Teaching Leaders and Teams to Lead, Learn, Meet, and Succeed
Meet Joe Allen
Joseph A. Allen, Ph.D., is a Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Utah and a leading expert on workplace meetings, team effectiveness, and employee well-being. Known as “The Meeting Doctor,” his research examines how meetings and everyday work practices influence engagement, safety, burnout, and performance.
Dr. Allen has published more than 300 articles and secured over $20 million in research funding. His work appears in top journals, including Journal of Applied Psychology and Journal of Organizational Behavior. He is the author of Suddenly Virtual, Suddenly Hybrid, Running Effective Meetings for Dummies, and The Burned Out Physician.
Dr. Allen directs the Center for Meeting Effectiveness and consults with organizations across healthcare, government, and industry, helping leaders redesign meetings and work systems to drive healthier, high-performing teams.
Burned Out:
How Organizations Exhaust Their Best People, and How to Fix It
Burnout is often treated as an individual problem, something to be solved with resilience training or self-care. Research tells a very different story. Burnout is a predictable outcome of poorly designed work systems, chronic overload, eroded meaning, and ineffective communication. In this keynote, Dr. Joe Allen reframes burnout as an organizational issue and shows how leaders can redesign work, meetings, and team practices to restore well-being and sustainable performance.
Drawing on occupational health psychology and insights from The Burned Out Physician, this talk blends rigorous research with real-world examples to help organizations move beyond surface-level fixes and address burnout at its roots.
Related Book:
The Burned Out Physician
Audience Takeaways
Participants will learn:
Why burnout is driven primarily by work design and organizational culture, not individual weakness
How chronic overload, loss of autonomy, and purpose erosion fuel emotional exhaustion
The often-overlooked role of meetings and communication practices in accelerating burnout
How psychological safety and supportive team norms protect well-being
Evidence-based strategies leaders can use to reduce burnout and rebuild meaning at work
Burned Out:
How Organizations Exhaust Their Best People, and How to Fix It
Burnout is often treated as an individual problem, something to be solved with resilience training or self-care. Research tells a very different story. Burnout is a predictable outcome of poorly designed work systems, chronic overload, eroded meaning, and ineffective communication. In this keynote, Dr. Joe Allen reframes burnout as an organizational issue and shows how leaders can redesign work, meetings, and team practices to restore well-being and sustainable performance.
Drawing on occupational health psychology and insights from The Burned Out Physician, this talk blends rigorous research with real-world examples to help organizations move beyond surface-level fixes and address burnout at its roots.
Related Book:
The Burned Out Physician
Audience Takeaways
Participants will learn:
Why burnout is driven primarily by work design and organizational culture, not individual weakness
How chronic overload, loss of autonomy, and purpose erosion fuel emotional exhaustion
The often-overlooked role of meetings and communication practices in accelerating burnout
How psychological safety and supportive team norms protect well-being
Evidence-based strategies leaders can use to reduce burnout and rebuild meaning at work
Burned Out:
How Organizations Exhaust Their Best People, and How to Fix It
Related Book:
The Burned Out Physician
Burnout is often treated as an individual problem, something to be solved with resilience training or self-care. Research tells a very different story. Burnout is a predictable outcome of poorly designed work systems, chronic overload, eroded meaning, and ineffective communication. In this keynote, Dr. Joe Allen reframes burnout as an organizational issue and shows how leaders can redesign work, meetings, and team practices to restore well-being and sustainable performance.
Drawing on occupational health psychology and insights from The Burned Out Physician, this talk blends rigorous research with real-world examples to help organizations move beyond surface-level fixes and address burnout at its roots.
Audience Takeaways
Participants will learn:
Why burnout is driven primarily by work design and organizational culture, not individual weakness
How chronic overload, loss of autonomy, and purpose erosion fuel emotional exhaustion
The often-overlooked role of meetings and communication practices in accelerating burnout
How psychological safety and supportive team norms protect well-being
Evidence-based strategies leaders can use to reduce burnout and rebuild meaning at work
Meet the Team
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Monet Goode
FOUNDER
With a vision for building something meaningful, our founder brings a blend of big-picture thinking and hands-on experience.
They set the tone for everything we do. -
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Emmett Marsh
SALES MANAGER
Focused, approachable, and driven by results, our sales manager is all about building strong relationships. They help connect people to the right solutions—with clarity and care. -
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Eleanor Parks
MARKETING DIRECTOR
Creative and strategic in equal measure, our marketing director brings fresh ideas to every campaign. They turn insights into action and help our message resonate with the right audience. -
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Karl Holland
CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER
Friendly, attentive, and always ready to help, our customer service manager ensures every interaction is a positive one. They keep communication clear, timely, and human.
LOW COST, SINGLE SESSION
Observation
Invite me to be a fly on the wall in your meeting!
I’ll observe how things operate. Using my science-based checklist, I’ll look for things before, during, and just after the meeting that are essential for successful meetings.
Then, I’ll put together a short, one-page summary that identifies things for you to continue doing, stop doing, and start doing in your team meetings.
LEARN MORE >
HIGHEST IMPACT
Consulting
Want faster results?
I am available to work with you, your team, or your entire organization.
I use a process that works — these are real solutions based on scientific data that I have collected throughout my career.
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LARGE GROUP TALKS
Speaking
My presentations and workshops are a great way to learn about meeting science, how it works.
I have given more than 100 talks at academic and non-academic settings in the U.S., France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and in more than 100 other countries via live-stream.
LEARN MORE >
My Clients Include
Books
“We worked closely with Dr. Allen to bring together a unique program with Logitech and Stanford Business School to reimagine meetings — the ‘Meeting Moonshot’ — bringing together professional sports leaders, ex-Special Operations leaders, creatives, surgeons, neuroscientists and academics.
He is the absolute leader in combining both big thinking and deep research to enable leaders and teams to ‘gather’ in more engaging, productive and creative ways. He is also a pleasure to work with in pulling together programs and facilitations.”
— Hoby Darling, Partner and Co-Founder Liminal Collective & Head of Logitech Sports and Human Performance Division
I take a proven, customized approach to Consulting (and Speaking, in some cases) called the Adaptive Improvement Approach (AIA).
LEARN ABOUT MY PROCESS >
Consulting
The Gold Standard for Workplace Meetings
Every person, team, and organization is different. Everyone does some things well, and others poorly. Each team has norms about meetings that are effective AND ineffective. Each organization has a meeting culture that enables OR constrains meeting effectiveness.
And this year, ALL of them went online!
When working with clients, I will diagnose problems and inefficiencies, prescribe treatment, and make sure that you and your teams move forward healthier and happier.
Interventions may be on an individual basis, but are most effective when applied to teams or entire organizations; those with support and commitment from leadership are most successful.
I don’t just do traditional meetings; work with me to improve Community Engagement as well as Occupational Safety and Health
I provide customized solutions for organizations and corporations of all types, sizes and modalities.
Past examples include:
Helping a teachers union identify the source of their stress (emotional labor with parents, students, colleagues and administrators), and training them around coping to reduce it
Providing volunteer program assessment services for 400+ nonprofit organizations, where I use a standard survey to assess volunteer experiences and connect it to organizational effectiveness and ROI
Helping perform safety audits for several organizations, including Union Pacific’s track programs
Get in touch to discuss your particular needs, and I’ll design a program just for you.
GET STARTED >
The Process I Use
I guide many of the employees, teams and leadership groups that I work with through a roughly 3-month process that I developed called the Adaptive Improvement Approach (AIA):
Observation
The process begins with observation; I will identify things that are working well, and things that should change in order to reach your goals.
Develop & Deploy Training
Once we know what is and isn’t working for you, I will tailor training according to your needs and provide the necessary training.
Evaluation & Assessment
After changes are made, I will evaluate your progress and you’ll begin to see improvements.
Make Adjustments
Adjustments will be made as needed to achieve your goals.
Speaking
Topics
Meetings Research
Workflow Changes
Keys to Effective Emotional Labor
Safety Management
Identification of Workflow Tips & Tricks
Human Resource Management
Volunteer Management
Organizational Development
Organizational Success Factors…and more!
Presentations
I am available to provide a lecture on any number of topics based on my research and consulting work. This story-based approach works very well as a webinar!
Workshops
In this interactive format, I present a topic and then lead individual or group activities. These include following the adaptive improvement model for reflexive development of better meetings, as well as various organizational science related topics, such as those listed below.