Meetings

Weekly team meetings

• "What are the one or two most important things I can do this week that will have the biggest impact on the scoreboard?"
  • People are more likely to commit to their own ideas than to orders from above. When individuals commit to their fellow team members, not only to the boss, the commitment goes beyond professional job performance to become a personal promise.

The principle of independent judgments (and decorrelated errors)

Before an issue is discussed, all members of the committee should be asked to write a very brief summary of their position. This procedure makes good use of the value of the diversity of knowledge and opinion in the group. The standard practice of open discussion gives too much weight to the opinions of those who speak early and assertively, causing others to line up behind them.

Tell yourself this before having meetings

You have ideas. good ideas. You decide things for a reason (most of the time). If someone questions why you did something, or expresses distaste for a decision you've made, pause, ask yourself "did I make this decision for a reason, or did it just happen to be that way." This is important, because it will allow you to defend your position, based on your authentic convictions. Stick to your guns, defend your reasoning, and if consenses is staunchly against you, respectfully concede.

Have a written meeting, before your face-to-face one

Are you going to discuss something with colleagues? Pretend the meeting isn’t happening and that you need to communicate your plans entirely via email. Draft up an email with your thoughts.

It doesn’t matter whether you send the email or not. Having thought through your ideas clearly, you’ll be able to communicate them intelligently when the meeting comes.

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Never have a meeting without an agenda