CREATE YOUR OWN PIE CHART:

What percentage of meetings you’ve attended in the last 30 days were:

• highly productive
• productive
• unproductive
• a waste of time

A discouraging number of our friends spend (sing along if you know the words): "so much time in meetings they never get anything done." This makes us wonder somtimes about the usefulness of meetings as a concept.

Tom Peters Company facilitator John O’Leary deconstructs the problem:

It seems to me that the currency of work is conversation—in person, telephonic, electronic—and we’re all trying to manage this conversation. Meetings are an attempt at a structured form of live conversation. If so, how they’re set up and conducted can make all the difference. And given the resources tied up in meetings, they should produce results.

• Are you going to the right sort of meetings?
• How do you know?
• If you could design the ideal set of meeting guidelines, what would be in them?
• Without going overboard, how would you apply the wisdom of Ecceliastes 6:11 to your meetings: "The more the words, the less the meaning."