Every big company has a culture of meeting: anything needs a meeting. Many books get my attention in the Domino Project of Seth Godin, but I recently read one of them that talk about meetings: Read this before our next meetingWith only 80 pages, this book is a quick read. We have too many meetings, and we have too many bad meetings, so Al Pittampalli introduced us to what he calls a modern meeting. He explains us that meeting is too expensive and disruptive to justify using them for the most common types of communication, like making announcements, clarifying issues, or even gathering intelligence. Interruptions force us to start over each time, and meetings are interruptions. He even said that like war, meetings are a last resort. Even if I don’t agree with the comparison with war, I can agree with the big picture.
I highly recommend that you read it if you found you have too many meetings. Most of what is written in the book are common sense, but I really like the idea of modern meeting. Unlike of what we think, we either meet or work. We can’t do both at the same time…
Without giving you too much information about the book, let’s just say that we tend to use meeting to avoid taking a decision. Next time you want to schedule a meeting, why not use the modern meeting guide flowchart to help you:
Did you read the book? Are you stuck in a culture of too many meetings? Share your thoughts.
