Meetings: A Practice Field for Great Performance

Almost everyone complains of wasting time in meetings. And as the evidence in The Wisdom of Crowds demonstrates there is great potential in collective intelligence. Yet without the right structures and social dynamics, meetings produce negative synergy.

Well-executed meetings on the other hand can produce huge positive synergy provided participants:

Have a suitable range of expertise and perspectives,
Actively explore and integrate their content,
Show respect for one another
Bring out the best in each other.

To maximize meeting success, ensure:

The meeting is necessary
The proper pre-work is done
The right people are in the room (or online),
The right information is available
The team fully engages with the content
Behavioral conflict is low
Decisions are made
Actions are taken
Learning happens.

Use your meetings to exercise self-leadership and have each participant assess their own performance: “Did I perform at my best; if not what one thing could I do to improve?” And have the team assess its performance: “Did we create positive synergy together; what one thing could we have done better?” With such discipline, meetings become highly effective and provide learning benefits well beyond the meeting itself. In essence, they become a practice field for Great Performance.

Posted by David Sherman