Читать книгу Will there be Donuts?: Start a business revolution one meeting at a time - David Pearl - Страница 27

In the saddle bag of the Real Meeting revolutionary you won’t find posters, HR charts, or books on management. They are not interested in knowing about real meetings. They are determined to have them.

I like to recommend that every self-respecting Real Meeting-ista carries the following must-have pieces of equipment:

• A chainsaw (heavy duty)

• One pair of pruning shears

• Semtex or equivalent industrial-strength plastic explosive

• And a glue gun

You need something as dramatic as a chainsaw to slice through the dense undergrowth of “nearly meetings” and clear a giant hole to let the light in. Pruning shears are essential to shape and refine the few meetings you actually do have. The bad meeting habits of your colleagues are hard as concrete and have deep foundations. You’ll need something as strong as Semtex to detonate those. And you need a glue gun to make sure the changes you make in meeting practice actually stick.

Clients who knew I was writing this book wanted me to pass on a couple of additional must-have items; this time not metaphorical ones.

• Rubber Chicken

Virginie was so fed up with people arriving late at her meetings she borrowed a large plastic chicken toy from her pet dog and presented it to the colleague who arrived last. The team loved the idea and a new ritual was born. Today any team member who dares to arrive after the agreed start time has to keep the chicken prominently on their office desk until the next monthly meeting as a silent and potent mark of public shame. It’s a playful and effective deterrent.

• Plastic Water Bottle (empty!)

Recycling-minded companies are finding all sorts of uses for discarded plastic water bottles: waterproof jackets, jewelry, solar heating panels, insulation, desk tidies. Alain and Bill, two resourceful clients who both have a scientific background, discovered a wonderful new application of the empty water bottle to improve attention in meetings, as Bill explained:

Alain always used to punch me in the arm when I lost attention and drifted off into working on my laptop. And I used to return the favor. But Alain is a big fellow and a punch from him really used to hurt. One day I had just finished drinking a bottle of water and saw him on his BlackBerry, and before I thought about it I bounced the empty bottle off his head. It was just as effective as the punch and much less effortful for both of us. And it’s catching on. Last week Martine, another colleague, launched one across the room at Francesca who was tapping away at SameTime. Now when we meet as a leadership team we always make sure we have an empty water bottle to hand.