Page 205 - Make Work Great

Leading Your Crystal

leader or facilitator builds the team’s confi dence that these details are
not forgotten. This relieves the participants who raised the concerns
from feeling that they have to repeat themselves in order to be heard.

Making these four lists constantly visible to all attendees at all
times—an approach often called group memory—ensures that every-
one stays on the same page with respect to current and past discus-
sions. At the same time, the content of these lists infuses the meeting
with a sense of consistency and follow-through. This should come as
no surprise, considering that the lists are consistent with your new
cultural precedents; they’re basically a visibility system that supports
overtness about purpose.

Pay Now or Pay Later
Obviously, all of this planning takes time. The writing of a meet-
ing specifi cation, for example, forces you to slow down and think
carefully about what will happen, how long it will take, who will
participate, and what will be accomplished. Doing so raises ques-
tions you must answer, inspires new ideas you should address, and
sometimes leads to rethinking assumptions about your best approach
and/or membership. In the process of writing the specifi cation, you
must often stop several times to seek answers to related questions and
redefi ne your own understanding of what will happen. This requires
disciplined effort.
As a rule of thumb, if you’re responsible for defi ning the meeting
(whether you’re the chairperson or his or her delegate), you should
spend at least one hour in preparation for every hour the meeting will
last. In reality, this guideline will vary depending on the experience
levels of those involved and the complexity of the task at hand. But
the point is an important one: a one-hour meeting with eight attend-
ees uses as much manpower as a full day of labor for one person. A

series of five such meetings is equivalent to one employee’s workweek.
Preparation is critical.

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