From Dull to Exciting: How to Make Meetings Unmissable

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I’m meeting with the leadership team.

The meeting is dull. I’m having trouble staying awake.

So I doodle. And doodle. And doodle.

Taking the information (that could have been an email) …

And transforming it into symbols on the piece of paper I’m staring at.

After the meeting is over, my principal calls me to his office. He shares how displeased he is with me “goofing off” during the meeting.

I hear his point. It’s valid.

To an observer it looked like I was totally aloof — my mind somewhere else as I was drawing.

Inside, I knew I was taking notes and could explain back exactly what we discussed.

But perception is everything. I log this criticism in my brain under “needs improvement” so I won’t make that mistake again.

This was the last time I doodled during the leadership team meeting.

But it wasn’t the last time I was bored to death.

Our leadership team violated the 3 Deadly Sins of Meetings each week:

1. It could have been a memo.

2. It always went long.

3. It was void of ACTION (and therefore) EXCITEMENT.

Here’s the thing most leaders miss...

If your meeting doesn’t move something forward — it’s a waste of time.

Information sharing ≠ leadership.

Leadership is momentum.

And momentum comes from solving problems, not just listing them.

Meetings Should Be Engines of Progress

We’re wired to solve problems. It’s what makes work feel meaningful.

Great meetings tap into that drive. They don’t review. They resolve.

And when your team knows every meeting is an opportunity to make the campus better — not just talk about what’s already happened — attendance improves.

Engagement skyrockets. Momentum builds.

That’s the promise of the Automatic Issues Tracker.

From Broken to Brilliant: A Live Example

Let’s say you discover book orders for your library aren’t arriving consistently.

You open the tracker.

• Assign the issue a priority: 🔥 High.

• Set a fix-by date.

• Tag a team member.

• Categorize it: People, Policy, Process, or Tech.

• Then describe the issue and brainstorm 2–3 potential solutions.

This isn’t a vent session. It’s a solution-sparring event.

Discuss your issues at the next leadership meeting. Triage your tracker by urgency, solve one issue live, and move forward.

That’s it.

One real win. Every single week.

The Ruckus Maker Way to Lead

Play-It-Safe-Principals avoid problems.

They regurgitate agendas.

They hope issues disappear.

But Ruckus Makers? We hunt issues. We surface the bottlenecks. We say, “This isn’t working — and we’re going to fix it. Together.”

Because every solved problem increases staff trust, frees up bandwidth, and moves your campus one step closer to being automatic.

Ready to Flip the Meeting Script?

Here’s how to bring this system to your campus: