The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How to Get the Right People in the Room so Progress Happens

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Most meetings look right on the surface, but progress slows when the people who understand the work are not in the room. In this episode, How to Get the Right People in the Room so Progress Happens, I share how to identify the real business owner, balance the right voices, set expectations that matter, and protect the purpose of the meeting. You will also hear why strong leaders do not sit in every meeting, and how trust and presence shape better decisions and better outcomes.What You Will LearnHow to choose the right people for key conversationsHow to identify the real business ownerHow to balance technical, workflow, and business voicesHow leaders empower teams through trustHow to create clarity, purpose, and real progressResourcesPeople Process Progress: https://peopleprocessprogress.comThe People, Process, and Progress of Project Management: https://a.co/d/5MN3yEmPeople first, Process aligned, Progress together.

Think about the last time that you were in a meeting that felt right on paper. The agenda was great. It was clear. We knew, hey, we're going to talk about this or that. But then you look around the room virtually or in person, you're like, are these the right people to be speaking for what's happening to give me the ground truth? Right. And most of the time this happens because the room is missing those people. They're missing the people that we're doing the project for that we're going to positively impact by doing this work.

So today on how to get the right people in the room so progress happens. I'm going to talk through how we can avoid this mistake or if we find that we're causing this to fix it. And I want us to focus on as well this quote from Peter Drucker that says, the most important thing in the communication is hearing what is not said. So when you have your quiet folks in the meeting, don't take it as silence as permission. Take it as I need to engage in those folks more. Hey everybody. I'm Kevin Pennell.

I'm the host of the People Process Progress Podcast. Thank you for coming for watching for listening if you're on Apple or Spotify or one of the other platforms. We're talking about communication today, getting the right stakeholders in, more specifically how to get the right people in the room so progress happens. So let's think about that quote I read in the intro, right? The most important thing in communication is hearing what's not said. And here's a challenge, right? We can have a room that's full, but the progress is missing.

Healthcare emergency response, IT, that's the world that I've lived in most of my life. I watch high performing team stall because they were shaped by hierarchy instead of by empowerment and, you know, people with authority were present, but maybe they didn't have the insight, the latest and greatest. It's one of the most common blind spots that we can have as leaders is to not put the right people in the room and just leave them there and say, hey, we're here for you if you need my help, but I'm not going to be there looking over your shoulder. I trust you to make the decisions to have the conversations and do all the things that you should do as an empowered leader, particularly for project managers, program managers that we lead. And the

challenge is not the meeting, right? The challenge is who we choose to bring to it or send on our behalf. So let's go through some actions to build the room that makes progress happen, right? So first, we're going to identify the real business owner. A business owner in projects is who's the person that can speak to what's happening in the real world that's going to get this thing or this new process that we're doing this project for. That's who we need. Yes, we need sponsors that are higher level yes we need executives that can sign for money or time or those kind of things but we really need to know the ground truth from the business owner that owns that right look for the person who carries the consequences they understand the stakes they feel the impact if it's successful

or if it fails which projects fail right unfortunately during a big project that I did right we couldn't move forward until we understood that right we were moving a whole bunch of web pages and without this person's knowledge we didn't know what the structure and how things were done before so that we could build on that and then put them into a new system and then work with the new vendors on how we build them in the new system and what's you know worked and what's not that was the true business owner that had that background that knew the technical chops right of how we did things before but also how we could do them in the future and tweak it a little bit with this new system so the first thing we want to do is

identify that real business owner second let's map these influences not the hierarchy and I like an org chart so we know who's who but we want to know who who with that the core decision makers, right? Who are the key contributors, who are the advisors that we need to bring in as needed, not just folks that are going to sit in the meeting and that, yep, sure, they may have power or delegated authority, but the room needs to be intentional, not just crowded, right? So we're going to map those influencers. We don't want to make our meetings fail, right, when the right person is not responsible or empowered to make decisions. And that's another thing, too. So when you identify the real business owner and then we map who's the

influencer, let's have that discussion with leaders too, like, hey, what are the team authorized to approve on their own, right? And we're going to give, you know, we're going to plan and get requirements and do that kind of stuff. But we also need to know what are our limits, what are our guardrails. And so this mapping the influencers, we know that, you know, let's say, for example, I'm empowered to authorize spend up to $5,000, anything over that. I have to ask or get permission or whatever, right? That's a very simple thing. Or if we add two weeks, that's cool. If it's any more than that, come let me know and have the discussion. That's reasonable for any level of whether it's a program or a project.

Next thing you want to do is balance their perspectives, right? Because I've mentioned and I'm emphasizing that we want to get the ground truth folks in there and the middle managers in there. But that doesn't mean that the leaders don't have a spot at the table, right? They approve this thing that we're going to do and we need them and we need their insight and their guidance. Right. We need the business owner who owns the outcome, a technical expert, right?

Who's going to say how we do it, whether it's internal or external folks? The workflow expert, which may not be the business owner, right, might be an analyst or in healthcare and nurse or in construction, the construction worker or somebody that knows, oh, no, this is how we do things from end to end so we can improve the process or put the right technology where it belongs. And then we do need sponsors, right? Because they are high level folks that can remove barriers or move them, right? Whether it's a person barrier or a money barrier or a time barrier or all of those things. And that's where our sponsors really come into play and the best leaders that I've seen are sponsors that say here's what's approved here's

what I expect here's my leader's intent right pillar one from project management and then and then you all go and you're empowered to make these decisions step four I want to set clear expectations before the meeting right so before you even get in there we want to make sure that everybody knows that here's what we need right here's why it matters and here's the role that you will play today in each of your respective areas it's a very simple thing in thought Some folks aren't comfortable, kind of pointing folks out. We have so-and-so that's going to be responsible for this. This is where, you know, for me having that org chart and you pull it up and you talk through

it, here's who, Sue, is that right? Does it make sense that they own this thing? You can do the whole racie chart thing if you want, but for me, an org chart covers all of that and good discussion and relationship building. So the purpose is, right, to create productive conversations based on the clear expectations that everybody has from the meeting because you all know. You've been in meetings and you're like, here's our agenda. And then the discussion goes like this.

So that can happen sometimes, and sometimes as a facilitator, we need to let that go down a certain road, but we don't get completely off track to the core mission that we're trying to accomplish, the core project, the outcome, the definition of done, the objectives, all that good stuff, right? Step five is protect the room, right? So some folks attend for visibility, perhaps. We want folks that are going to be there to actually move us forward. We don't need a whole bunch of people when a quarter of that number of people will get the job done. right and and that's just kind of simple meeting management you can do simple things like not

allow your meetings to be forward you can say ask me if you want to add or subtract people that's a very administrative technological way to do it but I think just having conversations and what I found helpful is to say you know who do you want to be part of this team when I talk to the resource managers and do you want me to copy you on these things or just invite them and I encourage us to have minimal people so we can be more productive than to have a bunch of people, and I also commit to keeping leaders informed as well, right? And that's a huge thing. So they appreciate, right, leaders when we keep them informed and then still protect the purpose of the meetings. So then the time there people are spending in the meetings that we

put together is productive and it's moving us forward. They're not just in their wasting time or we're not wasting their time, right? So when we protect that room, we also protect the progress that we're trying to make. So when we have the right people in the room, we get the right voices they join the discussion, right? We get risks that surface early. We get decisions that are sped up because we're having conversations and it's folks that are familiar with it. We don't have to go, oh, I don't know. Let me take notes and then come back to it. Confusion clears up, right? There's less confusion because we've all the team and that's technical and operational and whoever you need in there, not just, you know, a bunch of different meetings. And that has its

place as well. I'm talking about kind of collaborative things. And engagement improves, right? When people notice, like, oh, I can be engaged and I can open and they value my opinion and they take it into account, right? They're not expected to just sit there and be quiet. And the good thing about us as leaders is program managers, project managers, managers, directors, whatever, is that we can empower our folks to know, hey, when you go do this thing and we ask you to be part of this project, you're the one, right? You're the one that represents us.

If you're not comfortable, if you have problems, if you have questions, if it's not going well, then come to me for sure. I'm here. I'm not just throwing you out there. But we clearly want to set that expectation that we put the right people in the room and those people then are empowered to whatever level they're empowered to, right? Because what I found particularly in military and public safety and then in the private sector is title doesn't create progress, right? The people do. Just because I'm a manager something doesn't mean, you know, that I can do more unless I have that experience than someone who's not a manager or director or VP or whatever, right? Particularly in public safety, you see there's a lot of collarbrass that shows up in different

things. They're not necessarily the experts in a certain area where someone is working. So it can be a challenge to lead that discussion. So when the leaders do listen, though, to what's being said, they'll discover, you know, who needs to be invited, who needs to be there, what's the tempo, that kind of stuff. So let's think about how we can apply this in the real world, right look at one project that you're involved in write down the names of the people right that are shaping the decisions and ask yourself who owns the outcome who understands the work at a deeper level and then who's missing who don't we have that we should have right do we have a whole bunch of high level folks that can't answer these questions or do we have not enough high level folks that can

clear barriers for us find the right mix right and the good thing is you can change who's in the meeting as you go along you're like oh that now the meeting is a focus on this we need less people it's technical it's analyst focus and now we need higher level people for decisions because we need more money so you just ebb and flow the way that you do your meetings and that's it but to really optimize what you're doing right when we want to get the right people so that progress happens we want to know the business owner who's the real business owner we're to map who the influencers are we're to balance perspectives we're just clear expectations before the meeting who's doing what what we expect of each person, and then protect the room.

Don't just let it fill up like an auditorium full of people that aren't contributing. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast for watching this video. I don't do a lot of videos like this, so your feedback's welcome. Go to people processprogress.com. That's where you can connect with me. On LinkedIn, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Penel KG, P-A-N-L-L-K-G. We've also got the YouTube channel where you can see workout videos, cold plunges, jits, or after-action reports. Also, by the books, the stability equation, if you're feeling off, if you need some help,

but figure out how you can take ownership, practice mindfulness, get movement, set boundaries, make connections, optimize your sleep, and explore your faith, reconnect with it, then that's the book for you. I wrote it when I was in a really tough spot. And through me putting in the work in each of those areas, I also cite a bunch of different books that are very helpful, that I've found really helpful. Also, the people process and progress of project manage it, very practical. It's not going to get you ready for the P&P.

exam, but it will get you ready to lead projects in the real world. So they're both on Amazon. They're both available. This podcast, obviously, is on YouTube if you're watching or Apple, Spotify, whatever platform you're listening on. So thank you so much for listening. Remember that keep people first, keep your process aligned, and let's make progress together. Got speed y'all. Thank you.