Page 206 - Make Work Great

Mobilizing Groups

This seems so obvious. You wouldn’t expect an employee at any
level to spend a week of work with no plan, no goals, no objectives,
and no specifi c intention for his or her time. “We perform as we
rehearse” is a general principle in the theater that applies equally here.
Yet too often we’re happy to hold one or more meetings in which we

more or less decide to fi gure things out on the fly. The results are pre-
dictably negative, with agitation, confusion, boredom, and confl ict
becoming the norms.
Think of it this way: if one hour of preparation for a meeting
of eight people saves just 10 minutes of meeting time, it has a hard
return on investment of 33 percent; 60 minutes invested saves 80
minutes of manpower. The value only grows if there are more people
in the meeting or if more time is saved. And such a simple calculation
doesn’t even take into account important benefi ts such as the value of
the other work that gets done in the saved time; the value of reaching
a solution sooner; or the value of demonstrating to others through
positive experience that meetings are useful, productive, and neces-
sary in the new crystalline workplace.
If you intend to be a culture builder, it always pays to prepare for
group interactions. It is far cheaper to pay now than later.

Making the Change
How do you incorporate this type of discipline into your meetings?
For one thing, whenever you’re in charge of bringing together a new
group with no prior history, just do it! Take or make time to create the
meeting specifi cation in advance, and include the sharing and discus-
sion of that specifi cation as part of the fl ow of your fi rst gathering.
Incorporating meeting specifi cations into existing groups—even
those of which you’re the leader—can be more diffi cult. Groups with
established patterns of interaction may resist such changes, especially
since the introduction of good meeting specifi cations and follow-up
lists brings with it an additional layer of accountability for everyone
involved. Be careful to introduce the new elements slowly, one or two

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