Leanne on Demand Daily with Leanne Hughes 🌴268. Why ‘Why Am I Here?’ Is the Best Meeting Question
If you’ve ever thought, “This meeting could have been an email”… today’s episode is for you.
I’m sharing why agendas aren’t just nice-to-haves, they’re the thing that keeps meetings short, sharp, and actually useful. I’ll take you behind the scenes of some 25-minute listening tour calls I’ve been running, and how a 10-minute pre-email with sample questions changed the whole dynamic.
We’ll also talk about David Grady’s hilarious TED Talk on Meeting Acceptance Syndrome (yes, it’s a real thing) and why clicking Tentative instead of Accept might be the simplest culture shift you can make.
Key takeaways from this episode:
- Why most meetings go overtime (hint: zero direction)
- The magic of sending a short pre-agenda email
- How to influence meeting culture from wherever you sit in the hierarchy
- My two-stage approach to stakeholder meetings that actually saves time
🔗 I’ll pop the TED Talk link in the notes: How to Save the World (or at Least Yourself) from Bad Meetings by David Grady.
Thanks for tuning in — and remember, great meetings don’t happen by accident.
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