix there's a network diagram right here. 751 00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,080 See. Yes, there are some fancy charts 752 00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:33,080 in there. So but that's that's more in the 753 00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:34,960 appendix to help people with the terminology. 754 00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:39,770 But this is a power skills book. PMI would call it a power skills 755 00:36:39,770 --> 00:36:43,130 book and I think it's an amazing power to have to be able to 756 00:36:43,130 --> 00:36:44,890 facilitate meetings, and you should. 757 00:36:45,090 --> 00:36:48,010 We think you should build your skills in facilitating meetings 758 00:36:48,010 --> 00:36:51,290 because you will be called on to facilitate them, like it or not. 759 00:36:52,530 --> 00:36:56,450 Thank thank you both for giving us a glimpse into the contents 760 00:36:56,450 --> 00:36:58,650 of your book. I mean, obviously we didn't want 761 00:36:58,650 --> 00:37:02,290 to give all of the secrets away on this podcast, but we did 762 00:37:02,290 --> 00:37:05,850 share a little bit of a glimpse as to what you can expect, and I 763 00:37:05,850 --> 00:37:08,160 am. So excited for our audience to 764 00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:13,600 pick this book up and and get that practical knowledge that 765 00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,800 you're both sharing as part of what we can do to be great 766 00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,120 project managers but really project leaders, right. 767 00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:24,320 So thank you both for your time today and your insights and as 768 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,200 as things go, you know time flies when you're having fun. 769 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:31,000 So I could easily speak to you and we could do a 5 hour podcast 770 00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:36,400 as Rich had originally requested us to do, but as As for today, I 771 00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:38,360 think. I think that will do it for for 772 00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,760 all of us in this installment of the Everyday PM podcast. 773 00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:45,920 So let's start with you, Rich. Is there anything that you want 774 00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:47,760 to promote right now outside of the book? 775 00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:50,320 If folks want to continue the conversation with you, where can 776 00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,160 they find you online? All of that good stuff? 777 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:54,640 I'm going to keep it simple. There are things I'd like to 778 00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,600 promote but I don't want to take away from the book here. 779 00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:58,440 Certainly connect with me on LinkedIn. 780 00:37:58,720 --> 00:38:00,640 Just you'll find me. I don't think there's that many 781 00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,160 rich balls. Mins There are a couple, but I'm 782 00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:05,800 the only one that's partnered to Jim on these books. 783 00:38:06,550 --> 00:38:11,910 We do have a website called project meetings dot US kind of 784 00:38:11,910 --> 00:38:17,470 the dot is meant to be read as our project meetings are us and 785 00:38:18,070 --> 00:38:21,550 so that that has has resources and templates that go along with 786 00:38:21,550 --> 00:38:23,390 the book. I'd like to thank Tim 787 00:38:23,390 --> 00:38:29,630 Clappenborg and Cam Judge of the publishers of BEP for taking us 788 00:38:29,630 --> 00:38:33,190 on, and they seem to be happy with us so far. 789 00:38:34,270 --> 00:38:36,220 And. That's it. 790 00:38:37,460 --> 00:38:41,620 Sign up for classes at Boston University and I have 0 to 791 00:38:41,620 --> 00:38:43,460 promote. So yeah, thanks for having us. 792 00:38:44,780 --> 00:38:48,060 That's pretty much it. I guess I would leave a rather 793 00:38:48,060 --> 00:38:51,020 than promotion. One piece of advice is be 794 00:38:51,020 --> 00:38:53,500 largely in charge. Either you run the meeting or 795 00:38:53,500 --> 00:38:56,020 the meeting runs you. That's great. 796 00:38:56,260 --> 00:38:58,860 I love that. Well, thank you so much both of 797 00:38:58,860 --> 00:39:02,100 you for your time today. I appreciate you joining this 798 00:39:02,100 --> 00:39:05,340 meeting, our meeting on the Everyday PM Podcast. 799 00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,040 Folks, pick up this book. Great meetings, build great 800 00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:10,560 teams. It's going to be a game changer 801 00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,040 for you, I do think just because of everything that we've 802 00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,040 discussed in this podcast episode. 803 00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:18,320 So that will do it for this installment of the Everyday PM 804 00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:19,720 Podcast. You can also continue the 805 00:39:19,720 --> 00:39:22,000 conversation with me. You can find me on LinkedIn and 806 00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:24,480 Campia. Go to the YouTube channel to 807 00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:29,680 watch the visual awesome visual version of this podcast there 808 00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,920 youtube.com/andcampia. And if you want to find the 809 00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,160 Everyday PM, just search for it on any of your podcasting 810 00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:38,560 platforms. It's there. 811 00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:40,480 The Everyday PM is there for you. 812 00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:43,560 And we look forward to hearing your feedback on this particular 813 00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,040 episode as well. So that will do it for both of 814 00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,000 us. Or all of us, all three of us. 815 00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:50,920 And we hope to catch you on the next episode. 816 00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:53,080 And until next time, take care.