| > It seems to imply that those two people are magically going to agree to something before the meeting it's not magic, it entails preparation, but if you are holding meetings and you don't have the principal attendees at the meetings in agreement before the group gathers, you're going to have highly unproductive meetings and you'll encourage civil wars to break out. Meetings work best when they present a solution to a problem, and get "buy in" from the attendees who each present to the group what they will be doing to advance toward the agreed upon goals. The executive or manager who is calling the meeting achieves this by visiting each participant in the upcoming meeting in advance and asking, "here's what we are going to talk about at the meeting, what are you going to say on this topic?" and revisiting with "here is what so-and-so is going to say, how does that affect your team, what do you need to do to prepare?" etc. People find it much easier to agree to group goals one-on-one and very much appreciate being given time in advance to prepare their plans and statements of purpose and not be caught off-guard. Other participants in meetings benefit from hearing the harmony of purpose at the meeting and they in turn step forward to announce how they will help. Think of it like a football huddle where plans are announced and agreed to; people aren't going into the huddle looking to argue, they're looking for agreement. And yes, I realize that many of you have not experienced meetings organized this way, and that's why I wrote it up, it was incredibly refreshing when I first got to experience a company run this way. |