EL040 – How to instantly make your meetings shorter, more productive, and less painful

In this episode, I discuss digital transformation projects with speaker, author, and former football player Tanvir Bhangoo, and why these projects are much less reliant on technology than you might expect.

In this episode, I chat with Anthony Fasano, president of the Engineering Management Institute, about the importance of leadership, management and career development for engineering staff.

Managing international teams is incredibly difficult. Today, Pamela Kellert shares her insights into how to better manage international teams.

Dolores Hirschmann believes that clarity of message is critical to effective leadership. A leader’s team can’t buy in to a vision without first understanding it. In today’s episode, Dolores helps engineering leaders understand the importance of clarity of message, how to tell if your messaging is clear, and provides practical steps on how to improve your communications.

Ralf Specht is on a mission to rid the world of soulless companies. On today’s episode, he explains why it’s good for business for a company to have soul, and gives great advice on how to reinvigorate your organization with the “Soul System”.

Duncan Oyevaar believes in the power of business engineering. He has seen that organizations can dramatically improve themselves by equipping their engineers with excellent business skills, and he’s got the data to prove it. Today, we talk about why engineers need to understand a business’ financials, value stream mapping, continuous improvement, and the importance of listening to your staff.

In this special edition, I tease the next episodes of the show and make a major announcement about the future of the Engineering & Leadership project.

Joseph Seiler has spent his career helping engineers do incredible work by empowering them and stepping back to let them do incredible work - first as the president and CEO of his own company, and today as a Master Certified Coach. Joseph's experience provides incredible lessons learned for engineering managers of all stripes, most especially the value of coaching as an engineering manager.

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management thinking once said that "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." That wasn't a knock on how important strategy is, rather, he's emphasizing the importance that culture plays within an organization. Today's guest would share that sentiment. Today, I speak with Dan Langevin, the CTO of Vericred about the role culture plays in a technical organization, and specifically about the importance of both accountability and curiosity for Vericred's engineering team.

Meetings are a fact of organizational life. The fact that so few of us have ever been trained to run excellent meetings is a bit of a shock. We all know they're needed, and we all know they're mostly painful and wasteful. If you follow even a few of the ideas in this episode, you and your team will be more engaged, efficient, and effective in your work.