Author: admin

Many years ago, before the advent of the mobile phone (before they were even smart phones) there was a standard piece of office fun. It ran like this:

‘Bored? Lonely? Feeling left out? Then hold a meeting!’

Meetings were seen as a place where managers tended to hang out, instead of getting on with any real value adding work.

How times have changed! We now have standing up meetings (to keep them short), phone creches (to keep people focussed) and action sheets (to avoid tedious notes and ensure actual tasks are captured).

All good things you will agree.

Elon Musk, he of the car in space fame, was recently quoted as asking a silent meeting participant “why are you here?”

If his manner may be seen as a little abrupt by some, I do tend to agree with him. How does silence add value to the discussion? If people are there to collect notes then perhaps an email would be more time and cost efficient.

Remember we are talking about meetings here and not briefing sessions, which are entirely different things.

Jeff Bezos, for whom the word Amazon has been hugely successful, has a two-pizza rule for meetings.

What this means is that he won’t call a meeting, or attend a meeting, unless two pizzas can feed the whole group.

Sadly he isn’t on record saying if he actually turns up with pizzas, but his thoughtful approach does make the point that people in meetings are being paid. So then, why crowd the room with too many people? Why allow over attendance to bog down the discussion and waste time and resources?

Meetings are not meant to be a delightful break from work. They are meant to follow an agenda and have definable outputs. Otherwise, why bother?

Taking a Lean process improvement perspective, if we hold one meeting every week with 10 people in it and it lasts an hour, that’s 500 person-hours every year in time (assuming the good people are allowed two weeks holiday).

If the average cost to the organisation is £50 per person per hour then that’s an annual investment of £25,000 …and that’s just for one meeting.

If we added up the total bill for all meetings in a year then it’s likely we will scare ourselves and wonder if we are truly getting value for money.

Hence the two-pizza rule.

So, this week our challenge is to think of all meetings in terms of cost vs output. Are we really making the most of our resources, or just keeping them warm and happy in a cosy conference room?

We can all audit our meeting behaviours and can find ways to do more with less.

That way there’s more pizza for everyone!

Next week: The Humility Pivot

There’s a man in the White House you might have heard of. I don’t mean the white house at No.33 Arcacia Avenue. I mean the big house in America. You know the one.

The man who currently resides there is one Donald J Trump. You might have heard he won the election and without any political past is now running the USA.

Well done him.

At one level it does show that politics can be a fickle business. At another, maybe it points up that democracy is changing and the ‘old guard’ need to be on their guard.

We can argue all we like about how democracy should and does work, but as Churchill has been quoted… ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, apart from all the others.’

We don’t have to like it, we don’t have to agree with it and we can understand it. Which means that whatever our views, we are where we are.

I make no political points here, nor express an opinion on whether the 45th President is doing a good job or not.

The point of referencing him is that he does use social media to his advantage. He bypasses conventional channels and tweets his little heart out. His 40 million or so Twitter followers give him a tremendous reach and allows him to state his case whenever he feels it needs stating.

Whether you agree with his case is another matter. Just pause and imagine what you could do with 40 million followers! How would that allow your business to be seen and heard?

Does your business have a social media strategy? A colleague of mine has assiduously posted interesting photos of products, started debates and offered support to people with technical queries. This has allowed them to rapidly enter the Twittersphere and get marketing traction from a standing start.

They have a clear strategy and they stick to it. Of course it may take a while to get 40 million followers, unless they decide to run for the Presidency next time.

Whether we are a President, or just a regular person doing their best in business, we can all gain value from a thoughtful and consistent use of social media.

We can all trump the media!

Next week: Pizza Meetings