3 Sentence Summary
In his signature business fable style, Lencioni challenges why we hate going to meetings. This book gives us a framework for thinking about how to make meetings entertaining, meaningful, and effective. Packed with practical advice and examples, Death by Meeting will help you improve your meeting structure, participation, and results.
Death by Meeting Summary
Upward of 30% of our time at work is spent in meetings. That’s a significant chunk of time, but it shouldn’t be too alarming.
After all, meetings are vitally important to the success of any organization. Presidents and their cabinet members decide whether or not to go to war in meetings. CEOs and their board of directors choose whether to expand into new markets or shut down a regional branch in meetings. Meetings are the lifeblood of every organization.
Yet the paradox of meetings is that we generally don’t like them. In fact, some of us despise them.
This begs the question: How is it possible that the majority of us have a pernicious attitude towards an activity that we do more often than any other, and one that is absolutely critical to the success of our business?
The reason business meetings have received a lackluster reputation isn’t hard to figure out. Bad meetings are painful. They are boring. Too many lack focus, and often end without meaningful resolution.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In Death by Meeting, author Patrick Lencioni gives us a reason to hope that we can change the bad meeting culture. Starting with the attitudes and approaches of the people who lead and take part in meetings, we can turn the boring into exciting, the unfocused into alignment, and pain into enjoyment.
The Problem with Meetings
There are two major problems with most meetings. And I’m guessing neither will come as a surprise to you.
1. Meetings are BORING
How many meetings have left you feeling energized this week? Let’s face it. Too many meetings are just plain boring. They’re tedious and uninspired.
The leader is too focused on agendas and ending on time to notice a lack of engagement.
2. Meetings are INEFFECTIVE
The worst part of participating in a mind numbing meeting is the lack of a commensurate return. This contempt festers when we invest time and energy into an activity that drives insufficient clarity or resolution.
The Solution? Make it Engaging
1. Allow for Drama
We can sit at attention silently for hours in a dark theater, but somehow can’t make it through a 30 minute project status meeting without checking our email. What’s the key difference? Drama.
Drama is the driving engine of every movie. Over the years, screenwriters have mastered the art of conflict to draw you in and keep you entertained.
So how do we incorporate drama in our meetings?
The Hook
The hook is the first key to injecting drama into a meeting. As the leader of the meeting, it behooves you to ensure that you set up the meeting within the first 10 minutes such that your team understands and appreciates what is at stake.
You may need to illustrate the consequences of a bad decision, highlight a competitive threat, appeal to the meeting participants’ commitment to a larger mission, or remind them of the impact their decision has on their clients, employees, or society at large.
Consider the following example of a leader kicking off a meeting about controlling expenses.
A typical meeting opener:
“Alright, people, we are 12 percent over budget, and from what I can tell, we’re spending way too much money on travel. Going forward, we need to have better controls and monitoring so we can meet the corporate guidelines laid out in the budget…”
Now, a more dramatic meeting opener with a hook:
“Okay, everyone, we’re here to talk about cutting expenses, which doesn’t sound like much fun. But consider that there are plenty of people out there who have a vested interest in the way we spend our money. Our competitors are hoping we throw our money round carelessly. And they’re certainly looking for ways to reduce their own unnecessary expenses. Our customers don’t want to have to pay higher prices for our products to cover our lack of discipline. Our families would rather see more money in our paychecks than in our travel and entertainment budget. So let’s dive into this issue with a sense of urgency and focus, because I certainly want to make sure that we’re using the resources in the way our investors and shareholders intended.”
You don’t need to be an orator like Winston Churchill. But give your audience a reason to care.
Mine for Conflict
An intelligent group of diverse people will seldom agree on issues that matter. It’s natural and productive for disagreement to unfold. Working to resolve those differences and compromise on a unique solution is interesting, productive, and fun.
When you avoid these disagreements and stifle debate, you bury resentment and frustration that will fester and manifest itself in other forms on unproductive personal conflict, or politics. Not to mention, you have deprived your team to actively engage in the meeting and work towards a better solution.
As a leader, you must have the courage to mine for conflict. You have a responsibility to bring disagreements into the light, despite the uncomfortable situation it may create.
Give Real-Time Permission
Sometimes the group in attendance will be reluctant to challenge each other in active debate. One tactic you can use to mine for conflict in this situation is to give real time permission. At the start of the meeting, a leader may announce that the topic is expected to drive conflict, and that meeting members are encouraged to debate and challenge one another.
Acknowledging the discomfort associated with conflict, while still challenging the group with your expectation up front, is a great way to diffuse tension and set the meeting up for a healthy and engaging debate.
Prepare to be Effective
Providing Context with Structure
Like too many incompatible ingredients will make a bad stew, so too will a meeting without contextual structure leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. One generic meeting format is a surefire recipe for ineffective meetings.
Without context, some team members will believe that the meeting should have been shorter and focused on tactical day-to-day issues, while others will be upset that the meeting didn’t allow enough time to have a thorough strategic discussion. You cannot satisfy both at the same time. We must be disciplined to structure our meetings with purpose to cater towards a specific business need.
There are four different types of meetings in your arsenal. Each serve a valid and important function.
1. The Daily Check-In
The daily check-in is a 5 minute standing meeting where the team gets together in the morning to clarify the actions they intend to take that day. It provides a forum for ensuring nothing falls through the cracks and the team is informed and aligned to what everyone else is doing. You will be amazed by how just 5 minutes in the morning will drastically reduce the amount of superfluous email between team members sent throughout the day.
The rules for the Daily Check-In are simple. 5 minutes. Standing. Everyday. You conduct the Daily Check-In even if not all team members are available.
2. The Weekly Tactical
The Weekly Tactical is analogous to a weekly staff meeting, but the focus is more disciplined. The Weekly Tactical is focused exclusively on tactical issues of immediate concern.
The rules for the Weekly Tactical is as follows: Everyone always attends. It is facilitated with a sense of discipline and structural consistency.
There are a few structural elements that should be included:
Lightning Round: A quick, around-the-table reporting session in which everyone communicates their two or three priorities of the week. Each person is given 60 seconds. The Lightning Round makes it easy for the team to identify potential redundancies, gaps, or other issues that require immediate attention.
Progress Review: Next, the group should routinely review the reports on critical business information or metrics. This should take no longer than five minutes. It gives the group a clear picture of the state of the business, but lengthy discussions on underlying issues should be avoided here.
Real-Time Agenda: The agenda for a Weekly Tactical should NOT be set before the meeting, but only after the lightning round and progress review have taken place. This makes sense because the agenda should be based on what everyone is actually working on and how the company is performing against its goals, not based on the leader’s best guess forty-eight hours prior to the meeting.
Creating the agenda spontaneously will be easy. After the lightning round and Progress Review, the tactical issues – those that must be addressed to ensure short-term objectives are accomplished – will become immediately visible.
The Weekly Tactical has two overriding goals: resolution of issues and reinforcement of clarity. You must have the discipline to avoid discussion about long-term strategic issues.
Why? Because there isn’t enough time during the 1-2 hour Weekly Tactical meeting to flesh out all of the brainstorming, analysis and preparation that is required to gain alignment on long term strategic decisions. You also want to avoid the temptation to inappropriately reconsider strategic decisions amidst an inevitable tactical obstacle.
The leader must keep the team focused on specific, short term topics, and tactical problem solving. The issues that are more strategic in nature are noted and discussed at the Monthly Strategic.
3. The Monthly Strategic
The Monthly Strategic is arguably the most important, fun, and interesting type of meeting. It’s where the executive team grapples with complex and critical issues that will fundamentally influence the direction of the business.
The length of the Monthly Strategic will vary depending on the topics addressed. But rule of thumb says that it will require at least two hours, and should not cover more than two topics.
This type of meeting requires a prepared agenda, and upfront research or preparation by the team members. It is imperative that the leader mines for conflict in these meetings and that the team engages in constructive debate as they work to arrive at the best solution.
Monthly Strategic meetings should occur at least once a month, but impromptu strategic meetings may be scheduled more frequently. The key is to differentiate these meetings from the Weekly Tactical, and to schedule enough time for adequate preparation and unfiltered, productive ideological debate during the meeting.
The Quarterly Offsite Review
An effective Quarterly Offsite Review is an opportunity for executives to step away from the immediate issues that normally command their attention, and free them to review the business in a more holistic, long-term perspective.
In these offsite meetings the team may review their strategic direction in light of their competition or industry trends. They may evaluate the strength of their own team, or the strength of their organization with a personnel review.
The key to an effective Quarterly Offsite Review is to keep the destination simple, and the meeting structure to a minimum. The purpose of the venue is to remove distraction and interruptions, not to entertain. The purpose of the meeting is to reflect on and discuss the state of the organization, not to provide executives with presentations and white papers.
Conclusion
Meetings are the nexus of all business decisions and activity. We need to remember that meetings are human. They require a personal touch. Rigid rules and agendas will never solve our meeting dilemma. Leaning out the process by eliminating the number of meetings we have won’t help either. Reducing the amount of face to face communication only guarantees more confusion and lack of clarity.
It’s with the help of drama and context that leaders stand to reclaim a productive meeting culture.
The goal of every meeting is to get alignment or clarification. Each time we fail in this mission, we set in motion a colossal wave of human activity. It begins with the executives and transfers across the organization as direct reports scramble to figure out what everyone else is doing and why.
If we aim to become better as an organization, it is our duty as leaders to take the time to understand and master the tactics and skills required to improve the meeting culture.
The next time it’s your turn to host a meeting, ask a friend to give you feedback. Work on your ability to conduct a great meeting just like you would public speaking or your putting stroke. Strive to make every meeting meaningful and better than the last.
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