We Need Meetings!
Are you committed to generating a healthy future?
We need meetings to do that.
Me, you, us, them, we, I and You. You need meetings!
Meetings that PRODUCE.
Meetings are where it happens. Meetings are where we leverage the best parts of ourselves. Meetings are where superheroes appear, to be witnessed by others who care about us and what we DO. Because what we DO impacts who we BE. Meetings are where we fulfill on our own, personal Secret Mission in life.
Please ask yourself this question: What is your Secret Mission?
C’mon, I know you have one… Everyone has a Secret Mission. Everyone has special, unique Super Powers they (sometimes desperately…) want to offer the world.
In fact, every person I’ve met wants to be acknowledged for their intelligence, talents, skills and contributions. We all want to express our talents, be received, and make a difference.
The Secret: This is the secret that the most successful executives and senior leaders know. The most successful leaders naturally, intuitively follow this sense of Purpose. They follow yearning.
The best leaders leverage yearning into crazy efficiencies! This is especially true during times of change. During transition periods, yearning is a fundamental human experience which expresses itself as the creative tension of growth. To reiterate, we all share that same deep yearn: We yearn to serve. This level of yearning can only fully resolve itself in our authentic connection with others. The most successful leaders experience this very same yearning. What makes them leaders is… they know how to help others achieve success in it!
They embrace that fundamental truth: We need each other to shine!
At The Meeting Guy (TMG) we advocate for face-to-face, in-person meetings. The TMG meeting facilitation methodology promotes skills and tools which help you practice showing up fully for one another, in full, honest, raw individual expression.
At TMG, we know talented people need to be witnessed. Talented people need feedback. Talented people need Super Powers to shine, in the presence of trusted peers. That’s the only way to believe the feedback, right?
The importance of meetings
Business spends over $37B on meetings, every year.
That figure highlights the gravity of a very big problem: Most meetings suck.
In fact, a recent HBR study showed that over 70% of senior managers believe meetings are unproductive. Yikes! That is a very large number. That is a significant annual loss.
Worse, this sentiment has given rise to the Virtual Meeting phenomenon. People may believe that there better and more effective communication tools than in-person meetings: “We use text and email.” “We use Slack and Google Drive” “We are a Zoom- based team.” It goes on and on. And it’s not working.
At TMG, we do things differently. We hold this truth to be self-evident: Meetings will be the salvation of the world.
At some level, it’s just simple math. The world will not be saved by an individual. No individual is adequate to the task! Instead, we need to join together, to collaborate, to meet and share best practices. We need to practice learning, making mistakes, adjusting for greater success, then re-evaluate, and start the cycle all over again.
So how do we fix this mess?
Let’s look more deeply at some reasons face-to-face meetings are vital to business success.
Nonverbal Communication
Most communication is nonverbal. That’s well known by now, right?
Facial expressions, body language, movements and gestures communicate 80% of your message. That is the math, people, and it’s the #1 reason why The Meeting Guy advocates for in-person meetings.
If we truly want to understand each other, we need to be in the same room together.
Zoom, Hangouts, Slack and Google Drive cannot, and never will, substitute for the emotions and presence available during in-person meetings.
Let’s look at an example: Have you ever sent an emotional, charged-up text message, and then immediately said to yourself: “Whoops!” Have you ever wanted to Un-Send a message like that? – Surprise! We’ve all done it. We’ve all caused unnecessary harm, cost over-runs, and inefficiency in that particular way.
High Stakes, Low Trust
The Meeting Guy knows: It’s ALWAYS a mistake to communicate complex emotional content via digital medium. Always. Every time! There are always nonverbal cues that will be missed.
When body language and non-verbal cues are present and available, people have a much higher Trust rate.
High-stakes meetings (those critical events where decisions MUST be made) cannot afford misunderstandings or confusion. Simply put: There is no budget for foolery. There is no line-item for hurt feelings.
TMG’s proven meeting methodology helps with accurate knowledge transfer. We facilitate efficiency through faster, more accurate decision making. We help teams be more effective. We help people shine.
This is the opportunity. This is the opening. This is the survival imperative:
Let’s all hold meetings with more reverence.
The Meeting Guy