Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who've supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and never be forgotten. Today we're going to be talking about why we need better meetings. And my guest today, which I'm so happy to have on to talk about this topic, is Andrea Cool. Welcome to the show, Andrea. I'm so excited to have you on here today.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Thank you. Glad to be here.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: And how are things with you, Andrea? What's going on? What's new? Give us the tea, the deets, give us it all. What's going on?
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Just continuing to work. I work in workforce development.
Busy industry with employers needing talent and talent needing jobs. Lots of job seekers out there looking for work. We're in a, in a tight labor market dealing with that across the state of Oregon right now.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: And have you you found that the labor market's changed quite a bit in the last few years?
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it definitely has its ups and downs. And I think right now, you know, sometimes it's an employer market where they have plenty of talent out there. Sometimes it's a job seeker market where they have plenty of opportunities to choose from. Right now it seems like a mix. We have a disconnect between the talent that's available, the employers that are hiring. But everybody is needing talent and everybody is needing jobs. So the disconnect needs to be figured out. Where can we plug in so that everybody has their needs met?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: I'm sure there's so many different topics from what you just mentioned. There's probably about four or five topics that we could probably bring and have a different discussion on it for sure. Well, listen, I'm excited to get into this topic, but before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today? I'm ready all ready. Okay. Well, your question today is if your 16 year old self suddenly found themselves inhabiting your current body, what would your current self do?
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Wow, that is thought provoking.
I think if I was older, inhabiting my current self, I would be more motivated to take care of myself, exercise more, you know, make sure I eat pretty healthy. But I think I could be even stricter on that because I know as we age, and I'm feeling it already, but as we age, we get those aches and pains and you realize, hey, I need to get off my bugs and start working out more and take better care of myself. Because especially when you work a desk job, I'm here 12 hours a day in front of a computer and I need to make it a priority to get up and take walks and get moving and get my circulation going. So I think my older self will be thankful that my younger self thought about that, but probably also say, you should have done it more.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's funny that you mentioned that because I've actually been making sure that I've been trying to.
I'm trying to kind of achieve smaller goals and gradually. So if I was to say, okay, well, I'm going to walk every day, well, chances are it's probably not going to happen. So I've actually, in the last month or so, I said, okay, once a week I'm going to get out and I'm going to go for a nice long walk.
And it has helped. But I know earlier we were talking about, you know, in general, just doing stuff like outside gardening or, you know, in the wintertime, shoveling snow. Like, I really notice as I've gone, gotten older, too, that I really feel, even if it's not a huge snow or even if I haven't picked, like a lot of weeds in the backyard, I just, I feel it a lot more as I'm getting older or as I've gotten older. And it's just, it's. It's amazing how we get older, how we don't realize that if we don't move that thing, these things happen.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Yes. Agreed. Yeah. And we noticed that, like those small tasks that used to be really easy somehow start coming a little bit harder.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: So, yes, I agree with you, but good for you. Yeah. Small steps are. It matters, right?
[00:04:06] Speaker B: They certainly do. So listen, let's get started here. What I'd like to do is to start off with you telling us a little bit about you, your story and let's see and discuss a little bit of your why as well.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Okay.
So my name's Andrea Cole. I'm a statewide business services program specialist for the state of Oregon.
I have been with the state of Oregon for over 10 years. I'm going actually on my 13th year and working within the workforce development realm. So my passion really lies in fostering strong relationships across the workforce system.
I really like to drive strategic results and contribute to having a prosperous workforce, having strong communities, being able to help both individuals and businesses. I think my why is really rooted in the commitment I have to helping people, to helping businesses thrive, and to just having an effective workforce system, having strong relationships across that system so that we can bring our resources together to best serve everybody in the public. I believe in the power of collaboration, communication, and continuous improvement. And I believe in trying to make positive change and impact in people's lives in the community. I would say I didn't start out looking to get into workforce development as a younger person. I was. I had a tough upbringing, and I was homeless at 16. I had a child, really struggled. So in my earlier years, earlier career, I actually started out in working with homeless youth. I was a case manager, helping them to just navigate systems, get into housing, be able to take care of themselves, whatever their circumstances may be, help help them to overcome. And that's where my career started. From there, it grew into working with domestic violence victims, working with sexual assault victims. And then I realized, like, to truly help people, they have to be able to have their basic needs met and then be able to find employment and create opportunities. So I slowly moved into workforce development, and here I've been able to make a bigger impact with creating opportunities, working with youth, working with second chance employees, employers. I'm helping employers to look at other talent pipelines that maybe they haven't considered before and to create opportunities in that.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: So much that I want to pack in there. But the one thing that kind of caught my attention was you saying that you believe in strong relationships, which is something that I truly believe in. Anybody that knows me, one of my core values is rapport building. It's something that I live and breathe and focus my day on on a daily basis. So I love that. And the other thing that I wanted to focus on here is you saying that you were helping people. And what I've realized, and I'm sure you've seen it too, is a lot of people who are afraid either to ask for help or afraid to admit that they need help. So I'm sure that you've seen that throughout your career. And when you're able to come out and say, hey, listen, I need help with this, would you be able to help me out with this? In this area, I think people. It just opens up people's minds, and I think that people understand them a little bit better and, you know, a little bit more sympathetic and a little bit more vulnerable to the individual, for sure.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: I think when you have a history, you're able to connect with people on a different level. And you're right. You know, when you're. When you're someone who stands on your own two feet and you're used to others letting you down, you kind of become very hyper independent. And I have a lot of people like that and are in our circle that come into our offices that I interact with and so really relating to them on a different level, empathizing, having that compassion, and trying to be effective in forming and contributing to systems that serve folks that aren't necessarily able to ask for help or don't know that the help is available. I know when I was super young and you know, trying to figure out, I didn't know there was help available, I didn't know there was systems available. I was doing everything on my own at 16. And it's really, you know, when you don't know what's available and you don't know that there's help out there, you become very independent in your survival. And we don't want to see people just survive. We want to see them thrive. And so now I'm in a position to be able to affect that change and to be able to make an impact. And, and I appreciate that. You know, I feel very blessed by that.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: So our topic today is meetings. And the reason why I wanted to have you on is because of your career. And I know that you've been or set up or, you know, been involved in a lot of meetings. So this is why I wanted to bring you on to discuss that. What I wanted to know from you is how do ineffective meetings affect team functionality?
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah, so I've been with the state, like I mentioned, for over 10 years. So I've had hundreds and hundreds of meetings. I've also facilitated a lot of meetings. And in my experience, I right now I coordinate the statewide business services team meeting and that's attended by over 100 people. We have partners in there, workforce boards, our team, we have other internal teams, external teams that come to our meetings and just want to know, like, what are we working on? What events do we have coming up? How are we making an impact in the communities we serve? And so what I've seen is how when we're well structured, when we're planned out, when we're purposeful in our meetings, it enhances our team's cohesiveness, it enhances our productivity, it enhances our ability to build our relationships with our partners, and it makes everybody want to come to the next meeting because they're invested, they want to know how something turned out. They want to know what are we doing next. I think ineffective meetings, they can significantly impact your Team functionality. They waste valuable time, they waste resources, they reduce the team morale. People don't want to be there, right. When you go to a meeting and there's. There's really no clear vision of what that meeting is supposed to be about, the engagement's not there. People check out, especially when we're doing virtual meetings, they're doing three other things on their computer and not even listening to what you're talking about. So you really want to have an effective meeting that brings your team together, that helps the team to function at the highest level possible. And you do that by clear communication, by making sure that you're really talking about the important projects and scope of work that's important to the whole team and not just talking about people. So I think it's really important that when we coordinate, we have a well structured, purposeful meeting that's really going to bring the team to the table.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: I love everything you said there, because I've been in many meetings throughout my career as well, and one of the things I've heard quite a bit is walking back to your desk with the coworkers, kind of said, oh, my God, like, what a waste of time that meeting was. You probably could have just sent out an email and to give all that information, right? So you hear it. And I never responded to it or, or got involved in that conversation, but it always made me think, like, maybe it needed to be structured a little bit better, like you said, because it enhances the team and you want everybody to want to come to the meeting. You don't want everybody to be thinking like, oh, my God, another meeting, and I could be doing other stuff at my desk, and here's going to be an hour that I'm going to lose in my day. And so you want them to be going back refreshed and rejuvenated, for sure. So do. Do you think that leaders struggle with meeting prep?
[00:11:47] Speaker A: I think so. I think often they do struggle just because there's time constraints. They have a lot of competing priorities, I think, as if we're a line staff and we have leadership that we're answering to, we have to recognize they're not just looking at you as a staff member and looking at what your priorities are. They're looking at a whole team. Right. And the team may be composed of different divisions, may be composed of different teams. So the meeting's not always going to be centered to what you want to hear about, but it is important, and you have to think about how does this relate to my job? How does this impact my work, how can I contribute to their success? Success if it's, if it's a different division? I think a lot of times leaders, they have, they lack clear objectives or they lack a clear agenda. I know I've gone to some leadership meetings where I've had to travel five plus hours to get there. And then I get there and I'm like, I still haven't seen an agenda. I don't know what we're covering. Like, you know, they give insufficient information beforehand, so I'm not prepared for the meeting. And then when I go and they're just kind of talking at me the whole time. My experience is I traveled for this. You know, there's that question of couldn't you have just met with me on teams or couldn't you have just sent me an email? So you're right. A lot of times that is our, our response. But I think leaders just struggle because they don't always think about it from terms of looking from our point of view, right. Looking from the team's point of view and what's important to the team. And sometimes they just have difficulty in anticipating all the potential discussion points. So they're not prepared either. And I think it helps on this side if we remember they're human too. Right. They're challenged by balancing all those competing priorities. They have diverse teams that have needs and they have different perspectives. And if they can learn how to bring that all together, they could have dynamic meetings. But a lot of times they do struggle. Just that meeting preparation. I think the time, a lot of times that's hard for leadership.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: On other note of what I mentioned on the previous question, one place that I did work, what they did was they in the meetings. So obviously somebody was taking notes and obviously there's lots of stuff that comes out during the meeting and there may not be an answer to the questions or what have you, or they might be saying, hey, we're looking into certain things and we'll have answers for you shortly or by the next meeting we should have an answer for you. So I would say this place, what they did was at the beginning of each meeting, they first, what they did was they answered all the little things that we talked about. So in the previous meeting, here's what we were going over. Here's an update on these things that we discussed in the, in the last meeting. So and so had a question on this. I have an answer for you. Here's that stuff. So I think what that did was it really got all of us attentive right from the get go because the stuff that we were concerned about or the stuff that we were told we were going to find an answer to, those things were being answered or if they weren't being answered, they'll say we don't have on this, we don't have an update for you, but hopefully we'll have one for you for the next meeting. So just kind of letting people know and I think that's just kind of.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: A communication thing and I always appreciate that when they don't try to come up with an answer when they don't know.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: It's always a respect when somebody says, you know, I don't know, but I will get back to you with an answer and then they actually follow up with that answer. So I, I really appreciate that.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Absolutely. So would you say there's an optimal time or have you found that there's an optimal time of day for good quality meetings?
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So in my experience, I think the key is to really think about your team's specific needs. What are their work patterns take into consideration like when, when are people most productive? Right.
I studied this a little bit when I started scheduling our meetings and thinking about when I was going to facilitate. When are people going to be the most invested and contribute to the conversation. For me, I find that mid morning meeting around 10, 11. Those are mostly effective. So when people come to those meetings, they're ready to talk, they're ready to contribute, they're very alert.
It's not after lunch where they've got that post lunch slump.
Um, I find like late afternoon meetings, people are yawning and checked out and they're not really contributing. They just want to get through the meeting so that they can get off and go home. So for me, I really think there's no one size fits all answer. Right. But I do think that mid morning meetings are an optimal time to have good quality meetings and to really have everybody show up.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: I was reading an article a while back on meetings and after Covid they wanted people coming back into the, the office and a lot of these people were able to take their kids like to school and then they were having meetings like after. And then when they were bringing everybody back to the office, they were scheduling meetings for like 8 o' clock. So these people were like, okay, well 8 o' clock doesn't work for me. Why can't we have it like you said mid morning at 10 o' clock. This will allow me to take my child to school, get in, get settled, turn my computer on look at emails, answer some stuff and then attend the meeting where, you know, if it's at 8 o' clock, I'm kind of rushing and then I have to make other arrangements for my child, so. And I really want to take my child to school because I've enjoyed doing that. So it was just an interesting article.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I think when you have them too early, people are not quite all the way awake. You know, they're not ready to really get those juices flowing. So I think mid morning is ideal.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. So what steps should be taken to ensure that everyone respects diversity and practice inclusion during meetings?
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Oh, I love this question.
I think it's really important to try and draw out especially the quiet voices. You know, you always have people that are ready to contribute to the conversation. They're the ones that always have something to say and it's good. I'm not saying it in any negative way. They just always want to contribute. They have a louder voice, they're more upset spoken. And then you have people who are quieter, they're more thoughtful, they're more introverted. And so for me, I really think it's important to ensure that we do round robin check ins, that we give everybody a chance to have the floor, that we're mindful of anybody who maybe is kind of quiet and doesn't, doesn't speak up right away, you know, maybe they, they expect somebody else to speak up. So they don't necessarily speak up. So inviting them to the table and being open, inviting others, setting those clear expectations for respectful behavior, I think that's really important.
We have very clear for our meetings, we have very clear ground rules for contributing, for making sure that it's relevant information that you're sharing out to the group as a whole. Because our meetings, our teams work regionally, but our meetings are statewide. So if I'm sharing something from northern Oregon, that has nothing to do with southern Oregon, it's not relevant to that, that meeting. But it could be relevant when we're in just a northern Oregon meeting. So it's really being clear about what the expectations for the meeting are and making sure that anything that's shared is valuable and it includes everybody. We want to make sure that we have representation. When we have guest speakers, we always invite different diverse groups. We want to make sure we're covering everybody from industry leaders to workforce boards to partners to nonprofits who serve specialized populations. One of our last meetings we had Opportunity Oregon and she works directly within the correction system to help folks who are incarcerated get ready to Be released and have jobs, have skills, be able to connect with opportunities, which really helps to lower the recidivism rate. And so we want to make sure we're bringing in diverse representation. We want to create opportunities for all voices to be heard and making sure we're using whatever techniques are available, inviting everybody to the table. So I think as a person who's really committed to diversity and making sure that I promote inclusion, promote everybody being able to have a voice, I really strive to implement these practices and all the interactions, and I really encourage others to do so as well.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Andrea had a huge smile when you talked about quiet voices and respectful behavior. One of the experiences that I've seen quite often in meetings is a lot of those quiet people. They may be quiet because they are shy to. To. To give their feedback, but a lot of times they've might have maybe gone to, let's say, a few meetings in a row, and they've been in a situation where they were giving their thoughts or their opinions or their ideas on something, and then someone else kind of cut into what they were saying, and then they gave their feedback over them.
So they kind of like, okay, well, after a certain amount of times, they're kind of like, well, I'm not going to do that, because Joe over here always seems to cut in and always, you know, have opinions and. And cut into what I'm saying. So when you talk about respectable behavior, I agree with that 100%. Because everybody has their thoughts and ideas just necessarily mean that each person's ideas are more right than the others. It just means that they have a different thought process on something, and I think they deserve to be heard. For sure.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And as a facilitator, I take that as a responsibility. If I have somebody answering a question or contributing the conversation and they're cut off by somebody else, I'm pretty quick to redirect it back to the person who's speaking in the first place, because I just think I want them to feel like what they have to say is important, and I want to honor that. And the person who interrupted, I also want them to understand, like, that's not okay.
So as a facilitator, I feel it's my responsibility to redirect the conversation when needed.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that is. That's a really good quality to have. I know for myself my experience in meetings and my background in HR leadership. But also doing this podcast, if I'm having you on the show, Andrea, I want to make sure that you get to say what you want to say or your thoughts or opinions on our topic, and if I am interrupting you in each of your thoughts and opinions, and what is the use for me to have you on as a guest? What's better for me to just speak on my own? So I love that you do that. And it's probably a lot harder. Like you said, when you have hundreds of people, it's probably difficult to do, to get people's thoughts and opinions on stuff, but I understand that it becomes a skill, and I'm sure over the years, you've kind of learned to. How to manage that and how to.
How to get through those situations. For sure.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Definitely. I think you improve over time. And, you know, sometimes you walk away feeling a little bit of regret or feeling like, was I too sharp to cut somebody off? Or, you know, you. But you learn and you. You refine it as you go, and it's always a work in progress.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Well, for sure. And. And maybe sometimes that situation may be a time where you're like, okay, well, I don't want to make a big thing during this meeting, but there's always a time and a place. So there might be, you know, a time where you're going to say, okay, well, after the meeting, maybe message them and, you know, say, hey, can we have a conversation? Just explain to them, you know, what your. What you felt, what your feelings were on that. And, you know, maybe they're not aware that they're doing that.
There have been cases that I know that people are just not aware that they're doing that. So when you've. When I've mentioned it to them, they like, oh, my God, I didn't realize that was happening or I was doing that. I'll make myself more aware of that next time, for sure.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: I think sometimes we don't see our own blind spots, so it helps when we receive feedback that's constructive and can help us to grow as professionals as well.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Absolutely. So, in closing, Andrea, what is one takeaway that you'd like our audience to get from this episode?
[00:23:53] Speaker A: I think the key takeaway is really to emphasize the importance of having intentional and inclusive communication and driving our effective teamwork and achieving our shared goals. I think it's really important to remember that whether we're in meetings or collaborative settings, fostering that environment where all perspectives are valued, objectives are clear, they're set, everyone feels empowered to contribute. It's all crucial for success, no matter what industry or occupation you're in. I think by focusing on these elements, we can really create a productive and Engaging, inclusive work environment that really benefits everybody, that works for us and is part of our teams.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: I love that. And it just makes it so much easier for people like you said, not just to attend meetings, but also to, to, to get ready to go into work and look at the schedule for the week and oh, I got this meeting with Andrea, or Andrea's running this meeting that I'm going to be attending with this group and to be excited about attending those meetings, not like, oh my God, I got to attend that meeting today. And I really dread have the Sunday clues that you're going in on Monday and you have that meeting and you're dreading it. We never want that. We want people to be excited about attending things, exciting to have conversations and, and like you said, fostering all perspective. And the key word that you said earlier was being valued. So making sure that people feel valued each time that they attend. For sure, for sure.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: I think if you take care of your teams, they take care of the work. Right. And so making sure everybody feels connected, feels valued, feels included. I think all of that is top priority.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Yep, for sure. As far as this episode goes, I. My call to action would be if anybody's listening, like, share and follow this episode because I really feel that there's some really good, valuable content here that I think every one of us can learn. And there's a lot of things that we may not think about when we're preparing for meetings that I'm sure that in this episode will be of value to you. I wanted to take the time to thank you for coming on today, Andrea. When we first met, I just thought you're such a remarkable individual. You were so kind, you were so considerate with me right from the beginning, right from the get go. And I want to thank you because you put out a post a while back describing not just a podcast, but describing myself in general as far as my personality. And I really respected that and I really admired that and I really love that and it really meant a lot to me that you took the time to write that. That's the kind of goal that I, that I want to achieve.
Doing this podcast is building relationships and building strong relationships.
And you just writing that just made me realize that what I'm doing is of value and of meaning to. To many. So I really appreciate that. So thank you again for, for coming on the show and thank you for being friend and a connection. You're truly appreciated.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Well, thank you. And it goes both ways. I appreciate that you did accept my post as intended which was to support you and to really just let you know you've been a great friend and you've been a connection for me on LinkedIn. So I've really built a community there that I benefited from and I've been able to pour into. And I just think it's been a great connection. And like I said, I like to foster relationships. That's my why I don't do business where I'm paid for the work that I do. As far as I'm not a commission or anything like that. You know, I work for this state, I'm a government employee. I get paid for whatever I turn out. So I want to make sure it's quality and I want to make sure that I'm contributing in the best way possible. And those connections that I have on there, I learn from, I continue to pour into and I'm able to take that into my everyday work. I'm able to be able, if I learn something new, I'm able to maybe have an efficiency or a new idea or something somebody's doing. Like Meg over in Arizona, she does a lot of work with youth. You know, when she talks about some of the things that she's doing, I'm like, hey, we, why can't we do that here? Or hey, we're already doing that. Let me tell you a little bit about that. So just being able to reach out and have those collaborations, even outside of my immediate circle of work has been pretty amazing. Glad to be connected with you and thank you for having me today.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: It was my pleasure for sure. On behalf of myself and my guest Andrea, I'd like to thank you all for listening today and until next time time be safe and remember everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything you have been listening to.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.
