Beyond Busy

Overnight online sensation, Jackie Weaver, talks about meeting etiquette, workplace respect, standing orders and more in this latest Beyond Busy episode.

Graham and Jackie start the podcast by talking about why the public was so fascinated by the online video that made Jackie famous.

'My take on it is that I think there’s something inherent in us that makes us want to see fairness. I think if you think about all the injustices you've seen, somebody cutting in front of you in traffic, We’re not talking about huge world-changing things here. You know, where you didn’t get the pay rise at work, where somebody was rude and they got away with it, all those things, and we put up with them all the time. And at that moment, I think what you saw was justice. I think that’s my take on it... Either that or I’ve just become the nation’s favourite grandmother.'

Jackie tells Graham that she finds this a wonderful opportunity to shed more light on council meetings.

'I kind of feel I’m supposed to say it’s been surreal or confusing or confusing or frightening or out of control or whatever, but it hasn’t really felt like that. I mean, it has just felt like a real opportunity that has to be just grabbed. I mean, we’ve been trying to get local councils noticed in some meaningful way, all of my career in local government and that’s 25 years. So somebody comes along and knocks on your door and says to you: "Tell me about local councils - What's all this about?" What do you say? No, sorry, I’m busy.'

Jackie then shares how important it is for the youth to take an interest in local government.

'How does the council know you’re interested? How does the council know what you’ve got to offer? Over the years, we’ve tried several initiatives across the country to encourage young people to get involved. So we have the Youth Parliament, a lot of councils created youth councils, and all that happened was that we ended up with youth councils that looked like Mini-Me’s. Now, that’s not all of them. I’m sure some of them were extremely representative, but some that I know were kind of like older people in young clothes. So engaging with young people is difficult and, actually, some of it needs to come from the young people.'

Graham asks Jackie what she thinks makes a good meeting.

'For me meetings are about decisions. My frustration with some council meetings is they’re often viewed as an opportunity for an exchange of information. And I guess that there has to be some information sharing, of course, because you need something on which to base your decision. And you need some information sharing because it’s kind of like a glue that puts us together that forms a relationship. But after that, it’s kind of like, you know, why are we here? This is not a social event, let’s get these decisions taken so we can move forward so that decisions of the council can happen without taking four years to come to fruition. Because it’s that lack of decision making that takes those issues four years to be resolved. They don’t need to be.'

Jackie then ends the podcast by sharing a productivity hack to help with ‘overwhelm’.

'My head is very busy and I can feel overload. And when I feel that, when I feel that I’m no longer really able to capture what it is that I’m thinking about. That’s when I start to write it. Because I get overwhelmed and I don’t find that a comfortable place to be at all It feels out of control.'

The full conversation is available on the Beyond Busy YouTube channel. 

Graham Allcott is the founder of the time-management training company Think Productive.

This podcast is produced by Rizelle Paredes and is hosted on Podiant.

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