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Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business
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Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business

The business meeting—a necessary evil or a vital and invigorating component of running an organization? According to management consultant Lencioni (The Five Temptations of a CEO), meetings should fit the latter description, but more often than not, he says, they don't. In this lackluster audio fable, Lencioni offers practical advice on how to revitalize your business by energizing your business meetings, but his pallid, passive prose would challenge the most skilled narrator, and Arthur is no exception. The voice Arthur lends Will, the young hero of this tale, resembles that of Sesame Street's Ernie on downers, and the various inflections he gives business owner Casey McDaniel and his management team don't make up for the characters' lack of character. Nevertheless, Lencioni's message comes across loud and clear—meetings should be interactive, not passive, and they should be structured (i.e., issues of immediate importance should be discussed in "weekly tactical" meetings, and issues that will fundamentally affect the business should be addressed in "monthly strategic" meetings). Although managers will find this advice worthwhile, they would gather just as much if they skipped the sluggish fable and listened to the last few tracks.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details:
Author: Patrick M. Lencioni
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Publication Date: March 04, 2004
ISBN: 0787968056
Package Length: 8.43 inches
Package Width: 5.67 inches
Package Height: 1.02 inches
Package Weight: 0.66 pounds
Average Customer Rating: based on 77 reviews
 
 

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Average Customer Review:4.0
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4Not a fiction, but management advice  May 05, 2008
This is Patrick Lencioni's new book published in 2004, again a fiction and management book. I think this one, for the story, is better written than his previous books. The description of the characters and the scenes in the story are more interesting and with more depth.

The story is about a company, having been acquired, facing its new boss. It sensed a death threat by the man from headquarters. The white knight who came to the rescue was a temporary administrative assistant to the CEO. Seems to be a proper EO job and I therefore call him the EO.

The lethal aspect of meeting has two meanings in the book.

First, meetings are the most important activities of an organization. All major decisions are made, strategies are formed, actions are planned during meetings. If the meetings are not effective, they will lead to the death of the organization. This was exactly what happened in the story, that staff meetings were boring and ineffective and did not came up with clear direction for everybody.

Second, the impending meeting to be attended by the man from headquarters would mean life and death for the CEO. He would be assessed on whether the meeting was really so bad as to affect the company, and if so, that would mean death for his career.

The story proceeded to saving the meeting, from the insight of the EO. He drew inspiration from his academic studies on film and television and compared meetings with headline news, television series and movies.

Drama - for meetings to be interesting, there needs to be drama and conflict. The EO suggested the use of the skills of script writers and directors, and compared the conducting of a meeting to making a good movie. The first 10 minutes should be used to set up the drama and suspense, and to focus the attention and interest of members. Then the chairman would mine for conflict and expose all different views. Meetings are better than movies as there is real-time interaction instead of passive reception of information. The chairman would encourage constructive ideological conflicts and arguments before coming up with a decision.

Contextual structure - The other fatal mistake of meetings is the lack of contextual structure, i.e. a meeting stew of everything that smothers the important issues. Drawing analogy to television and movies, the EO suggested that there should be different types of meetings dedicated to specific purposes:

1. Daily check-in for 5 minutes similar to daily headline news which people watch briefly for snapshots of information.
2. Weekly tactical meeting for 1 hour same as sitcom and crime drama that people watch weekly for short stories.
3. Monthly strategic meeting which lasts for 2 hours as a movie for detailed discussion of a particular strategy or a complete story from beginning to end.
4. Quarterly off-site review for two days like mini-series which draws people's attention for a longer period of time.

A remark in the book I like is the myth of too many meetings. Interesting and effective meetings will not waste time but instead save time. Lencioni points out that very often sneaker time is not accounted for as consumption of resources. They are the time spent by managers outside the meetings just to find out what others are doing, clarifying actions, clearing doubts. The matrix of a large number of managers consumes a huge amount of sneaker time. If the meetings make effective and clear decisions with all stakeholders present, a lot of sneaker time will be saved.

5Good tips  Apr 29, 2008
This is one of the most practical books I've ever read. He does a great job of working you to the point and the thoughts behind his ideas. We've used this concepts a lot and it has greatly improved our meetings and communication.

4Pertinent and engaging  Apr 22, 2008
The Meeting - an inevitable annoyance or a worthwhile opportunity? Though I'm not the CEO of a corporation or even an office manager, I found this simple book to be a worthwhile. As a recent graduate in business management, I've been picking up books like this to keep myself sharp. There was information in this book that really resonated with me.

First, I have to say that "Death by Meeting" is an amazing title. Is there anyone who hasn't at least once felt the urge to drop during an incredibly long-winded ordeal of lip-service? We've all been there. The title sold me right off the bat.

The writing is in storybook format, so it is relatively easy to follow. It tells of company owner Casey McDaniel and the challenges that arise with running his startup software company. The story is ultimately about meetings and how the company's poor management thereof puts Casey's job in jeopardy. With some fairly realistic dialogue, some pretty fleshed-out characters must come up with solutions to increase meeting effectiveness.

While working in different capacities, I've experienced situations where meetings have worked and where they haven't. This book brought up several interesting techniques, while unveiling common stereotypes associated with meeting. Instead of focusing on common hot buttons like timeliness, agendas, and getting along, the author stresses the importance of meeting even more, encouraging conflict, and focusing on decision making. I sincerely enjoyed going through this and agree with much of Lencioni's rational. Due to the narrative, he probably could've made the book shorter than it actually is, but it makes for an engaging read while teaching relevant concepts.

4Not as bad as it sounds  Apr 06, 2008
So my boss recommended I read "Death By Meeting" by Patrick Lencioni. I'll admit I wasn't too excited about the prospect of reading it. I thought it would be about as dry as the textbooks and case studies I read during a couple of required management classes in college. When I sat to read it, I was happy that it was a very quick read. There is a lot of white space in this book, and that's not really a bad thing. It makes you feel like you read a bit faster, and accomplish more with each page turn.

The book itself is mainly a story (a leadership fable) about a company that sells itself to another company and the top executive is then worried about his job. He becomes worried about his job when a VP from the parent company tells him their meetings are horrible, and if that's how they run their meetings, their company couldn't possibly run much better. The book then breaks into a rather interesting story about a young worker who comes up with several ideas to improve their staff meetings and meet goals.

I was pleased that my team was already executing a majority of the recommendations from this book, before reading it. (My boss hadn't read it yet either). While the topic sounds boring and dry, the author did a good job of keeping my interest and keeping it short. This took me probably less than 2 hours to read cover to cover.



5A Must Read!  Feb 16, 2008
I found "Death by Meeting" an excellent read. In this leadership fable, Patrick Lencioni delivers the message of the importance of meetings to a company's success. Lencioni does it in such a way that it's like you're reading a novel. I found this book to be a real page-turner and an eye-opener for how effectively run meetings and different types of meetings can transform a company.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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