{"id":637,"date":"2011-01-22T19:23:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T19:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=637"},"modified":"2011-01-22T19:23:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T19:23:01","slug":"have-we-sentenced-ourselves-to-death-by-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=637","title":{"rendered":"Sentenced to Death-by-Meeting!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Do you ever\u00a0feel a sense of dread when you are summoned to an urgent meeting; or\u00a0when you get the minutes and agenda the day before\u00a0your\u00a0monthly team meeting; or\u00a0when you see\u00a0your diary full of meetings for weeks in advance – like a\u00a0slow\u00a0and\u00a0painful punishment?<\/p>\n

If so then you may have\u00a0unwittingly sentenced yourself to Death by Meeting.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 We\u00a0do it to ourselves? No way! That would be madness!<\/p>\n

But think about it.\u00a0We consciously and deliberately ingest all sorts of other toxins: chemicals\u00a0like\u00a0caffeine, alcohol and cigarette smoke –\u00a0so what is so different about immersing ourselves in the emotional\u00a0toxic waste that many\u00a0meetings\u00a0seem\u00a0to generate?<\/p>\n

Perhaps\u00a0we have learned\u00a0to believe that there is no other way and because we have never experienced focussed, fun, and effective\u00a0meetings where\u00a0problems are surfaced, shared\u00a0and solved quickly –\u00a0problems that\u00a0thwart us as individuals. Meetings where the problem-solving sum is greater than the problem-accumulating parts.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0meeting\u00a0is a system that is\u00a0designed to solve\u00a0\u00a0problems.\u00a0 We can improve our system\u00a0incrementally but it is a slow process;\u00a0to achieve\u00a0a breakthrough we need to radically redesign\u00a0the system.\u00a0 There are three steps to doing this:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0First decide what\u00a0sort of problems the meeting\u00a0is required\u00a0to solve:\u00a0strategic, operational or tactical;
\n2. Second design, test and practice a problem solving process for each category of problem; and
\n3. Third,\u00a0select the appropriate\u00a0tool for the task.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0his illuminating book Death by Meeting<\/em>, Patrick Lencioni describes three meeting designs\u00a0and illustrates with a story\u00a0why\u00a0meetings don’t work if the wrong tool is used for the wrong task. It is a sobering story.<\/p>\n

There is another dimension to the design of meetings; that is how we solve problems as\u00a0groups – and how,\u00a0as a group, we seem to waste a lot of effort and time in unproductive discussion.\u00a0\u00a0In his book Six Thinking Hats<\/em> Edward\u00a0De Bono\u00a0provides an explanation for\u00a0our habitual behaviour and a\u00a0design\u00a0for a radically different group problem solving process – one that\u00a0a group would not arrive at by evolution – but one that has been proven to work.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0\u00a0we feel sentenced to death-by-meetings then\u00a0we could\u00a0buy and read these two small books – a zero-risk, one-off investment of effort, time and money for a guaranteed regular\u00a0reward\u00a0of fun, free time and success!<\/p>\n

So if\u00a0I complain to myself\u00a0and others about pointless meetings and<\/strong> I have not\u00a0bothered to\u00a0do something about it myself then\u00a0I now know that it is I\u00a0who\u00a0sentenced myself to Death-by-Meeting. Unintentionally and unconsciously perhaps – but me nevertheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you ever\u00a0feel a sense of dread when you are summoned to an urgent meeting; or\u00a0when you get the minutes and agenda the day before\u00a0your\u00a0monthly team meeting; or\u00a0when you see\u00a0your diary full of meetings for weeks in advance – like a\u00a0slow\u00a0and\u00a0painful punishment? If so then you may have\u00a0unwittingly sentenced yourself to Death by Meeting.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Sentenced to Death-by-Meeting!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,34,35,42,43,45,46],"tags":[71,155,166,176,181],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-questions","category-reflections","category-how","category-why","category-what","category-teach","tag-communication","tag-leadership","tag-meetings","tag-misery","tag-motivation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}