{"id":676,"date":"2010-01-05T11:52:20","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T18:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=676"},"modified":"2010-01-05T11:52:20","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T18:52:20","slug":"meeting-productivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2010\/01\/meeting-productivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting Productivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some months ago, Time magazine pub\u00adlished an art\u00adicle called Why the Office Oddball Is Good for Busi\u00adness<\/a>, about how really pro\u00adduct\u00adive meet\u00adings need someone in them to stop too much con\u00adsensus too early. The art\u00adicle starts<\/p>\n

\n

Want to get the most out of your next brain\u00adstorm\u00ading ses\u00adsion at work? Bring in an oddball. If you can\u00ad\u2019t find an oddball, try a naysay\u00ader or even a mere stranger \u2014 any\u00adone who can keep things vaguely uncom\u00adfort\u00adable. If that sounds like a pre\u00adscrip\u00adtion for one of the worst meet\u00adings you\u2019ve ever had, suck it up and go any\u00adway. It might also be one of the most productive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It does sound like the recipe for an act\u00adive meet\u00ading, one in which every\u00adbody has to be on their toes, listen\u00ading for the real mean\u00ading behind the words. A meet\u00ading in which those catch\u00ading up on their email will miss some\u00adthing import\u00adant. A meet\u00ading which may not pro\u00adduce agree\u00adment, but will pro\u00adduce more clar\u00adity on pre\u00adcisely what it is you dis\u00adagree about. If you\u2019re going to have a meet\u00ading, isn\u2019t that what you want? A meet\u00ading to pro\u00adduce res\u00adults, not just nods around the table from people who aren\u2019t really pay\u00ading attention?<\/p>\n

Which is not to say that every meet\u00ading should be uncom\u00adfort\u00adable; lots of meet\u00adings are to hash out details where people agree on the basics. But it\u2019s amaz\u00ading how often people think they agree about some\u00adthing until they\u2019re chal\u00adlenged to explain it in detail, which is where they dis\u00adcov\u00ader they dis\u00adagree on the explanation. <\/p>\n

Wheth\u00ader any per\u00adson rais\u00ading uncom\u00adfort\u00adable issues is wel\u00adcome depends on who\u2019s run\u00adning the meet\u00ading, wheth\u00ader they\u2019re look\u00ading for res\u00adults or, instead, look\u00ading for uncrit\u00adic\u00adal approv\u00adal of what they want. I\u2019ve also seen cases where the per\u00adson run\u00adning the meet\u00ading claims to want the uncom\u00adfort\u00adable ques\u00adtions asked, but in real\u00adity does\u00adn\u2019t. it\u2019s hard, allow\u00ading the dif\u00adfi\u00adcult ques\u00adtions. Answer\u00ading them is tough, admit\u00adting you don\u2019t have answers to all of them can be tough\u00ader. So the tend\u00adency is to squelch the ques\u00adtions, usu\u00adally by squelch\u00ading the ques\u00adtion\u00ader. I sus\u00adpect this tend\u00adency con\u00adtrib\u00adutes to a cer\u00adtain num\u00adber of busi\u00adness failures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some months ago, Time magazine pub\u00adlished an art\u00adicle called Why the Office Oddball Is Good for Busi\u00adness, about how really pro\u00adduct\u00adive meet\u00adings need someone in them to stop too much con\u00adsensus too early. The art\u00adicle starts Want to get the most out of your next brain\u00adstorm\u00ading ses\u00adsion at work? Bring in an oddball. If you \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cMeet\u00ading Productivity\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-project-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}