Introduction: Read This Before Our Next Meeting
Read This Before Our Next Meeting
While I was in my degree program at Haskayne School of Business, the University of Calgary, we had to watch a film, Meetings, Bloody Meetings, starring John Cleese, and that stuck with me. I was reminded of that film as I read, Read This Before Our Next Meeting
by Al Pittampalli.
However, meetings are vital to ensure that critical decisions get made in organizations, and teams are working effectively on complex projects. Therefore, the word meeting should be reserved for decision-making. There should be no meetings to dispense information; instead, the organization should create a culture where its people read memos. There should be no working meetings, however, teams that need to work together, should do exactly that.
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A meeting is not for conversations. And when you have a meeting, only those who really need to be there should attend.Read This Before Our Next Meeting is one of the books in Seth Godin’s Domino Project, that I received for free, and finally got around to reading it – sure glad I did. It can be read in an hour, and it’s a little book packed with a lot of punch because it gives you a lot to think about. And if you take it to heart, you will literally not look at meetings the same way again. The author suggests that we should redefine our definition of a meeting because there are too many meetings, and most of them are bad.
Although brainstorming is important to create many options for decision-making, you do not call a meeting for it. Instead, you have a brainstorming session where people free themselves to let their minds roam, leading to breakthrough thinking.
Pittampalli offers ten ground rules for brainstorming. I particularly like ground rule number seven – “Let’s have a clear focus. Make sure the brainstorm is free, but not a free-for-all. The ideas should be targeted in the direction of the problem at hand. Create a problem statement and make sure people are on task.” And I would add that to create a clear problem statement you have to know the difference between cause and effect to get to the root of the problem.
The thinking behind the book is that with fewer meetings, people have more uninterrupted blocks of time to do important work that will make a difference to the organization, causing a much bigger impact. More serious work is what propels an organization forward. For the modern meeting to work effectively, the author offers seven principles.
Read This Before Our Next Meeting: Seven Principles of the Modern Meeting
- Supports a decision that has already been made
- Moves fast and ends on schedule
- Limits the number of attendees
- Rejects the unprepared
- Produces committed action plans
- Refuses to be informational. Reading memos is mandatory
- Works only alongside a culture of brainstorming
What the seven principles translate to, is that the decision-maker who calls the meeting has to actually make a decision before the meeting, but be ready to discuss it. If she needs input before the meeting, she calls the appropriate people and gets the information she needs. If she needs buy-in because her decision is controversial, she does that before the meeting takes place by way of one-to-one conversations. At the meeting, she is prepared for a discussion and ready to make changes if necessary, and for a final resolution.
Before the meeting she spends a considerable amount of time thinking about the agenda before creating it. And the agenda created includes what will be covered. Attendees must know before hand what is expected from them, and each meeting should conclude with committed action plans, where each attendee knows what the next steps are – what actions they need to take and when. If the agenda is well thought out, the meeting will move quickly and end on time. This will occur only if the people who really need to be there are present. And all attendees must prepare before the meeting, reading all the memos and related documents.
For those who are not prepared they are not allowed to participate, and could be asked to leave. Meetings start on time, even if all attendees are not present. The modern style of meeting forces people to take action and be accountable. People will have to find the balance between gathering information and making decisions. When people face deadlines, they make decisions faster, even the most difficult ones.
To make sure that the right people attend each meeting, each member should ask themselves four questions:
- Will I be able to function if I read about it after it’s over?
- If I’m given the decision we’re discussing in advance, can I give you my opinion in advance?
- Will I add value without participating?
- Am I attending symbolically, or as a way to demonstrate my power?
Final Thoughts: Read This Before Our Next Meeting
I really appreciated Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli, and I recommend it because if more people practiced the modern way of meetings, it would revolutionize the way we approach our work and more would get done in less time.
Read This Before Our Next MeetingPersuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the WorldAl Pittampalli on the Modern Meeting
