Issue No. 451 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a laugh-out-loud 2021 day-to-day calendar that exposes all your lame meeting clichés! LOL! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and if you missed it, read my June review of Practicing the Present: The Neglected Art of Living in the Now.
2021 Calendar Mocks My Meetings Bucket
News flash! It appears that Year 2020 will never end.
Solution! Order this 2021 Day-to-Day Calendar immediately—and start living in the future. (You’re welcome!)
My 2021 joke-a-day calendar just arrived—and I can’t stop laughing! To be clear— I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS 2021 CALENDAR—but I did buy it, and I can’t stop laughing. I’ve already read every punchline from January 1 to December 31—and even with my mask and my muffled laughter, I already feel better saying goodbye to 2020.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS 2021 CALENDAR. Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings (2021 Day-to-Day Calendar) makes a mockery of my Meetings Bucket. This daily calendar is irreverent. It abuses agendas, disparages decision-making, and its cheeky arrogance is contemptuous. I couldn’t stop laughing. Here’s why:
MEANINGLESS METAPHORS:
• January 4: Use sports metaphors. “If something is great, say it’s a home run. Tell the team to skate to where the puck is going to be and keep the ball rolling until you throw in the towel.”
• January 12: Ask, “Will this scale?” no matter what it is. “No one even really knows what this means, but it’s a good catchall question that drives everyone nuts and definitely makes you look smart.”
• January 18: Ask if this is a crawl, a walk, or a run. “No matter what idea is being discussed, it’s always good to ask if this is a crawl, a walk, or a run. For bonus points, ask when the team will be able to fly.”
WHITEBOARD WIZARDRY:
• January 28: Focus on the vision. “Go to the whiteboard and write the word ‘vision’ with a circle around it. Remind everyone that everything we do must revolve around vision.” (Ouch! See my recent issue on vision!)
• April 23: Ask everyone to think outside the box. “Go up to the whiteboard and draw a box. Say, ‘We don’t want to think inside the box.’ Now draw an arrow pointing outside the box. Ask, ‘How can we think outside the box?’”
• May 14: Talk about the back end and the front end. “Write ‘back end’ and ‘front end’ with an arrow connecting them on the whiteboard. Say ‘We just need to hook up the back end to the front end.’ You’ll seem very technical.”
• December 10: Say we need to focus on customers. “Go to the whiteboard and draw a few stick figures. Circle one of them and say, ‘This is Lucy. Lucy’s a Mom. What does Lucy want? Who cares. What do we want? That’s a trick. What does Lucy want?’”
POWERPOINTS & PRESENTATIONS:
• January 26: Ask the presenter to go back a slide. “This will immediately make you look like you’re paying closer attention than anyone else. Then, after staring at the slide silently for several seconds, say ‘Ok, we can move on.’”
• October 2/3: How to become a keynote speaker. “Step 1: Put ‘Keynote Speaker’ in your bio. Step 2: You’re done.” (Note: The two-day weekend pages are hilarious!)
• September 25/26: Meeting Achievement Sticker. “Did you go to a meeting this month where you successfully projected your screen on the third try? Congrats! You get a sticker!” (The sticker reads, “Successfully projected my screen on 3rd try.”)
TRITE TIPS:
• January 5: Suggest a walking meeting. “Say you enjoy walking meetings because they clear your mind, just like they did for Steve Jobs. Now people will think you’re as smart as Steve Jobs.”
• January 11: Give your meeting a fun name. “When scheduling your meeting, call it something like a touchbase, powwow, huddle, sync session, roundup, tagup, or thought shower. This will throw people off the scent that this is going to be an excruciating meeting.”
• July 1: When taking meetings in Canada, apologize a lot. “Normally, apologizing is a sign of weakness, but saying you’re sorry in Canada is just how they do things. Start every sentence with ‘Sorry,’ and you’ll gain their trust in no time.”
REMINDER: I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS 2021 CALENDAR. And one caveat—before you buy it for co-workers and friends, there may be a few days, with a few inappropriate words, you’ll want to delete from the calendar. (Hey! Why is March 4 missing?)
To order from Amazon, click on the title for Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings (2021 Day-to-Day Calendar): How to Get by Without Even Trying, by Sarah Cooper
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Numerous "meeting tricks” in this calendar are Zoom-meeting-hilarious! Check out November 3, “On a conference call, ask, ‘Who’s speaking?’ If someone starts talking without announcing who they are, interrupt them with, ‘Who’s speaking?’ Remind everyone to identify themselves before speaking, and you will be seen as a true leader.” Suggestion: at the start of every Zoom meeting (or in-person meeting), ask a team member to read their favorite meeting trick from this calendar.
2) July 9 has its own trite bite. “Randomly alternate between agreeing and disagreeing. No one should be able to predict if you’re going to like or approve of anything. You know, like how it is with anyone in leadership.” Yikes! Seriously now—is your leadership based on a set of values so team members can regularly predict your response?
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“No one told me that when I wear a mask, only my mask receives love.”
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook
One of the top book recommendations in the Team Bucket is The Cure: What If God Isn’t Who You Think He Is and Neither Are You, by John Lynch, Bruce McNicol and Bill Thrall. My favorite insight: “No one told me that when I wear a mask, only my mask receives love.”
Good news! The latest resource from the Trueface Team has arrived! Two Roads: A 4-Part Group Study of The Cure is a resource-rich small group combo of book study, video, and audio—perfectly packaged for this COVID-19 season.
And to be clear, I DO RECOMMEND THIS STUDY and it’s the perfect length—just four weeks.
Week 2 asks, “What mask am I wearing?” (How did the authors know so much about masks—writing before COVID?!) In the application section, the Trueface Team suggests this:
“Set aside time every morning before you start the day with a prayer asking God to help you take your mask off. Think about the mask you most often wear, then remind yourself, ‘That’s not who I really am. I don’t have to pretend to be that person.’”
To order from Amazon, click on the title for Two Roads: A 4-Part Group Study of The Cure, by The Trueface Team. Trueface equips people “to experience the freedom of living beyond the mask.” Click here for more information.
P.S. And if you’re a big Los Angeles Dodgers baseball fan during this World Series (like John Lynch), you’ll appreciate another Trueface resource. Read my review of On My Worst Day: Cheesecake, Evil, Sandy Koufax and Jesus, by John Lynch.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. If your staff or customers are faking it in meetings—to appear interested in your products, programs, and services—you need communication tools with substance (not whiteboard trickery). Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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