Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business

Vol. #20, 8/17/04
Deanne G. Bryce, author
Andrea E. Sullivan, editor
LeaderStrength Systems, Inc. 2004

Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business by Patrick M. Lencioni, Jossey-Bass; 1st edition (February 20, 2004), $22.95

ReaderStrength Rating:
Focus 3
Build 3
Adapt 3
Overall Rating as a Leadership Resource 3
(Please see "How Do We Evaluate Resources?" in right column)

Every leader is expected to lead meetings. Virtual or live, meetings are the way business gets done. If you want some fresh ideas on how to master the art of leading a meeting, Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business by Patrick M. Lencioni is an accessible book with some surprising ideas worth exploring.

Some people love business fables and some despise them. If you are one who doesn't appreciate information in the form of a story, you don't need to worry: this book has two sections. The first section includes a story of Casey McDaniel, founder of the fictitious Yip Software Company in Carmel, California who doesn’t have a clue about how important meetings are to his company’s employee morale. The second part of the book gives you the information on meetings directly - without the story.

I usually don't care for business fables. When I read the book, I went straight for the information in the second part of the book and then went back to the story. To my surprise, the information really is a fresh look at meetings. The author tells us that the two problems with meetings are (1) a lack of drama and (2) a lack of contextual structure.

In explaining the lack of drama in meetings, Lencioni compares them with movies. Meetings are mostly boring, even though they have the potential to be interactive and interesting. Movies, on the other hand, are not interactive and yet they are almost never boring. This got my attention and I wanted to read more to discover how to make meetings interactive and interesting.

The lack of contextual structure comes from the common problem of throwing every kind of discussion or problem into the weekly staff meeting. Lencioni recommends four basic meeting types for the different types of discussions and decisions in business. The four types include:

Daily Check-In
Weekly Tactical
Monthly Strategic
Quarterly Off-Site Review

Recommendation

I recommend this book because it stimulates the reader's thinking about the possibilities for improving morale in the workplace. In addition, the book has specific and helpful strategies to apply at work. And finally, the story allows for personal reflection. When you read about Casey's challenge and what he learned you can't help but look at your own approach to meetings and what you might consider applying to your situation.

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How Do We Evaluate Resources?

All of the books we review are evaluated on how they support a leader’s progress in applying our working definition of leadership.

We teach leaders to: Focus, Build, and Adapt:

Focus: A leader is able to see a new future

Build: A leader can build from his or her strengths as a foundation, adding on new skills, knowledge, and attitudes to create the new future.

Adapt: A leader is skilled at using feedback from their own thinking, other people’s reactions, and results/information from their environments to self-correct and keep moving toward the new future they envisioned.

Here is our rating system:

Outstanding 4

Good 3

Satisfactory 2

Unsatisfactory 1

Focus- How well does this book inspire a vision of a new future?

Build- How well does this book teach new knowledge and skills?

Adapt-How well does this book assist readers in examining and optimizing their own behaviors?

Overall Rating as a Leadership Resource: We average the ratings in the above three categories.

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dbryce@leaderstrength.com • LeaderStrength Systems