Opinions Good Thinking News from the front: A visit to a whine bar
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Good Thinking
By John Canfield
Management Consultant
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Some months ago I was benchmarking a glass of red wine with a chicken sandwich while reading a newspaper at the wine/sandwich bistro at the Detroit airport. The spot as snug as it is has its tables for two or four quite close together, so it’s all too easy to hear what’s going on at the other tables. To my left was a pair talking plenty loud for me to hear, and even hard to not hear, talking at length about a particular meeting sequence that had occurred over the past few months and by all accounts had not and was not going well. “Such a waste of time,” “Hardly anyone’s prepared,” “Does Bob have any idea what we’re thinking?” and you can imagine the rest.
If this had been a manufacturing environment, say a cafeteria table off the manufacturing floor, the conversation might instead sound like “Such a waste of time,” “No one knows what they’re doing,” “Wrong product in the wrong box,” “Do we have any idea what the customer really wants?”
To review from previous articles, I’m encouraging you to think of a meeting, the most frequently cycled business process in the world, as a decision-making factory.
Continuous improvement initiatives have taught us to look for and eliminate waste. No defects and no whining.
So back to the bistro … all these complaints were just running all over my lunch. As they prepared to leave, being a pleasant, amiable sort of person and consultant hearing a possible opportunity, I just had to say something.
“Sounds like your meetings aren’t going very well?”
“You can say that again!”
Chat, chat … then I respond, “Has your organization implemented any continuous improvement teams?”
“Oh, we’re all over that stuff…” And off they rushed. Not even a chance to exchange business cards. I’ve just got to improve my process…
I just sat there for a few minutes thinking about the phrase they left with: “Oh, we’re all over that stuff…” I’m hearing a possible double meaning: 1) We’re done with the CI stuff — been there, done that, or 2) we’re doing all sorts of CI stuff, all over like hair on a bear.
In either case I couldn’t help but think of a great Schell’s Beer ad/phrase, asked of an astute Schell’s drinker what he/she had to share with the universe as they enjoyed their brew, “Things have never been more as they are than right now.”
So in either case there seemed to be some active denial going on. In the first, if they were done with CI, their meetings, and all their processes should be smooth, profitable and generate little/no angst. In the second, if they were active with their CI efforts, that their meetings stunk suggests they are focusing on some of the processes, but not on the mother lode — how they conduct their decision-making, how they conduct their meetings.
Things are the way they are because they got that way. Whether it’s defective product or defective meetings, the results are the consequence of poorly constructed and managed processes. In many companies’ CI efforts, many are seeing some results, but many are seeing too little results for the effort. In many companies many are putting up with awful meetings … sort of like how companies used to put up with bad products on the loading docks.
Please lead your organization to raise the bar — don’t put up with this stuff. You have the capacity to improve all your processes. Meetings included. Do you have the interest? Can you afford not to?
Patrick Lencioni, author of Death by Meeting, and master of seeing the important kernel of truth in organizations, shares:
“Meetings are a puzzling paradox. On one hand, they are critical. Meetings are the activity at the center of every organization. On the other hand, they are painful. Frustratingly long and seemingly pointless.
“The good news is that there is nothing inherent about meetings that makes them bad, and so it is entirely possible to transform them into compelling, productive and fun activities. The bad news is that in order to do this, we will have to fundamentally rethink much of the way we perceive and manage meetings.”
Just as you have learned not to put up with bad products or services, don’t put up with bad meetings. Use what you know about process improvement on meetings and enjoy the many benefits Lencioni writes about.
I encourage you to visit www.youtube.com/canfieldgoodthinking and see Exercise-Better Meetings, a meeting process kaizen methodology.
You may also enjoy comparing leadership styles of supervisors running meetings in Think or Sink - A Parable of Collaboration, available at amazon.com.