Fast Company: The small-group principle is deeply woven into the religion of simplicity. It’s key to Apple’s ongoing success and key to any organization that wants to nurture quality thinking. The idea is pretty basic: Everyone in the room should be there for a reason. There’s no such thing as a “mercy invitation.” Either you’re critical to the meeting or you’re not. It’s nothing personal, just business.
Friday, April 27, 2012
The Key To A Great Meeting Is Kicking Some People Out Of It
Fast Company: The small-group principle is deeply woven into the religion of simplicity. It’s key to Apple’s ongoing success and key to any organization that wants to nurture quality thinking. The idea is pretty basic: Everyone in the room should be there for a reason. There’s no such thing as a “mercy invitation.” Either you’re critical to the meeting or you’re not. It’s nothing personal, just business.
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4 comments:
I agree with a lot of what's being said here. It seems to me that in a lot of our own production meetings there are just more people there than need to be there. Certainly they serve as a good time to check-in, but unless big interdepartmental items are on the agenda that week, I don't see why some people shouldn't be allowed to skip out. To be fair, since we are an educational institution, it is good experience to be in those meetings and see how they are run, but I also think that it makes those who are actually involved feel more nervous and less productive to have all these people staring down at them, including faculty members. Small groups tend to get things done, as this article shows, and if canceling meetings isn't a viable option (which it might not be here), maybe we can at least thin them down to essential personnel, not everyone and their assistant, advisor, and cousin.
This is one of the things David Boevers talks about during Basic PTM; the idea that only the people who are really needed at a meeting should be there, because rule number one is to not waste people's time. It makes me wonder when people decided that throwing brains at a problem would make it go away, rather than standing back and letting the people who are qualified and know what they're doing fix the problem.
Our last Basic PTM class was about meetings and how to have efficient, effective, and good ones. With the golden rule "Don't waste people's time", keeping unneeded people out definitely ties into that idea. Those people could be back at their departments working to progress whatever project their working on rather than sitting quietly in a meeting room. Also, it leaves more breathing room for the people the meeting topics do concern, and allows for quicker, more effective communication between the people that need to be involved and making decisions.
One statement that bothered me is that if someone takes control of a situation they are considered a cold hearted control freak. I think that there are many times where there are far too many cooks in the kitchen and some meetings are held to give some of the higher ups the illusion that they are in direct control. It should come down to trust. The best production experiences that I have had have had minimal meetings because there is a bond between director and department heads that is based on trusting that people are good at their job and will accomplish all that they need to in order to pull off the show. Also the segregation of the crews and inflexible boundaries that we put up so that the political power dynamic does not shift are nothing but built in inefficiencies. The big thing is you need to work in a place where the system is matched to the personnel and fosters a true collaborative process based on trust and respect.
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