Are Your Meetings Killing Change? Keith McCandless

Change Signal

Keith McCandless’s three key insights: meetings fail because we use five invisible patterns that systematically exclude people; anyone can facilitate breakthrough conversations using simple rules, no charisma required; and boosting both autonomy and responsibility simultaneously creates wildly productive teams.

Most change leaders know meetings suck, but Keith McCandless, co-author of The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures, reveals exactly why. We're drowning in unconscious patterns — presentations, managed discussions, status reports — that stifle the very people we need most.

But let me alleviate an anxiety you might have. You don't need to be a master facilitator to unlock your team's potential. McCandless shares simple structures that work every time, like Creative Destruction, where you imagine the worst possible outcome of your work, then stop doing whatever creates it.

The real shift? Developing deeper confidence in people than they have in themselves. When you use these patterns, product managers start standing on chairs and singing their ideas (no, literally.).

This conversation is candid, practical, and delightfully snarky about why traditional change management creates conformity instead of transformation. If you're tired of the usual approaches to engaging people during change, this episode offers genuine alternatives that work.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change, transformation, and growth.

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