Death by Meeting

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.