"Earlier this week, while sitting in a meeting, my mind wandered to a book I read recently. The title was Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni.
Now why would I think about this particular book during a meeting? It is because meetings, as Lencioni tells us, are "the most painful problem in business."
All of us have suffered through such meetings - the kind that accomplishes nothing, when people come in late and appear totally disengaged. Often, the meetings end with everyone involved feeling drained and exhausted, not to mention frustrated.
Lencioni, author of the best-selling The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, tells us that such meetings often indicate a huge gap between potential and actual performance. He goes beyond the obvious and examines both the process of a meeting and the dynamics of the individuals involved. For anyone who conducts or attends meetings (almost everyone), it is a must-read.
This is a fable book, the type made popular by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson's The One Minute Manager, Steve Lundin's Fish and Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese? Like the other books in this genre, it is a quick and easy read.
The story involves the fictional Casey McDaniel, CEO of the YAP! Software Company. True to context in the current business world of "merge and purge," Casey has agreed to merge his company with a larger software group called Playsoft.
When J.T. Harrison, a VP at Playsoft who is now in charge of the newly merged division of Casey's former company, comes for a meeting, he is less than impressed. He follows up the meeting with an e-mail to Casey that threatens, "I am having doubts about your ability to run your division."
Casey's ace in the hole turns up to be his new assistant, Will Petersen. Petersen, with his background in college theatre (liberal arts majors, take note!) takes on the task of redesigning and directing the meetings at Yap! His solution to solving the meeting crises is simple but thorough.
At the next meeting, Will polls the group as to whether they would prefer to be at a movie or a meeting. (You can take this poll at your office and probably get the same response.) He then explains, "Meetings are inherently more interesting, more entertaining than movies."
A movie is a passive activity, while a meeting is completely interactive, Will says. Meetings should be a relevant activity; dictating how time and energy are spent after everyone leaves the room. Like movies, meetings should have conflict and drama.
A good meeting leader should "mine" for conflict. Meetings should be crucial conversations where the leader looks "for places where people have different opinions but aren't necessarily putting them out there." While the leader may ultimately need to make a decision on his or her own, the well-mined meeting allows for "buy-in" of everyone involved.
Through Will, Lencioni proposed four types of meetings:
The Daily Check In: This is similar to the Daily News. It lasts five minutes standing up, and helps to set priorities.
The Weekly Tactical: Like a sitcom or drama, this meeting should happen at the same place and time every week. Among its purposes are to keep everyone on the same page. Everyone should attend.
The Monthly Strategic: This is the most interesting, important and fun type of meeting, according to the author. It should last two hours and should be filled with drama.
The Quarterly Off-Site Review: This is the mini-series of meetings. It can last six hours and should be used to reflect on and discuss the state of the organization.
The fable draws to a close with Will saving the day (which may prove that assistants with liberal arts degrees may be among the most valuable in any organization). After reading the story, you may think Will should run the company.
With the fable finished, Lencioni gives us a summary of the book's ideas and practices in a final section simply entitled "The Model." In this bare-bones review, he reiterates his premise that meetings should be time savers. Good meetings "provide opportunities to improve execution by accelerating decision making and eliminating the need to revisit issues again and again." They improve communication and reduce unnecessarily repetitive motion, a deterrent to productivity.
Read this book. Next time you're in a dull meeting, pull out your copy. You're sure to get a few smiles and a chuckle or two. Discuss it with the leader of the meeting. Perhaps it can be the perfect start to revive your meetings from throes of death.
"