The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:14 - 00:00:39:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for your teams, organizations, and yes, even the world. And and it is a very special episode. The fifth and at five part mini series where if you've been joining us, you know, I'm about to introduce the talented Jennifer Moss, who's a writer and speaker who specializes in transforming workplace culture.

00:00:40:00 - 00:01:01:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And since we're talking about changing culture in 20 minutes or less, she would be the right person to join me. But she's not just a person who's a self-proclaimed expert in workplace culture. She uses data. She can speak to the data. And. And that makes her extra special. She's written two books and both have been featured on our podcast in the past.

00:01:01:10 - 00:01:28:13
Kevin Eikenberry
In December of 21, we talked about her book, The Burnout Epidemic. And in August of last year, 2025, we talked about her latest book, Why Are We Here? Creating a work Culture that everybody wants. Well, here's why we're here today is because culture is this big thing. It's a big idea. And yet it changes at the micro level.

00:01:28:13 - 00:01:53:16
Kevin Eikenberry
It changes in the day to day interaction. It doesn't change by proclamation policy or something that comes down from the leadership mountaintop. Our goal is to give you one thing that you, as a leader at any level, can do in 20 minutes or less that will improve your culture. Moving it in the direction of direction of the culture that you want and everybody wants.

00:01:53:18 - 00:02:08:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And you can do that in 20 minutes or less. And we're going to talk about it in less than 20 minutes, too. So so Jennifer, thanks for joining me again. Or still, however you want to say that.

00:02:08:10 - 00:02:21:18
Jennifer Moss
I'm still here, we're creating this symbiosis. I've started to wear the same clothes as you. It's, it's after after so many hours together, we're merging into one person. Kevin. It's great.

00:02:21:23 - 00:02:50:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So, Yeah. And by the way, everybody. Well, that might sound weird. We both think it's pretty cool. So, We're going to talk about meeting burnout. And here's what I know. Jennifer, before I sort of hand it over to you. As long as I've been doing this work, and even before I was doing this work, when I was just in an organization, like people been complaining about meetings as long as I've been around, right?

00:02:50:22 - 00:03:13:19
Kevin Eikenberry
That there are too many of them that they don't work. And in fact, as we're recording this, I'm tomorrow, I'm recording a regular part of our podcast about meetings with a guest that will come out about a month from when this all comes out on the podcast. But the thing is this all that stuff about meetings is more true now than ever, right?

00:03:13:21 - 00:03:35:07
Jennifer Moss
It it's really interesting to me at the how we have gone for the last five years. We've increased meetings from 2019 to 2020 by 252%. And I should add, that's only teams meetings alone. So we're not talking zoom. We're not talking, you know, Google Meet. We're just remote teams. Meetings alone increased by 252%.

00:03:35:09 - 00:03:37:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And we were complaining about them before.

00:03:37:17 - 00:04:05:13
Jennifer Moss
They were we were already dealing with meeting fatigue. And this is why actually you know, Kevin and I had this conversation. You and I were chatting about this because it was going to be about dealing with meeting fatigue, this, this specific session that we're having here. I had to re title it as meeting burnout, because we really are creating burnout based on our meetings before, you know, we would kind of be frustrated about it.

00:04:05:13 - 00:04:32:18
Jennifer Moss
We complain about all the meetings. There's nothing like what the experience of over meeting is like for people today. We're seeing this increase in pajama hours. So this is that affectionate, you know, title that actually physicians made up about maybe 15 years ago when electronic recordkeeping came in. And it was just like it was just absolutely overwhelming physicians and how much admin time they had to do, they would call it their pajama hours.

00:04:32:20 - 00:04:56:22
Jennifer Moss
Well, our pajama hours are rapidly increasing. And, you know, we just sit there and we do our work and we qualified as fun work. But it's not fun is still working day and night. And it's blurring the lines between work and life in such a huge way. So I'm really focused on yeah, like reducing the amount of meetings and and I'll give you some tips on that in a second.

00:04:57:00 - 00:05:10:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Reducing the amount of meetings and the burnout that comes from them. And while you're talking about pajamas, it is really important for everyone to know, for me to share with you that, no, I'm not wearing them right now. You know, because, you know, once you're on this camera, no one knows what you're wearing below. You know, your midsection.

00:05:10:19 - 00:05:12:11
Kevin Eikenberry
No. You know, maybe.

00:05:12:13 - 00:05:12:16
Jennifer Moss
You.

00:05:12:20 - 00:05:16:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Maybe you are. Either. You know, no one knows how tall you are.

00:05:16:05 - 00:05:34:14
Jennifer Moss
You know, I've met someone in person. And I said, oh, you look so much taller in real life. And they thought that was hilarious. Like, they didn't get that. And I realized, oh, it's because he's a physiotherapist. And at the time we never, you know, didn't have zoom meetings. But I remember meeting him on video and telling him that.

00:05:34:14 - 00:06:01:20
Jennifer Moss
But yeah, you're right. There's just this is another important point that you're making. You know, in our roundabout way is that we don't have the same mirror neurons and exchange of mirror neurons as we get when we are face to face, which is, you know, important because that is, you know, when we have these nonverbal cues in our communication, we have the ability to empathize and to understand what people are saying.

00:06:01:20 - 00:06:35:08
Jennifer Moss
And when we you look at the data and when it comes to video conferencing, we only get about 4% of what we would get if we were actually in person of those shared, you know, mirror neurons. So what Kevin talked about last week about when we're in the office, when it's hybrid, we should have as many of those meetings try to push them together in a very specific time, making sure that we are connecting in person, because then we get the nonverbal, you know, and verbal communication and those mirror neurons light up and it's just better.

00:06:35:08 - 00:06:56:14
Jennifer Moss
It's better with collaboration. So that also will shorten them. If we make more of our meetings happening in person, or we have more of those, okay, I'm in the office, I'm going to stop by the desk. We're going to solve this in five minute conversations. Go back to good old fashioned phone calls. I'm Kevin, like, right. It's like, what?

00:06:56:14 - 00:07:01:03
Jennifer Moss
My block Kevin on this, right? It's this as.

00:07:01:05 - 00:07:16:18
Kevin Eikenberry
A phone, everybody. It's not a mobile device. I mean, it's a mobile device. I suppose it's a phone we underestimated. Oh, technology tool we have. And we hold on to the damn thing. Sorry. The thing all day long.

00:07:16:20 - 00:07:41:14
Jennifer Moss
I don't like it. It's like a mind blowing thing when I say use phones instead of getting on a video conferencing, you know, platform. So Anita Williams really, really incredible. I cite her, I think I cited her one of our other podcasts, but she was involved in that Google, you know, Aristotle best reasons why people are more successful.

00:07:41:14 - 00:08:13:08
Jennifer Moss
A lot of that has to do with being your authentic self, part of belonging and community. But one of the things that she's recently done is to analyze the benefit, of video conferencing, over using the phone. And she was trying to understand it. She found that getting on a phone call improves audio synchrony by a significant amount, so we're less likely to talk over each other on the phone, which you think, oh, I see your face.

00:08:13:08 - 00:08:34:19
Jennifer Moss
Like, okay, then I probably could anticipate that I'm, you know, then I'm going to talk over, you know, the because this is only using one sense and it's our primary sense and we're focused. We don't have all these other distractions. So getting on the phone actually eliminates a lot of that stress and anxiety. You know, and that's really important.

00:08:34:21 - 00:09:00:19
Jennifer Moss
Also, I love this research by Doctor Jeremy Bailenson out of Stanford Media Lab. And he talks about zoom burnout. He says there's four things that create this zoom burnout. I won't go into the two, ones because like, they're it's really worth looking the research. But these two are amazing. One, we burn out from zoom because we are looking at ourselves too much.

00:09:00:19 - 00:09:07:17
Jennifer Moss
When we're in the zooms. We're so distracted by our own faces. Kevin, have you been there? Do you get that.

00:09:07:19 - 00:09:09:03
Kevin Eikenberry
100%?

00:09:09:05 - 00:09:10:03
Jennifer Moss
Yeah. It's like. It's like.

00:09:10:06 - 00:09:29:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Like I am more aware of the fact that I need a haircut, which I do. Because I'm like, it's not for me. It might be because a client like you and I aren't on zoom, but we're in the same, having the same effect. I'm on like, 3 or 4 different platforms every day, in all different settings.

00:09:29:02 - 00:09:36:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Sometimes I'm broadcasting live, sometimes I'm recording sessions or you're having a meeting him, like 100%, 100%.

00:09:36:17 - 00:09:56:21
Jennifer Moss
It's so distracting that Botox, their sales went up 97%, and they actually have called it the zoom boom. They actually labeled this moment in time for Botox. Extreme increase in sales as the zoom boom.

00:09:56:23 - 00:10:25:17
Kevin Eikenberry
This is new information to me, but I have to just say one of the thing. And we got to get on to specifically about how we can overcome this, because I want us to meet our goal every, every time, keeping these under 20 minutes, because you and I could just keep going on all of this. I just want to say one thing that while that is fatiguing, it has been helpful to me because and maybe because I do it so much and I'm doing it so many ways, there are times I believe that I've become more effective on video because I'm seeing myself on video.

00:10:25:19 - 00:10:26:17
Jennifer Moss
Okay, that's really you.

00:10:26:22 - 00:10:34:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Now, I don't know that. That's everybody. Don't misunderstand me. I just an observation from my perspective.

00:10:34:05 - 00:11:11:22
Jennifer Moss
For me, I feel and I it it has been research and this is what Doctor Anita Williams really does. Look at that. It's much more impactful on women than it is their male counterparts. Actually the exhaustion level for women is around 17 times higher. So you have a really big impact. And this is you know, this is leading into the tips that I'm providing because a lot of it is an especially is doctor balance and talks about two is that we are not used to having these types of, conversations and being on video conferencing so much that our brains are not prepared for it.

00:11:11:22 - 00:11:33:23
Jennifer Moss
And this is what's creating the burnout, the fatigue. And so one of the things that is a major shift that we can do 20 minutes or less, spend time looking at your calendar, spend time as a team analyzing your calendar. Look across a week and choose several meetings that you could have over the phone versus in a video conference.

00:11:34:07 - 00:11:53:01
Jennifer Moss
Figure out which meetings you could do a thing. So you're on with maybe one person and it's recorded, and then you can share it with others to watch at their own time. Then they can fast forward through things that they don't really need to be involved in. Another one is bringing people into the meeting when they're needed.

00:11:53:01 - 00:12:09:12
Jennifer Moss
So we don't need to have, you know, us all in meetings for the full hour. Bring in someone that you know, Jane, from accounting. She's going to have 15 minutes where she's talking at the end of the meeting, make sure that you bring Jane in for 15 minutes and give her her time back. Another thing.

00:12:09:14 - 00:12:27:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Can I just stop you there and let her know why? Like, Jane, we need your expertise. You're a you're a part of this team. You're a subject matter expert to this team. And you know what? Maybe we only need you for 15 minutes this time. Or maybe we don't need you this time. You're welcome. But you're not needed.

00:12:27:11 - 00:12:34:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Not because you're not valued, but. But based on knowing what our desired outcome here is.

00:12:34:11 - 00:13:05:11
Jennifer Moss
I love that because I keep telling people not being invited to a meeting is not like you weren't invited to Becky's great a birthday party, you know, like this is this is great news. When someone doesn't invite you to a meeting, don't be frustrated or hurt like I love you. Thank you. And and if we create that tone and if that's, you know, amplified and modeled by leaders, then that becomes the norm.

00:13:05:11 - 00:13:27:00
Jennifer Moss
And we can pull ourselves out of meetings where it just doesn't feel like we are going to really provide the value that we need. And it's giving us our time back, which we talked about with community. And one of the other, conversations we've had is that when we are over meeting, we're less social. So all of this just kind of pals on top of each other.

00:13:27:00 - 00:13:36:04
Jennifer Moss
It amplifies. You know, another thing that we need to do is spend time just auditing how many meetings we have. Like that, 100%. Spend time there.

00:13:36:04 - 00:13:37:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Mic drop right there.

00:13:37:21 - 00:14:02:20
Jennifer Moss
Do we need to have this meeting? You know, ask yourself, do we need to have this meeting? You know, the way that we make accountability for meetings is if we say, okay, every person that hosts a meeting needs to take notes, needs to be responsible for disseminating the notes, needs to be a time counter. We should end every meeting at least 20% before the time's up.

00:14:02:22 - 00:14:28:01
Jennifer Moss
And that person is accountable for having next steps absolutely laid out. Kind of like, you know, your three steps to having a better one on one. And the third one is okay, let's make sure that we have accountability for the, you know, the follow up. So if a person is choosing to have a meeting and they know they have all that responsibility, they're going to think long and hard before they set up a meeting.

00:14:28:01 - 00:14:47:18
Jennifer Moss
If they know that there's this additional work to do. I think what's happened lately is people is there just like the time theft and stealing people's time right now is has gone to a whole nother level in the last five years. And we just are setting up meetings because that's easy to do. We don't step by people's desks, we don't send a text.

00:14:47:18 - 00:14:59:14
Jennifer Moss
We don't try to make it, you know, simple communication. And that is a reset, a habit reset that we need to make. After this huge amount of burnout fatigue that we're seeing.

00:14:59:14 - 00:15:25:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Because it is a habit, like every every organizational culture, you know, we obviously all have a culture. Our culture has a meeting component of it. And if the and you know, if you're by the way, if your organization hasn't had the 200% increase in them, then you should be happy right now. But none of that isn't. That doesn't obviate you from doing all the stuff Jennifer just said.

00:15:25:00 - 00:15:51:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Like we can still do that audit. You know, it's it really starts with is a meeting. What are we really trying to accomplish which which I call what's the desired outcome? If you can't describe that, how can you meet. And if you can describe it, the question is, is a meeting what we need to do that. But what's happened is the culture has often just become, well, that means we have to meet, which is that which is the the thing you're ultimately saying.

00:15:51:17 - 00:15:53:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Rethink that question.

00:15:53:19 - 00:16:13:07
Jennifer Moss
You know, and we would be very surprised at what happens to us when we over meet and what, what over meeting actually looks like in a day. So I have so many people and you probably experienced this too, Kevin, where you have people saying, I'm meeting like seven hours a day or I'm meeting five hours a day. I mean, that's common.

00:16:13:10 - 00:16:50:07
Jennifer Moss
Commonplace. And when slack did this really cool workforce index analysis and they looked at what, actually happened after just two hours of meetings a day, productivity starts to decline. After just two hours of meetings a day. And we're seeing people meeting for hours and hours. So if you are a good leader in that, you're a capitalist that wants to have growth in revenue and be, you know, looking at productivity, that is a great way to increase productivity and growth is just shaving off the amount of meetings that you have.

00:16:50:09 - 00:17:12:09
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. You know, I'll just I'll just say this, that we do we do do a good bit of virtual learning events. Right. And, you know, like a two hour, like earlier this week, I do a two hour session with clients. And if we're doing two hours, there's going to be a break in the middle. It's going to be like 5 to 7 minutes.

00:17:12:09 - 00:17:29:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And I have to tell people I always do. I say, listen, we're going to take our five minute break or whatever. And I say, I want you to get up. I want you to stretch your legs. I want you to not just sit here and do your email because we shouldn't sit for two hours. No getting up. Get up and do something.

00:17:29:17 - 00:17:44:05
Kevin Eikenberry
You got five minutes. Use three of it to stand up, walk around, go to the bathroom. I don't know, do something. And but the thing is, the point I'm making is I have to tell people to do it. I have to make them. Make them feel like it's okay to do it for them to actually do it.

00:17:44:07 - 00:18:20:22
Jennifer Moss
We have actually seen over the last five years, we're sitting two hours more every day, and that was already bad. We're sitting ten hours a day. Sometimes in the same place. Like, this is really dangerous for our health. And I think, you know what? I want to just add before we wrap this up, Kevin, is another thing that I think has been really lost through the over meeting is the benefit of learning virtually because we are so tired of being in these, you know, video conferencing all day long that when we actually have an opportunity to do the continuing ed and the virtual learning, we're sober now.

00:18:20:22 - 00:18:41:02
Jennifer Moss
But if we moved away from that being all day long, we'd find that there's more of, you know, an investment and engagement in that virtual and continuing learning, which is really good for culture and, mental health and well-being and, and just all these good things when it comes to learning at work.

00:18:41:04 - 00:19:02:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So before I close out or we close out this mini series, I want to ask the question that I always ask in every episode, which is now what for you as a listener. Now what? What action will you take now as a result of what you learned? Will you do a meeting audit? Will you ask yourself next time, do we really need to meet for this?

00:19:02:08 - 00:19:22:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Will we think about when? How often will we even consider? Will you even consider the idea of meeting burnout? We hope that you'll do one or all of those things. Now, before I sign off, from this mini series, first thing I want to do is again to thank you, Jennifer, for joining me in this, experiment.

00:19:22:22 - 00:19:33:00
Jennifer Moss
I feel so grateful that we had this opportunity to to just, you know, riff on stuff. I think that's what we do best. And hopefully everyone loved it, too.

00:19:33:02 - 00:19:56:06
Kevin Eikenberry
And, you know, we don't know what's going to happen here. Will this be a recurring mini series? You know, we we both would need to think about that from our businesses perspective, obviously. But the biggest point of that will be what we hear from you. So if you enjoyed this, let us know. You can you can link send us a LinkedIn note.

00:19:56:12 - 00:20:14:20
Kevin Eikenberry
You can send a note to, info at Kevin I can Broadcom and give us feedback. You can find either one of us like I said on LinkedIn. Send us a note. Let us know what you thought. If you want us to do more of these we're not promising. But if we get a lot of positive feedback since we both are having fun, I'm guessing we would.

00:20:14:22 - 00:20:34:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And if that happens, if you've got ideas of things you'd like, 20 minute ideas, things that you can do in 20 minutes or less to change your culture, let us know what those things are. We both thank you. And we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. And, and perhaps, just perhaps, we'll be back for more of these.

00:20:34:10 - 00:20:43:23
Kevin Eikenberry
But what I know for sure is that I'll be back next week with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. Thanks, everybody, and thank you, everyone.

00:20:44:01 - 00:20:45:05
Jennifer Moss
Thank you. Thanks, Kevin.