Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done
Strong deadlines force parties to resolve the hard decisions necessary for progress.
Al Pittampalli • Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done
If you don’t receive an action plan from the meeting I invited you to attend, you have every right not to attend my next one.
Al Pittampalli • Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done
Our organization is in desperate need of innovative ideas, gutsy ones, the kinds that are essential in our new hypercompetitive marketplace. But we can’t forget: Ideas don’t bring their own commitment or perseverance; only humans do that.
Al Pittampalli • Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done
The agenda should clearly state the problem, the alternatives, and the decision. It should outline exactly the sort of feedback requested, and it should end with a statement of what this meeting will deliver if it’s successful. Anything that’s not on the agenda doesn’t belong in the meeting.
Al Pittampalli • Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done
Culture change occurs when a transformational idea spreads to enough people that a massive paradigm shift occurs. Like a virus that makes its way from person to person, spreading exponentially faster, so can the Modern Meeting, until so many people adopt it that a new meeting culture emerges.
Al Pittampalli • Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done
After the meeting, the leader should make sure participants are doing what they agreed to do, when they agreed to do it. Hold them accountable. If you don’t, who will?
Al Pittampalli • Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done
Decisions have always been what move us to act. They precede all change. They define our organization. Brave decisions lead to a brave organization; fearful decisions lead to a fearful one. So the opportunity is this: We must structure the Modern Meeting so that bold decisions happen often and quickly, and those decisions are converted into movemen
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HOW DO I INITIATE A MEETING? Have you first determined that your meeting is necessary? OK, make a list of the people you want to invite. Then cross off everyone except those members who are absolutely critical to the meeting’s purpose. It’s not about sparing feelings; it’s about moving forward. Create a detailed agenda and then ask yourself one mor
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For high-consequence decisions, the Modern Meeting’s primary function is conflict. Have the group debate the issue. Make sure there is sufficient disagreement. Strive for consensus, but ultimately if no consensus can be reached, you must make the decision yourself. Let the best decision prevail.