Dr. Joseph A. Allen has written more about meetings in the academic literature than anyone. He is a Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Utah. On the show, he shares recent research that shows hybrid meetings are better than either in-person or virtual meetings. Dr. Allen shares his rules for effective meetings, whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid; and how to foster inclusivity and engagement. Do you know your people? Have you talked to them? What do they want? Encourage participation. … There are ideas out there that will solve the problems in our organizations. We just need to let our people share them.   Key Takeaways [2:01] Dr. Allen has written more on meetings in the academic literature than anybody else! [3:11] Having poor meetings is a problem in nearly every organization. [4:33] In the first week of  March 2020, Dr. Allen and his co-author Karin Reed predicted that video meetings and remote work would happen in five to 10 years. Instead, they started two weeks later in the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown! Web video cameras were hard to find by May! [6:13] Dr. Allen collected data in June 2021 for a study showing that face-to-face meetings before the pandemic weren’t great, virtual meetings were as good as face-to-face meetings, and hybrid meetings were better than either. If you make sure everyone is seen and heard, hybrid meetings can be the most inclusive type of meeting. If you don’t put the effort into it, they are challenging to do well. [8:15] Early adopters were running hybrid meetings that started on time, ended on time, and had an agenda and a purpose. They encouraged participation. They were following the best practices Dr. Allen had been preaching for years. If you do those best practices, you can have a good meeting in any format. [9:41] In virtual or hybrid meetings, there should be one camera for each participant. We can’t continue to set up conference rooms with the “bowling lane” approach. We need to work toward finding the best way to use multiple cameras and microphones. [11:18] If you don’t know how to facilitate a meeting based on the agenda, you will not hold a good meeting. Dr. Allen talks about the need for procedural communication, to interrupt a monologue and steer the conversation back to the objective. He also notes that most meeting leaders have a blindspot to their faults and think they do a better job of facilitating meetings than they do. [15:30] Dr. Allen says it is paramount to use your camera in a video meeting. If you want your voice to be heard, turning your camera on provides the additional input of facial expressions and gestures. Don’t turn off your camera so you can check your email. Be engaged. Leaders, run your meetings so participants need to be engaged, or you are giving them an out not to engage. [17:42] Who needs to be in the meeting? Part of planning for a meeting is selecting who needs to be invited. [18:21] Everybody doesn’t need to be invited to every meeting. They need time to do their regular work. With the pandemic and seven-step “commutes,” managers started filling commute time with more meetings. Sometimes sharing the meeting minutes is better than having everyone in the meeting. Or record the meeting and others can play it back at 2X speed. [20:5] Between choosing phone or video, you should hold a video meeting when you’re meeting someone that you’ve not worked with a lot. If you don’t see each other, someone might be confused over your meaning. [22:24] The more complex an issue, the more important it is to have a virtual environment that allows sharing charts as well as seeing each other. Phones are good tools for simple issues. [23:09] If you don’t know how people are going to react to what you throw out there, use the strongest communication modality you can. In-person or video is better than phone, email, or text to communicate a complex message. [24:13] Joe recommends a virtual commute, which is taking the time to get your