DEATH BY MEETING
Would your staff rather walk through fire than come to your weekly staff meetings? Do your meetings leave everyone feeling dissatisfied or worse… disgruntled? Does your staff talk more “about” your meetings afterwards by whispering in the hallway, than they do “in” the meeting itself?
Meetings are such a critical element of effective organizational communication. I’ve just completed a great book; entitled
Death By Meeting, by Patrick Lencioni.
This book; written in classic Lencioni form, takes you through a fable about a leading video game corporation that aquires its smaller counterpart competitor with a sports-centered niche in the marketplace. This aquisition leaves the CEO from the smaller company desperately reevaluating his approach to staff meetings after coming under heavy scrutiny from his newly found CFO.
Anyway, I’ll let you discover the story for yourself, but I thought I’d leave you with this highly condensed summary that highlights Lencioni’s formula and regiment for healthy, productive, stimulating meetings that actually inspire, rejuvenate and add value to your business or organization. Enjoy.
MEETING #1 – THE DAILY CHECK-IN: The daily check-in requires that team members get together, standing up, for about 5 minutes every morning to report on their activities for that day. It’s a great way to keep everyone in the loop with what’s going on.
MEETING #2 – THE WEEKLY TACTICAL: This tactical meeting should last 45 to 90 minutes. There are two crucial goals: (1.) Resolution of issues, and (2.) Reinforcement of clarity.
MEETING #3 – THE MONTHLY STRATEGIC: The length of a monthly strategic meeting will vary depending on the topic(s). However, it’s advisable to schedule at least two hours per topic. This will give everyone the confidence to table critical issues knowing they will be addressed… and more importantly, that a plan to resolve them will be discussed.
MEETING #4 – THE QUARTERLY OFF-SITE REVIEW: Effective off-sites provide executives an opportunity to regularly step away from the daily, weekly, even monthly issues that occupy their attention so they can review their business in a more holistic, long-term focus and approach.