Читать книгу Will there be Donuts?: Start a business revolution one meeting at a time - David Pearl - Страница 17

There are lots of books on meetings which are duller than the meetings they are trying to improve. I have no intention of adding to that list.

It is a jungle out there. But it’s a jungle of dullness.

So here’s the question I’ll be asking myself throughout—it works well for meetings too. “Is this more interesting than food or sex?”

Let me explain.

Most people I meet in business could be having more fun. One reason for this is they keep quiet when they are bored. It is considered rude to speak up or leave the room. So they suffer in silence.

It’s all a lot less polite in the performing arts world I grew up in. Stand-up comedians know instantly when they have lost their audience. And if they take no notice they’ll get talked over, heckled, and eventually have bottles thrown at them. That’s what you call direct feedback.

It’s an honorable tradition in theater.

Picture yourself in an 18th-century opera house. Opera was then what the movies are to us today—the most dramatic, sensational, sound- and music-filled experience available. And to insure it stayed that way, opera houses were constructed as a series of “boxes.” One side of your box faced the stage and the other opened to drinking, dining, and wooing facilities when and if the stage action became dull. This meant opera audiences voted with their feet (and other parts of the body) if an opera failed to engage them. This resulted in operas that were eye-catchingly, heart-snaringly full of delight, intrigue, dance, storms, shipwrecks, divine skulduggery, and human frailty. It was only when theaters started to be constructed in serried rows, where it was difficult to leave when you were bored, that things started to get boring.

If we were actually meeting I’d suggest the same thing to you as I do to my clients. If anyone is going on too long, we use a thumbs-up signal which means “I got it, move on.” It’s visible. It’s immediate. It’s kinder than the hand slicing across the windpipe action that people often use to indicate you are overrunning.

As we are not in direct contact, can I just suggest that if I lose your interest, you put the book down, stretch your legs and grab a bite?* The sex thing is entirely up to you.

If I bore myself, I will do the same. Deal?