Meetings – A paradox 

Meetings are critical to keeping an organization on track – the forum for gathering information, resolving conflicts, developing strategies, setting plans, and keeping the various people and parts of an organization moving forward in a synchronized, productive pattern.

 On the other hand meetings can be painful, frustrating, boring, and seemingly a waste of time – a real dread for all involved.

 In his book Death by Meeting, Patrick Lencioni outlines four levels of meetings:
1.    The 5-minute, standup Daily Check-In Meeting intended to share daily schedules and activities, balance resources, and to keep reinforcing company values. This is usually kept at a departmental level.
2.    The 60 minute Weekly Tactical Meeting to review weekly activities and metrics, discover obstacle and issues limiting success, and recognize and celebrate successes.
3.    The 2 – 4 hour monthly Strategic Meeting used to discuss, analyze, brainstorm. And decide on critical issues affecting long-term success.
4.    The 1 – 2 day off-site semi-annual Strategic Planning meeting used to review markets, competitive landscape, industry trends, key personnel and team developments, and overall leadership effectiveness.
      Great meetings are vital to ensuring that an organization achieves results but they don’t happen accidentally. It is imperative that organizations develop the ability to make the first three types of meetings effective, productive and fun.
Ray Zentis can help in two ways. He can:
  •       extract you from painful meeting syndrome by coaching internal managers and leaders on how to conduct effective, interesting meetings. Preparing and conducting successful meetings is a deliberate, learned skill. It does not happen by chance and does not need to be learned by trial and failure, failure, failure.
  •       facilitate the semi-annual off-site strategic meetings that are so vital to the overall direction of an organization. The use of a professional meeting facilitator is important to keep internal managers, especially senior executives, from stifling the free flow of ideas and/or steering outcomes toward outcomes toward preconceived ideas and hidden agendas.
Ray has successfully conducted hundreds of these level 4 meetings.