Saturday, March 24, 2018

Let's Stop Meeting Like This - Tools To Save Time And Get More Done by Dick & Emily Axelrod





Let’s face it – most of us hate meetings. Our calendar is stocked full of meetings that we usually don’t need to attend. We show up, pretend to pay attention, and take notes to remind ourselves of the 50 things that we need to accomplish once we escape the room.

Too many of us are too kind. We won’t say no to meetings, and we try to keep the peace. With so much going on it’s time that we take back control of our work lives and priorities.  We need to take a new look at how to approach and manage meetings. If you are wringing your hands every day over meetings, pick up the book. Let’s Stop Meeting Like This – Tools to Save Time and Get More Done. You need to read this book if you find yourself the culprit setting up meetings no one wants to attend, and you find that not much comes out of them.

This book offers tangible and realistic strategies for setting up meetings, eliminating people who aren’t stakeholders and getting things done. Meetings need to be better planned, have specific outcomes, and people need to feel that their input means something. Here are some of the highlights of meetings from the book:

  • Create concrete and managing plans
  • Build connections
  • Invite people to meetings and let them know they are valued
  • How to move projects forward
  • First aid for meetings
  • Five steps to meeting success
  • Three steps to meeting effectiveness
  • Connect people to one another and the task
  • Encourage open discussion
  • Elicit people’s dreams
  • How to be a better facilitator

The meat of Let’s Stop Meeting Like This is the concept of the meeting canoe. It’s a visual of an actual canoe with paddles that is a blueprint to conduct productive meetings. It shows leaders how to efficiently design and lead meetings that will work in any setting from the boardroom to small breakroom chats.

The canoe is divided into sections as depicted below:
  • Welcome: People are an asset and critical
  • Connect: People need to be connected to one another and the tasks at hand
  • Discover: Find out the way that things are with honest feedback
  • Elicit: Discover people’s dreams
  • Decide: Discover next steps as a team
  • Attend: Stay to the end and take action 

Pick up Dick and Emily Axelrod’s book Let’s Stop Meeting Like This today if you want to turn time-consuming meetings into productive and meaningful interactions to get things done with key people who have an impact.