Meetings – Proctologists – and Shock Collars

Meetings are like working out, best when you’re done.

Meetings are like Sunday-night insomnia. The dread that you’ll be exhausted Monday keeps you awake.

Good meetings are useful but still feel like the sound of latex gloves in your proctologist’s office.

Bad meetings:

Bad meetings are better than good meetings because you can dream with your eyes open, pretend you are taking notes while answering email, and send a text to your friend across the room making fun of people who like meetings.

I know we need meetings, but I can’t seem to remember why. And that is the problem. The purpose of meetings is seldom clear enough to be declared in a sentence that means anything. State the purpose of your meeting at the beginning.

The purpose of weekly tactical meetings is to ensure the geese are in formation and flying in the right direction. I know it’s necessary, but I don’t like the sound of it.

The 4 things tactical meetings should accomplish:

#1. Accountability.

You aren’t meeting to inform. You are meeting to let people know the results you are accountable to achieve. Ask people to declare their priority this week. “You can count on me to ____________ this week. You can ask me about it anytime. Send me a text asking how it’s going. I will have this done before our next tactical meeting.”

One priority is best. Anyone with more than three priorities for a week will fail.

#2. Support.

What challenges are you facing this week? Who at the table might be able to help? When someone says, I think I can help with that, don’t let them explain the solution to everyone at the table. Send the geese offline. Brief explanations are all that’s needed in the meeting.

#3. Development.

Use 5 or 10 minutes to develop people. Come up with 5 ways to improve meetings and commit to implementing one improvement in your next meeting.

Everyone at the table excels at something. Leverage their excellence. Someone is exceptional at tough conversations. Ask them to share their strategy and techniques.

#4. Inspiration.

Have brag-time before you leave the room.

1. Brag about team members who aren’t in the room.
2. Say something good about someone else in the room.
3. Explain something you or your team accomplished last week.

Just call it brag time. Aren’t you proud of something you got done? I hope so. Aren’t you proud of someone on your team? I hope so.

Mandatory shock collars:

Require shock collars for everyone in the room. Anyone in the room can secretly shock anyone in the room at any time. When they bloviate, secretly shock them. When two people shock the same person at the same time, the shock is doubled.

I suppose – in a weird way – you and I just had a meeting. Like so many meetings this one went long. I exceeded 300 words by 199 (not counting the questions at the end and after material). I’m glad I’m not wearing a shock collar.

What is the purpose of a weekly tactical meeting?

What agenda items do you include in your weekly tactical meeting?

Still curious:

3 Words that Make Meetings Great

5 Simple Ways to Improve Meetings

4 Tools to Keep Meetings On Track

How to Run an Effective Meeting

Afterword:

I woke this morning at 1:30 thinking about today’s post. It’s 4:00 now. I think I can sleep now. I need some sleep before I hit the gym this morning.

Did you know there are no synonyms for proctologist?