One Meeting Minute Thought for Your Week
We all want to avoid causing stress for our employees.
Because most people in the workplace are already stressed more than ever before. And, that likely includes the people on your team.
If you’re not careful, having your Executive Assistant (EA) schedule a meeting could make it worse.
I know this is true because I saw it happen.
I’ll tell you my story and share the lesson I learned about what to NOT do in just a moment.
But first let me share my quick tip to avoid causing stress for your team members through your EA.
2 steps to avoid causing stress through your EA
This tip is simple and basic.
When you have your Executive Assistant schedule a meeting for you, follow these 2 steps:
- Clearly communicate the Purpose of the meeting to your EA.
- Ask your EA to always include the Purpose in the meeting invitation.
You would think these two actions would be obvious. But they’re not.
As I said, I witnessed an C-level executive skip these fundamental basics.
When you do follow these two steps, you will avoid causing stress for your employees.
Because your people will know what to expect and they’ll come prepared to your meeting.
And you won’t be piling more anxiety and stress on them. Which is exactly what you want to avoid because you care about your people and want them to thrive.
When you take care of these small details when you have your Executive Assistant schedule a meeting, you’ll make your employees’ lives better.
And, less stressful.
That’s it. That’s the Monday Morning Meeting Minute for the week.
You can stop reading now if you want and get on with your Monday.
But, if you’re interested and have another minute or two to spare before you start your week, here’s a quick story of how this plays out in real life.
It’s an example of how to NOT avoid causing stress for your team members.
How to NOT avoid causing stress for your employees (or How You Can Unintentionally Ruin Harold’s Weekend)
Pretend you’re the CEO of a company.
You have an Executive Assistant and a person in your organization named Harold.
You’re leaving for the airport on a Friday afternoon and you’re almost late.
Sprinting for the door, you remember you need to talk to Harold.
So you pop in your EA’s office.
You: “Would you please schedule a call with Harold for Monday? I need to talk to him.”
EA: “Sure. I’ll take care of it right now.”
Your EA schedules the meeting with Harold for Monday and almost immediately his phone rings.
Harold: “What’s this Monday meeting about?”
EA: “I don’t know. She just said she needed to talk to you.”
Harold: “Uhhhh. Okay… Thanks.”
How’s Harold’s weekend going to go?
Will he be recharging and relaxing as he spends time with his family?
Or will Harold be worrying and stressing even though he’s trying not to think about Monday’s meeting with you?
I suspect it’s the latter.
Even though that’s not at all what you intended.
If you’d only taken a couple of minutes to follow these two steps with your Executive Assistant:
1. Clearly communicate the Purpose of the meeting to your EA.
2. Ask your EA to always include the Purpose in the meeting invitation.
You would have been able to avoid causing stress for Harold and he would’ve arrived at the office Monday morning rested and prepared to talk with you.
Ask your Executive Assistant and see what they think of this technique.
And, if you have a Harold on your staff, ask him too!
More Resources to Help You Build Your Career and Your Business
For more tips on how to avoid causing stress for your team, check out this previous issue of M4 – the Monday Morning Meeting Minute.
✅ M4 025: How To Reduce Workplace Anxiety With Your Meetings (click here)
To be a more effective leader and avoid causing stress through your emails, consider how your digital communication is received.
I found it fascinating to learn that digital communication can be a significant source of workplace anxiety too.
A conversation between Erica Dhawan, author of the book Digital Body Language, How to Build Trust & Connection No Matter the Distance (affiliate link), and Dave Stachowiak on Dave’s Coaching for Leaders podcast was my first introduction to this idea. You can listen to it here:
✅ “Where You May Be Provoking Anxiety, with Erica Dhawan”
And on my website, I built on this podcast episode and shared my own thoughts focusing on how to improve your email skills – not just to reduce workplace anxiety but to be more effective as a leader.
✅ “How To Take Your Email Skills To The Next Level”
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That’s All for this Issue
You can’t completely avoid causing stress for your team members.
But you can do a lot just by remembering the basics of scheduling a meeting (even when you’re having your Executive Assistant do it as you’re running to catch your plane!)
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence!
Greg
Here are 3 ways I can help you when you’re ready:
- Get more free resources you can use today (Click here to Start)
- Improve on your own with digital courses (Click here to Improve)
- Accelerate your progress with coaching (Click here to Accelerate)
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