Ah, meetings
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - Joe Kiedinger
To some of us, we’d rather be anywhere else on Earth. To others, meetings are truly enjoyable. But regardless of your stance, meetings are powerful opportunities to bring together our collective brain power in a quick, more efficient method than emails and phone calls. They are a place where many different minds come together. And if all minds are engaged they can bring powerful results.
Here are a few key things to guarantee more successful meetings in your own organization:
1) If all of us agree, then most of us are unnecessary.
If we all settle on a course of action quickly just because we want to get back to work or because we’re afraid to rock the boat, we’ve missed an incredible opportunity to work together toward a better solution. It takes friction and opposing viewpoints to come up with the best ideas.
2) All of us together are much wiser than just one of us.
When we work together as a team, we bring different vantage points and different life experiences. When we’re able to take advantage of each person’s strengths we truly win.
3) Listening is one of the most important skills a leader can develop.
As leaders, if we enter the room having already decided our course of action, we tend not to listen to our associates. We block out any information not pertaining to our decision and miss out on potentially better ideas. It’s essential to go in to meetings with ideas to bounce around, not decisions made. It takes humility—an important quality for a Servant Leader.
Joe Kiedinger
ACTION PLAN: Keep these in mind during your next meeting, whether it’s a work, church, volunteer or even a family meeting. I guarantee you it will open up conversation and bring about more powerful ideas.