How are You Encouraging Your Leaders? (11/25/2025)

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

I know it isn’t Thanksgiving week in most of the world (and even for our Canadian friends who do celebrate Thanksgiving who might say “we’ve already celebrated last month, thank you”) – but giving thanks, being grateful, is a wonderful thing to celebrate.

And whether you have Thursday (and maybe Friday) off or not, we can all give thanks this week. I urge you to take make time to do that.

I am grateful for many things – and having a platform to share thoughts and ideas with people like you is certainly on that list.

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Make it a great Tuesday, and remember…

You are Remarkable!

Kevin 😊

The Newest Problem with Meetings

I first delivered training related to improving meeting quality and results in 1991. In working with leaders since then, meetings are a topic often discussed. And one of the things I’ve learned is that if you want a group to engage and share ideas, perhaps the easiest question you can ask is “What makes the worst meetings you attend, so bad?”

Unfortunately, people have lots of experience and examples here.

Most of the problems have remained consistent since 1991, with one exception.

It’s not really new – this problem has been reported for probably the last 6-7 years – but it is a topic now because of a Wall Street Journal article last month. It’s title points to the “new” problem: CEOs Are Furious About Employees Texting in Meetings.

This isn’t just a meeting problem. What are people doing at restaurants when eating with people they presumably want to be with (which might be less true in meetings)?

What are people doing at sporting and entertainment events that they paid to attend?

So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people are on their phones during meetings – when objectively they would be better served engaging in the meeting.

The article tries to take a balanced view of how phones could be helpful or even support meeting outcomes. The problem though isn’t the phone or the fact that it can be a helpful tool in some meeting situations.

The problem is the habits we have with our phones.

Most everyone picks up their phone way too often. According to this article, the average American checks their phone 205 times per day. If you are awake for 16 hours a day, and you are “average”, you are checking your phone about every five minutes.

Looking at our phone is a habit.

Which means the only way we will change the habit is to be intentional about it.

If you are a leader, know that every time you look at your phone in a meeting, you are making it ok for others to do the same, even if you don’t realize it. This means that all of us (leader or not) can begin to change our meeting phone behavior on our own, and I welcome that.

And…

If we want to change phone behavior in meetings, there are things you can try – to help everyone intentionally change their phone habits during meetings.

• Talk about it as a group – acknowledge the problem (and help everyone see it as a problem). Awareness is an important first step.

• Set ground rules about phone use. Decide together what valid uses there might be for checking a phone during a meeting.

• Create ways to playfully remind each other when you slip – without making it mean or spiteful.

• Encourage people to turn off their ringers and notifications.

• Go scorched earth – ban phones from your meetings. This wouldn’t be my first choice for lots of reasons, but it is an option.

This isn’t a complete list and there is more that could be written about these ideas, yet this is a good starting point for you and your team to start changing your meeting habits.

How Are You Encouraging Your Leaders?

We all know the power of encouragement. Take a second and remember when someone’s encouragement made a big difference for you.

You were doing something hard, maybe something you hadn’t done before.

Something, perhaps where the stakes were high or seemed that way to you.

You weren’t sure how it would go. Maybe you were even questioning yourself so much that you might not try.

Then someone encouraged you.

They saw something that you didn’t see in yourself. They reminded you of past successes. Or let you know they believed in you.

And their encouragement changed things, didn’t it?

KEEP READING

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