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A Simple Rule to Eliminate Useless Meetings July 01, 2013 688.820 5.175 1.300

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Ask your team to identify their biggest productivity killer and inevitably two issues will rise tothe top of the list: managing their inboxes and their meeting

schedules. I'll tackle the former in a futurepost. For now, I'd like to focus on increasing the value of meetings by sharing a practice ourteam has implemented to great effect.

At LinkedIn, we have essentially eliminated the presentation. In lieu of that, we ask thatmaterials that would typically have been presented during a meeting be sent out to

participants at least 24 hours in advance so people can familiarize themselves with thecontent.Bear in mind: Just because the material has been sent doesn't mean it will be read. Taking apage out of Jeff Bezo's book , we begin each meeting by providing attendees roughly 5-10minutes to read through the deck. If people have already read it, this gives them anopportunity to refresh their memory, identify areas they'd like to go deeper on, or just catchup on email.
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If the idea of kicking off a meeting with up to 10 minutes of silence strikes you as odd, you'renot alone. The first time I read about this practice it immediately conjured up images of alibrary or study hall, two of the last forums I would equate with meeting productivity.However, after the first few times you try it, not only won't it be awkward -- it will bewelcome. This is particularly true when meetings end early with participants agreeing it was

time well spent.

Once folks have completed the reading, it's time to open it up for discussion. There is no presentation . It's important to stay vigilant on this point as most people who prepared thematerials will reflexively begin presenting. If you are concerned about appearing insensitive bynot allowing individuals who worked hard on the materials to have their moment,constructively remind the group this is a new practice that is being applied to the entirecompany and will benefit all meeting attendees, including the artist formerly known as ThePresenter.

With the presentation eliminated, the meeting can now be exclusively focused on generatinga valuable discourse: Providing shared context, diving deeper on particularly cogent data andinsights, and perhaps most importantly, having a meaningful debate.

If the material has been well thought out and simply and intuitively articulated, chances arethe need for clarifying questions will be kept to a minimum. In these situations, you may bepleasantly surprised to see a meeting that had been scheduled for an hour is actually overafter 20-30 minutes.

Of course, even the best prepared material may reach a highly contentious recommendationor conclusion. However, the good news is meeting attendees will now be able to dig into the

subject matter and share their real opinions rather than waste time listening to an endless re-hashing of points they're already familiar with, or worse still find irrelevant or redundant.

In addition to eliminating presentations in favor of discussions, the following are a fewadditional practices I've learned along the way when it comes to running effective meetings:

1. Define the objective of the meeting. Asking one simple question at the onset of themeeting, "What is the objective of this meeting," can prove invaluable in terms of ensuringeveryone is on the same page and focused on keeping the meeting on point, rather thanallowing it to devolve down endless ratholes unrelated to the matter at hand. I've seen somecompanies go as far as including the meeting objective on the cover sheet of the materials.2. Identify who is driving. Each meeting needs one person behind the wheel. More than onedriver and it's going to be prohibitively difficult to keep the car on the road. The primary roleof this point person is to ensure the conversation remains relevant, that no one person endsup dominating the discussion, and that adjunct discussions that arise during the course of themeeting are taken offline.3. Take the time to define semantics (and first principles). It never ceases to amaze me howoften meetings go off the rails by virtue of semantic differences. Picture a United Nations


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General Assembly gathering without the real-time translation headphones and you'll have theright visual. Words have power, and as such, it's worth investing time upfront to ensureeveryone is on the same page in terms of what certain keywords, phrases, and concepts meanto the various constituencies around the table.4. Assign someone to take notes. This should not be the equivalent of a court stenographer

documenting every word uttered, but rather someone who is well versed in the meeting'sobjectives and who has a clear understanding of context that can capture only the mostsalient points. This not only avoids the classic Rashomon effect -- multiple people recalling oneevent in multiple ways -- but also creates a plan of record for what was discussed and agreedto. This can also be particularly valuable for invitees who weren't able to make the meeting.5. Summarize key action items, deliverables, and points of accountability. Don't end themeeting without summarizing key conclusions, action items, and points of accountability fordelivering on next steps. This summary is usually the first thing to suffer if the meeting has runlong and people start running off to their next scheduled event. However, it's arguably thesingle most important thing you'll do at the meeting (and is ostensibly the reason for the

meeting to begin with). Have the discipline to ensure attendees sit tight and remain focusedwhile next steps are being discussed and agreed to.6. Ask what you can do better. I like to gather feedback at the end of meetings I'mresponsible for (particularly if it's a new standing meeting) by asking whether or not theattendees found it valuable and what we can do to improve it in the future. There is no betterway to ensure the meeting is necessary. If it's not, either change the objective and/or format,or take it off the calendar.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and the best practices you use to run meetings moreeffectively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon


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Finding Your Passion In Work: 20 Awesome Quotes July 04, 2013

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Ask yourself: If you could do anything for 8 hours a day for the rest of your life, and moneywere no object, what would you do?

Holidays like Independence Day give me the excuse (and reminder) to reflect on what I'mdoing with my life and what I've done since the last milestone, such as New Year. Am I excitedto do what I'm doing every day? And if not, is it me, or something else?


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One of the big blessings of living in a democracy is the ability to pursue one's own path, andthe idea that anyone can pick him or herself up by the bootstraps and achieve great things. Of course, survival and success are inescapably connected to work, but we have the luxury of deciding how fun our day-to-day work is going to be. Sometimes that comes as a tradeoff forpay, but spending 1/2 your waking hours doing something you love is often well worth it. And

I'm convinced that the people who are best at what they do tend to be the ones that love itthe most.

The most important thing for me as a startup founder is knowing that every person I workwith is excited to show up to work every day, that each is doing what he or she loves. Themost amazing words I could ever hear one of our team member say (and I'm humbled tooverhear it occasionally!), is, "This is the best job I've ever had." And if it's not, I'd rather helphim or her find that job than help us do what we love at his or her own expense.

I'm not saying anything loads of great thinkers haven't already said. But sometimes it'simportant to remind ourselves why we're doing what we're doing, and to take inventory of our dreams.

As such, below are some of my favorite mushy, inspirational quotes about the intersection of passion and work:


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Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement,in the thrill of creative effort.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at workworth doing.

Theodore Roosevelt


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Hard work is painful when life is devoid of purpose. But when you live forsomething greater than yourself and the gratification of your own ego, then hardwork becomes a labor of love.

Steve Pavlina

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Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help yousleep at night.

Marian Wright Edelman

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Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing youd id your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

John R. Wooden

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Dream big and dare to fail."

Norman Vaughan

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Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs."

Farrah Gray

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It is never too late to be what you might have been."

George Eliot

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Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears."

Les Brown

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And in case you're a procrastinator like me, a bonus quote:

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

Chinese Proverb

(P.S. Happy 4th of July!)

Have you found your passion in work?What inspires you to do what you do?


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The One Thing Successful People Never Do July 15, 2013 792.397 5.501 1.867

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Success comes in all shapes and colours. You can be successful in your job and career but youcan equally be successful in your marriage, at sports or a hobby. Whatever success you areafter there is one thing all radically successful people have in common: Their ferocious driveand hunger for success makes them never give up.

Successful people (or the people talking or writing about them) often paint a picture of theperfect ascent to success. In fact, some of the most successful people in business,


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entertainment and sport have failed. Many have failed numerous times but they have nevergiven up. Successful people are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry ontrying.

I have collected some examples that should be an inspiration to anyone who aspires to be

successful. They show that if you want to succeed you should expect failure along the way. Iactually believe that failure can spur you on and make you try even harder. You could arguethat every experience of failure increases the hunger for success. The truly successful won't bebeaten, they take responsibility for failure, learn from it and start all over from a strongerposition.

Let's look at some examples, including some of my fellow LinkedIn influencers:

Henry Ford - the pioneer of modern business entrepreneurs and the founder of the FordMotor Company failed a number of times on his route to success. His first venture to build amotor car got dissolved a year and a half after it was started because the stockholders lostconfidence in Henry Ford. Ford was able to gather enough capital to start again but a yearlater pressure from the financiers forced him out of the company again. Despite the fact thatthe entire motor industry had lost faith in him he managed to find another investor to startthe Ford Motor Company - and the rest is history.Walt Disney - one of the greatest business leaders who created the global Disney empire of film studios, theme parks and consumer products didn't start off successful. Before the greatsuccess came a number of failures. Believe it or not, Walt was fired from an early job at theKansas City Star Newspaper because he was not creative enough! In 1922 he started his firstcompany called Laugh-O-Gram. The Kansas based business would produce cartoons and shortadvertising films. In 1923, the business went bankrupt. Walt didn't give up, he packed up,

went to Hollywood and started The Walt Disney Company.Richard Branson - He is undoubtedly a successful entrepreneur with many successful venturesto his name including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Music and Virgin Active. However, when he was 16he dropped out of school to start a student magazine that didn't do as well as he hoped. Hethen set up a mail-order record business which did so well that he opened his own recordshop called Virgin. Along the way to success came many other failed ventures including VirginCola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Clothes, Virgin Vie, Virgin cards, etc.Oprah Winfrey - who ranks No 1 in the Forbes celebrity list and is recognised as the queen of entertainment based on an amazing career as iconic talk show host, media proprietor, actressand producer. In her earlier career she had numerous set-backs, which included getting fired

from her job as a reporter because she was 'unfit for television', getting fired as co-anchor forthe 6 O'clock weekday news on WJZ-TV and being demoted to morning TV.J.K. Rowling - who wrote the Harry Potter books selling over 400 million copies and making itone of the most successful and lucrative book and film series ever. However, like so manywriters she received endless rejections from publishers. Many rejected her manuscriptoutright for reasons like 'it was far too long for a children's book' or because 'children books


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never make any money'. J.K. Rowling's story is even more inspiring because when she startedshe was a divorced single mum on welfare.Bill Gates -co-founder and chairman of Microsoft dropped out of Harvard and set up abusiness called Traf-O-Data. The partnership between him, Paul Allen and Paul Gilbert wasbased on a good idea (to read data from roadway traffic counters and create automated

reports on traffic flows) but a flawed business model that left the company with fewcustomers. The company ran up losses between 1974 and 1980 before it was closed.However, Bill Gates and Paul Allen took what they learned and avoided those mistakes whenthey created the Microsoft empire.

History is littered with many more similar examples:

Milton Hershey failed in his first two attempts to set up a confectionary business. H.J. Heinz set up a company that produced horseradish, which went bankrupt shortly after. Steve Jobs got fired from Apple, the company he founded. Only to return a few years later to

turn it into one of the most successful companies ever.

So, the one thing successful people never do is: Give up! I hope that this is inspiration andmotivation for everyone who aspires to be successful in whatever way they chose. Do youagree or disagree with me? Are there other things you would add to the list of thingssuccessful people never do? Please share your thoughts...

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