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.
Keynotes
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.
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
Related Book:
The Science of Collaboration, Reflection, and Sustained Performance
Team Performance:
High-performing teams are not defined by talent alone. They are defined by how effectively they learn together. This keynote explores the science of team performance and collaboration, emphasizing the power of structured reflection through debriefs, huddles, and after-action reviews. Dr. Allen draws on research and applied work across healthcare, emergency services, and organizational teams in many industries to show how everyday conversations shape trust, coordination, and results.
Rather than relying on post-crisis fixes, this keynote demonstrates how teams can embed learning into routine work, turning experience into continuous improvement.
Audience Takeaways
Participants will learn:
Why reflection is a core performance process, not a luxury
How debriefs and huddles convert experience into expertise
The central role of psychological safety in team learning and adaptability
How shared mental models improve coordination and decision-making
Leadership behaviors that enable learning, accountability, and sustained team performance
Related Book:
Meetings are the invisible infrastructure of organizations, and when they fail, everything else suffers. This keynote introduces the science of meetings from the extensive research and practical work of Dr. Joseph A. Allen, The Meeting Doctor. Using his unique science-focused framework, he shows how evidence-based meeting design improves engagement, decision quality, equity, and well-being. Dr. Allen integrates insights from Suddenly Virtual, and Suddenly Hybrid, Running Effective Meetings for Dummies, and yet to be published new research on AI in meetings to address modern collaboration challenges, including remote work, hybrid inequities, and emerging AI meeting tools.
Participants learn how to diagnose common meeting problems, apply targeted interventions, and leverage technology without losing the human core of collaboration.
Adapting Meeting Science and Practice for the Virtual, Hybrid, and AI Era
The Science of Meetings:
Audience Takeaways
Participants will learn:
Why meetings actively shape culture, performance, and inclusion
How the Meeting Doctor approach turns meetings into strategic assets
What works, and what doesn’t, in virtual and hybrid meetings
How AI tools can support (or undermine) collaboration if poorly implemented
Practical strategies to design meetings that drive results, learning, and well-being
Related Books:
Joe’s Clients Include
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Bryan Hughes
Senior Vice President
Associa“As an industry that specializes in client meetings, we had not realized our lack of efficacy in how we communicated amongst ourselves. Dr. Allen’s training provided an instant upscaling of our interactions.”
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Karin Reed
CEO of Speaker Dynamics and coauthor of Suddenly Virtual, Suddenly Hybrid, and Running Effective Meetings for Dummies
"Joe brings a rare blend of research depth and real-world practicality, ensuring that every idea is evidence-based yet immediately actionable.” -
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Jin Lee
Associate Professor | I/O Psychology Program Director | University Outstanding Scholar
Department of Psychological Sciences
Kansas State University
“Joe’s session was an integral component of the project and has meaningfully strengthened the organization’s capacity to approach safety events with openness, rigor, and a commitment to collective learning.”
