Framework for effective meetings

In Death by Meeting, the author provides insight into the importance of effective meetings for organizational performance, confidence of the workforce in the management team, and overall morale. Consistent with his other works, Lencioni uses a narrative to convey his insights. Throughout the story, the character that is doing the difficult thinking and research on meetings, Will, uses his inter-disciplinary background to identify four different types of meetings that should be held and what type of activities should occur at each. The four types of meetings are:

1. The daily check-in – a daily huddle to know activities and objectives of team members for the day
2. The weekly tactical meeting – consists of three parts: (1) a lightning round of weekly priorities; (2) a progress review to see status of pre-determined key metrics; and (3) the real-time agenda that comes out of information learned in the previous two parts of the meeting.
3. The monthly strategic meeting – significant time should be allocated to examining and planning the strategic future of the organization. Prior to these meetings, the agenda should be set so that all participants can research and prepare to contribute to the meeting discussion(s).
4. The quarterly off-site review – this meeting should be devoted to reviewing the complete strategic plan as well as teams, personnel, and the industry.

Lencioni, through the narrative, makes the case that regularly conducting this assortment of meetings serves to improve shared understanding of objectives and work relationships while minimizing poor use of time. He concludes the book:

It is at once shocking and understandable that intelligent people cannot see the correlation between failing to take the time to get clarity, closure, and buy-in during a meeting, and the time required to clean up after themselves.

This book will be helpful for novice and experienced managers, executives,  MBA students, and anyone else who conducts or will conduct meetings. It is both an interesting and beneficial read.

 Overall rating: 8 of 10

 
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