Do you like meetings?
Not many people like meetings. Most of us accept that a lot of them are useless. And organisations can live with that. But what they should not live with, are meetings about strategy that are boring and do not work.
Strategic conversations
In a VUCA world, where you try to cut cubes out of the fog, you need meetings with impact. Actually, you don’t need meetings. You need strategic conversations. To do that properly you need to do a few things.
Slow flow
You need to slow down. If you move at 100 miles an hour, any mistake can be fatal. When things are happening very fast, it is even more important that you stop and take time to think deeply.
Bookbuzz advertisement?
You also need to engage, you need to make it experiential, you need multiple perspectives, you need to harness the best thinking, you need to create a common platform and you should use storytelling as a tool. Which is what we do with Bookbuzz and in that way the book is a walking advertisement for Bookbuzz.
The tips
The book takes learning from a wide range of angles. Neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, system dynamics, design, etc. and is full of tips. Here are a few:
- Only focus on one purpose
- Framing is important
- Make it experiential (an agenda is not an experience)
- Discover, don’t tell
- Focus on assumptions, not conclusions
- Be as diverse as possible in your selection of participants
- Pure reason does not work, it has to be emotional. A room full of Spocks will not work
- Focus on desire (strategy does not work, because nobody cares)
- Detail is important (venue, food, distractions)
- Watch out for the Yabbuts (politics, short-termism, the Hippo and karaoke syndromes)
- Interview participants in advance and listen
- Inertia is the most powerful force in the universe
Meeting with impact are essential
Being strategic is important. Increasingly so. The faster you go, the further you need to look ahead. So you need meetings with impact. You need to get the best out of your people. You need their engagement and their acceptance.
The Trinity
This book combined with “Future vision” and “Exponential organisations” will give you the Trinity to have some very interesting conversations.
It has been emotional
We like this book. It is part of our professional development. It has given us food for thought. It also confirms some of the core principles of Bookbuzz. The slow flow, the conversation, the different perspectives, the importance of framing. And the key lesson is that we need to make our sessions even more experiential and emotional.
Time for us to re-read “Infinite possibilities” again.
