I chair and attend a lot of meetings.
I attend a monthly meeting which is a huge frustration. We have an agenda, which I would rate at 25 minutes, which month after month takes over two hours.
The new leader, at his first meeting said, “I’ve never seen anything like this!” After a few months he’s been beaten into puzzled acceptance.
I got a new glimmer this week while doing some other work. If I look at the aggregate value for all the participants (even as they are decreasing), there is a big number missing. Then I figured out what it was.
If we figure in the value for “How do I look when I am saying this?” I can better see the total rewards, and they are exceptional.
What is the cost of “How do I look?” in your meetings?
Get More Value From Your Blog! Join us at BlogLab - Improve Your Blogs! Thursday December 8, 8:30 am - 1 pm. Learn more at http://bit.ly/WMRBlogLab
Posts
This is a great insight. The question then becomes not how do you decrease the value of "How I look" but change the value of "how do we accomplish the goals of this meeting efficiently."
ReplyDeleteCarol, b’lieve the phrase is, “From your lips to God’s ears!”
ReplyDeleteHowever, just defining and publicizing the problem should clean some of it up.
...and thank you for commenting!