In this week's newsletter

• What I learned from eavesdropping on my boss' meetings (and how to recreate those learning moments on purpose)
• Warm-up and checkout questions you can use today
• Q&A: How do I get access to meetings that would help me grow without overstepping?
• Your weekly bird break

We used to joke that we worked in a call center. The Boston-based contingent of our national team sat in cubicles near one another, and the CEO/Founder and other executive team members sat in the cubicle bank to our right.

When I first joined the organization I would scope out huddle rooms well before calls and book conference rooms whenever I could. I was mortified at the idea of being overheard. Over time I got used to it, and by the end of my tenure at that org I was conducting new hire interviews and feedback conversations in public.

In hindsight, it's clear that the opportunity to listen to how my boss and other leaders built rapport, managed conflict, and negotiated scopes and deadlines gave me the language I needed to develop those skills myself.

Listening to teammates around me engage in tough conversations gave me models for how to give quality feedback to peers and lead through influence.

Does this mean an open-office floor plan is the optimal approach for learning these skills and getting work done?

Honestly, no. It was often distracting and some conversations may have called for more discretion. But I am forever grateful for all I learned sitting in that bank of cubicles.

Many of us don’t sit together full-time anymore, so it takes more intention to learn and teach these skills.

How do you create these passive learning conditions when you don’t sit next to each other?

• Invite directs to a specific meeting as an optional attendee and let them know the point is for them to listen and learn. Be as specific as you can be about the purpose of their observations.
• Record some of your meetings and encourage directs to listen to the recordings on 2x speed while taking a walk (a recommendation from Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei)

How can you help direct reports internalize these passive lessons?

• In the 1:1 immediately following a meeting observation, spend a few minutes with your team member and ask them what they noticed about the conversation:
  • What stood out to you?
  • What did you notice about how I handled the pushback? How I redirected the conversation?
  • Thinking about your own personal style and preferences, what might you do differently?
• I’ve also found it helpful to share my personal meeting objectives for context. Explaining how I structured the conversation based on those objectives gives teammates a window into the thinking behind the meeting, not just what happened in it

How might you recreate these learning conditions more actively?

• Take a few minutes in a team meeting or your 1:1 to mention some of the meetings you’ve had recently, how you prepared, and how they went. Make space for questions from your team specifically about how you handled tricky aspects of the conversation.
• At your next team offsite use a session to align on key talking points or role play how to handle different scenarios that team members might encounter in their meetings.

Developing others doesn’t necessarily require a lot of extra time or sending them to formal training. Bringing awareness to what we’re doing in regular meetings on our calendar can go a long way toward developing future leaders.

Ask yourself

Meeting Minute

​Warm-up question​

This question serves multiple purposes: 1) it gets folks to reflect on their learning, which helps reinforce it, 2) if people mention skills that you want to cultivate in your culture, you can underscore them in the discussion, 3) the discussion can be a reminder to intentionally observe and learn from others.

This works well around performance review season, anytime professional development is top of mind, or anytime team members are expected to learn new skills on the job. Consider going first so you can model the specificity you’re looking for and give others time to think.

​Check-out question​

This checkout does double duty: it reinforces key takeaways by asking people to identify what matters most, and it nudges participants to think intentionally about information flow to their own teams.

Q. How do I get access to meetings that would help me grow without overstepping?

A. The approach you take to getting into the room where it happens will depend a bit on why you’re not already in the meeting. A few common reasons:

• Your manager is trying to shield you from something. Might be challenging politics or a poorly run meeting. Or they might perceive having both of you in the same place as a waste of time. (Instead you could be repping the team in a different meeting or executing work.)
• They may not have realized how this will be useful to you. Sometimes our leaders have blindspots about how relevant the content of a meeting will actually be for our work. And leaders certainly have blindspots around how well they’re communicating what comes out of these meetings to their teams.
• They may personally derive value from the meeting, and your presence might shift those dynamics. Since meetings are often where we deepen and strengthen relationships, inviting a direct report into what feels like a safe peer space might mean giving something up. That doesn’t mean the answer should be no, but it might be helpful context for you about why.

Given the above, before even asking for your invite, be curious about the context. Example questions to as your manager or another gatekeeper:

• Who runs the meeting and sets the agenda?
• Who’s on the invite list? How often do guests join?
• How are notes taken? Is there ever a recording?
• What is your role in the meeting?
• What do you find most valuable about this meeting? What is most challenging?
• How do you prepare for this meeting?

Taking the time to get curious about all this will be valuable learning for you, even if you ultimately don't get an invitation.

Based on this context, frame up your ask and advocacy:

• Explain how this relates to your learning and get specific, “I’m working on getting better at navigating pushback from stakeholders. Is there an upcoming meeting where you anticipate pushback that I could observe?”
• Focus on joining the meeting once to start, proving value for both of you, and then advocating for a permanent seat at the table once you have data to back it up. For example, “I noticed X in that meeting and it helped me handle Y differently this week.”
• Find a way to communicate how your presence will be helpful.
  • Offer to take notes, prep materials in advance, or take on after meeting action items.
  • Emphasize how your participation will save your manager time, money, or improve team results.
• Get creative if the answer is no. See if they’ll share a recording with you or request a focused debrief about a specific topic or skill.
• Be mindful that your manager might hear this as a critique of how well they keep you in the loop. To the extent you can, make it about observing how the conversations happen and saving collective time.

PSA: if you’re a leader and you are excluding a direct report for any of the reasons outlined above. It’s worth asking yourself whether it’s time to rethink how your team is represented in meetings. You may be missing an opportunity to give a teammate a chance to learn and grow.