You’re Right - Meetings Are the Worst | Don Kieffer

Welcome to Behavioral Groups, the podcast that explores how behavioral science connects with the way we work and live. I'm Kurt Nelson and I'm Tim Houlihan. Each week we talk with authors, researchers, and practitioners who help us uncover the science and the art of better living and better leadership. Our guest today is Don Kiefer, co-author of There's Got to be a better way.

Now Don is a self-described factory rat who worked his way up from the shop floor to leading major projects at Harley Davidson. And along the way, he partnered with MIT social scientist Nelson Rapenning to create a model they called the dynamic work design. Yeah, dynamic work design challenges long-held assumptions about efficiency and adaptability, and with this model, the authors argue that common sense lessons leaders learn are often exactly the wrong ones, because the real signals of good work show up months or years later, not the next day. He also believes that the best solutions come from those closest to the work, but only if leaders and technical experts create genuine partnerships with those people.

In our conversation, Don talked about why meetings are often the worst form of organizational abuse. Love that, right? And why managers frequently become the very obstacle that they're trying to remove. And why making work visible, literally drawing it out on the wall, can change everything. I tell you, I'm using Don's draw out complex issues all the time now.

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