{"id":3969,"date":"2011-08-20T16:35:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T21:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=3969"},"modified":"2011-08-20T16:35:37","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T21:35:37","slug":"book-review-read-this-before-our-next-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=3969","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Read This Before Our Next Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-3970\" href=\"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?attachment_id=3970\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3970\" title=\"Read+This+Before+Our+Next+Meeting\" src=\"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Read+This+Before+Our+Next+Meeting.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Read+This+Before+Our+Next+Meeting.jpg 300w, https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Read+This+Before+Our+Next+Meeting-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I just finished reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Read-This-Before-Meeting-ebook\/dp\/B0057ZER34\/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1313875559&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Read This Before Our Next Meeting<\/em><\/a> by Al Pittampalli.\u00a0 Amazon made this book available for free on Kindle a few weeks ago and it seemed like an interesting book.\u00a0 Anyone that ever has to go to meetings would agree that there has to be a better way to do meetings and this book proposes some solutions that I am going to try to incorporate into the meetings that I lead.\u00a0 Meetings are a necessary part of doing business&#8230;but they can always be more beneficial to those involved.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some thoughts I highlighted while reading&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A tragedy of the commons\u2014everyone feels a benefit from calling a meeting, but few of us benefit from attending.<\/li>\n<li>Meetings are the lever that allow coherent motion.<\/li>\n<li>Traditional meetings create a culture of compromise.<\/li>\n<li>Traditional meetings kill our sense of urgency.<\/li>\n<li>Peter Drucker tells us that meetings are by  definition a concession to deficient organization. We either meet or  work. We can&#8217;t do both at the same time.<\/li>\n<li>Achieving flow, the state in which we do our  best work, can take long periods of focus. Interruptions force us to  start over each time.<\/li>\n<li>Meetings need to be less like the endless commercial breaks during a football game, and more like pit stops at the Daytona 500.<\/li>\n<li>The Modern Meeting convenes to support a decision that has already been made.<\/li>\n<li>The Modern Meeting moves fast and ends on schedule.<\/li>\n<li>Keep meetings as brief as possible and set a  firm end time. Every minute that you are sitting with five or seven of  our key people is a minute that&#8217;s costing us a fortune. Spend it wisely.<\/li>\n<li>The Modern Meeting limits the number of attendees.<\/li>\n<li>The Modern Meeting rejects the unprepared.<\/li>\n<li>The Modern Meeting produces committed action plans.<\/li>\n<li>The Modern Meeting refuses to be informational. Reading memos is mandatory.<\/li>\n<li>The Modern Meeting works only alongside a culture of brainstorming.<\/li>\n<li>If no action plan is necessary, neither is a meeting.<\/li>\n<li>Have fun, and more important, go get something done. It matters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just finished reading Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli.\u00a0 Amazon made this book available for free on Kindle a few weeks ago and it seemed like an interesting book.\u00a0 Anyone that ever has to go to meetings would agree that there has to be a better way to do meetings and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,19,28,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-funny","category-integrity","category-leadership"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}