One of the topics I hear about frequently in my line of work
is meetings. When the discussion comes
up I encounter deep sighs, a roll of the eyes and pained facial expressions which
tell it all – a sense of dread. Meetings
don’t have to conjure up these negative feelings.
Al was my first boss when I reported to the Pentagon in late
1990. It was a busy place as the nation was
preparing for war in the Persian Gulf . Shortly after arriving, Al asked me to attend
a meeting to discuss deployment of Army units.
You may have a mental picture of the military meeting where the General
sits at the end of table and does a lot of talking. Far from it, she acted as a facilitator by
pointing out the meeting objective, encouraging everyone to participate and
challenge each other, to thoroughly air out concerns and she made sure the
meeting stayed on topic.
What happened as a result of this process? There was a lot
passion about the best course of action, conflict surfaced and many ideas were
shared. At then end of the meeting, the
General made decisions and assigned responsibilities for follow up. The meeting lasted three hours. It felt more like one hour. After the meeting I observed friendly
conversations between people who had a heated discussion just 15 minutes
earlier.
At the end of my debriefing with Al, I commented about the meeting
and how much conflict there was. He told
me the meeting was so effective, so purposeful because of the conflict and how
that it kept everyone engaged.
The idea that conflict is necessary to effective meetings is
foreign to many companies. Conflict is
viewed with apprehension given the concern for the tension which would be created
and the fear of ill will after the meeting.
Conflict doesn’t have to produce these results. Patrick Lencioni in his
book, ‘Death by Meeting’, talks about the need for conflict as a key requirement
to effective meetings and how to avoid the negatives associated with
disagreement.
Lencioni’s premise is that disagreements on what to do and
how to do things exist in companies.
These disagreements serve as obstacles to accomplishing objectives
unless they are surfaced and worked through.
Meetings serve as a way to identify, discuss and resolve the
conflict. The role of the boss in the
meeting is to get the disagreements on the table and get them aired out. The folks in attendance are expected to speak
candidly about the topic and to hear out other viewpoints. The ensuing discussions help keep everyone
involved and serve to gain a better understanding of differing opinions. Ultimately the boss makes the decision with
the full expectation that folks go out and implement the decision. Is this
process perfect? No, there may still be
some disagreement however the challenges presented by the disagreement are
reduced significantly.
‘Death by Meeting’ is an easy read and includes simple techniques
which can be readily adopted to make meetings effective. Changing meetings to be more effective takes
time but the effort will be well rewarded by the increase in effectiveness and
productivity. Your people will deeply
appreciate the results and could be swayed to look at meetings as really
helpful and rewarding. Sounds like a
pretty good investment.
