Mike
Carruthers:
Meetings
are commonplace at work yet many of us dread attending them, why?
Larry Dressler:
So often people leave meetings not sure what just happened,
not sure what was decided, frustrated that they didn't have a
voice.
Larry Dressler,
author of the book Consensus
Through Conversation…
I think there
are basic mistakes that people make in meetings unfortunately
that make meetings bad. People talk past each other, they talk
over each other and when decisions need to be made together,
they tend to focus on the differences - what we don't
agree on rather than where we can find common ground.
Larry says the
old style of meeting where the boss tells everybody what he
or she has decided is out-of-date and ineffective.
In a world that
is so complex, and where the people who have information at
their fingertips and who have real knowledge are on the front
lines now. Computers and technology have really changed who
has knowledge and who has the ability to make the best kinds
of decisions. And so now we really need to get all of those
people in the room to decide together.
In an effective
meeting it's important to understand that…
Disagreement
is actually fuel for creative decision-making. It's not a bad
thing. So when we arrive at a crossroads and say, "Gosh
it doesn't look like we have agreement here" - that's an
invitation actually to explore what the assumptions and differences
are and to discover perhaps not your way or my way but maybe
there's a creative third way that achieves what we really want.
You can link
to Larry's website
from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net
- I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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