Leading With Authenticity

Happy Monday, everybody. Jane Mitchell's here, coming to you live from Minneapolis. Just a little tour of the Midwest between yesterday and today's livestream. Jumping out a minute early to just take a little breath, a little time. Hello, hello. Welcome. Nice to have you here. It's Monday and we're back. We're back into the grind. If you listen to Luke on Mondays early in the mornings, he has an innate ability to find enthusiasm for Mondays. And if you're dialing in or calling in from somewhere, I would love to know where you're at.

Feel free to type, type your location in the chat and see where we're all coming in from today. As I mentioned, I'm coming in from Minneapolis today. Yesterday I was in Chicago, back in the land of fall. Today here on Leading with Authenticity. I wanted to start by asking you, wherever you are now, I'm going to make an assumption that you're not in a car driving. So if you are in a car driving, don't do this right now, but I'm going to invite you to simply stand up. I can't see you. I'm the only one on camera.

But stand up and stretch. And as you stand up and stretch, take a breath, long, slow breath, and just feel what it's like to stretch for a second. I don't know if you're like me, but oftentimes with one of the jobs that I have, or a couple of them I have, I find that I sit a lot. I'm at a desk or I'm sitting at a coffee shop, always behind a computer, connecting with people on a computer, connecting with people in person, but sitting a lot. And I find that if we are bringing our whole selves to work, we are human.

We are not designed physically to sit for as many hours as we do. So my invitation right now is how often have you started a meeting where you've jumped on another conference call? It's another zoom or teams or insert whatever possibilities it is for you from technology standpoint. And if you're leading the meeting, have you ever just asked everybody to take a second and just stand up and just stretch and take a breath? Now, there are many different styles of people, and your style might. That might not be natural to you.

I'm a doer, so I'm like, we get on the call, let's go. Let's try to get everybody off the call early if we can. I always do a check in to see how everybody's doing that day. But what I find is in the time that we Transitioned into being a little more mainstream, a little more online, more digital. Disconnected physically, but connected through cameras and calls that I don't move my body as much. I find that I'm sitting for longer periods of time. And if we open up your very next meeting, the next one that you lead and you ask everybody to just take a pause, stand and stretch, move your body, they can do it on camera, off camera, but allow people to have a chance to simply move.

And then when you go into your conversation, then when you go into your meeting, people will be a little bit more grounded, they'll be a little bit more present. Some might be a little annoyed that you took two minutes to have them stand and stretch. But whatever it is, everybody's going to be grateful for it, whether they say it or not. Now I teach a lot of spin classes, I do a lot of exercise because it's, it's my way of thinking, it's my way of processing, it's my way of showing up. So that's natural to me.

So I like to try to bring that into my work whenever I can to just help our team reset. The other thing that I try to do pretty often is schedule meetings that will start five minutes late or end five minutes early. Sometimes I'll do both. So I'll make the meeting. If I have to have an hour meeting, let's say, and the meeting starts at 1:00, I'll schedule it for 1:05 and I'll have it end at 1:55. Why do I do that? How many meetings have you sat in that you actually need the full hour? And if you really do need the full hour, maybe you just need more time anyway.

So most likely you're rescheduling that meeting or that conversation. But if you have an agenda, you send it out in advance and you allow people to share as they need to share, share to work your way through whatever that meeting looks like. I believe in all of us that we can do that in 50 minutes. And what that five minute period of time does is it gives people a chance, especially if they're going from call to call all day long. It gives them a chance to get there. It gives them a chance to not feel like they're always behind and sometimes running late.

For some people that are especially really high responsibility, they could feel like they're failing in their day. So giving people that buffer of time really actually allows you to have a better connection. It allows everyone to take a bio break, go grab some water, you can even type in the Chat. All of them have chats. Hey everybody, as a reminder, we're starting five minutes after the hour. Go grab a snack, go grab some water, go use the restroom. Stretch your body. Give people permission to do what they need to do in that moment.

Especially if you're one of those people leading one of those meetings in the middle of the day or even in the afternoon. I find my Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm slammed with meetings. Not a bad thing. Everybody's excited to get started and we jump into our weeks. But creating that space allows people to disconnect so that they can be more present when they come to your conversations and discussions. So I'll ask you, I might be able to see the comments just yet, but I will come back and look at it. How many of you just say a simple yes or no or what your technique is?

How many of you have scheduled meetings to start 5 minutes after the hour or and 5 minutes early versus taking up the whole 30 minute or 60 minute time? You can do a heart, you can say yes or no. And if you have done that before and you say yes, I would love to hear more about why and what the impact for you was or the team. Now, what I found is I've started doing that with more of my client meetings and I'm now starting to see more people kind of mirror that pattern. So I'm a consultant and sometimes it's just a different set of rules.

Right. I'm part of the team, but I'm kind of not part of the team. But my job is to help lead change and to lead change. It also means that we have to grow as leaders and all of us are leaders. Doesn't matter your title, the number of times I say that to people and have them go, wait, what is significant? It doesn't matter. Your title, we can all lead. If you're the one scheduling the meeting, you're leading the meeting. If you're the one that is responsible for an outcome and you need to get or solicit information from other people you're leading.

So we all have opportunities. If you're the person that's rallying your friends to go do a volunteer day and you schedule it with the organization you're leading so every one of us has a chance and opportunity to lead. And so I would love to hear more from you about how does that sit? How does that feel? If you're the one leading the meeting, scheduling the time to be on somebody else's calendar, scheduling it a little less, maybe you don't do five on both sides. Maybe it's a 30 minute meeting and you just know you need all that time.

What if you gave them five minutes at the beginning or five minutes at the end and then you start at that time or you end at that time. What does that allow for you? What space does that allow for the people that you're working with? Again, it's just about holding space. So starting a meeting by asking everybody to stretch, maybe that's not your jam. I'm gonna try it today. I have three meetings right after this and I'm going to invite people that dial into those calls to just take a hot second and stand and stretch.

I'll post in the comments to tell you how it went because it may or may not go over well. I know the audience for these next meetings and that's okay. But what I'm trying to instill in all of us is do the things that are authentic to you and give yourself grace, give yourself space. And when you allow that to happen for you, you create space for other people to do that for them too. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of meetings where people are sending me chats. Or you see the group chat of a meeting of seven to 10 people and inevitably someone's like coming in hot, meeting, running late, need to take a bio break.

Maybe we just schedule that in. People need time. If I'm going from one meeting to the next to the next, do I really have the space to transition from one meeting to the next? Do I really have the time to open up the meeting invitation and read through what the meeting was about? And then all those meetings that nobody types into the meeting box, what the meeting is actually about. Do you send out meeting invitations and add what the meeting is about so that the people that are coming can be really prepared?

Those are my invitations for you today. I hope in this Monday you get a chance to stretch, move your body. Movement allows your brain to relax, to calm, to settle. It allows all of those emotions and energies to move and release. If you just got off a very tense conference call, we all have them. Stand up and walk around. It's a natural way for your body to reset, for your mind to reset. If you offer that as an opportunity for people, see how they respond. Doesn't mean you're not going to get to the content of your meeting.

It just means you're taking a minute to let everybody reset and come back together. And if you do try scheduling meetings and different times, meaning offering space, please comment in here or comment out in the bigger chat room to see how it went. Share what your examples are, help us all learn from you as well. I hope you're having a great day on this Monday. I'm at the vet with my dog. He's in a study right now and they are testing some new medications to help minimize the impact of cancers and golden retrievers.

So Mom's outside freaking out a little bit. Not gonna lie, but taking a pause to be outside and stretch before I jump on the next call and allow myself to settle my mind for what comes next. I hope you have a great day. Please comment in the chats anything that resonated with you. Love to hear your thoughts and I look forward to talking to you again soon.