The story goes that after 25 years leading the same parish, Father Miller decided to say goodbye at a dinner organized by his community. Given the importance of the event, a prominent politician and member of the group was asked to give a short speech appropriate to the occasion, but he arrived late to the meeting.
Given the situation, Father Miller decided to speak for himself and took the microphone:
“I remember the first confession I heard here, 25 years ago. I must tell you, I was deeply concerned about the kind of place I had ended up in. That first confession went down as the worst of all. The boy confessed that he had stolen a television from a neighbor's house and that he had lied to the police when interrogated, successfully blaming a known criminal in the area. He also said he had stolen money from his parents and his employer; that he had had affairs with some friends' wives; that he had tried drugs, and so on. Imagine my thoughts! However, I am pleased to say that as time went on, I realized that this person was just an exception and that this community was a beautiful place full of warm and decent people.”
At that moment, the politician arrived and apologized for his delay. He stepped onto the stage, immediately walked to the microphone, and took his speech out of his pocket:
“I'll always remember when Father Miller came to our parish. In fact, I'm almost certain I was the first person he heard confessing…”
When minutes count
Companies approach meetings in different ways: some never meet because they're a "waste of time," and others suffer from "meetingitis," that is, a huge number of long meetings where sometimes something is achieved and often nothing is achieved.
Immersing ourselves in this dynamic often has interesting results for us consultants: the meetings tell us many aspects of organizational culture:
· Respect among participants: how everyone's opinions are heard and valued, the rules for dialogue, and how they are implemented.
· The way people treat each other: whether there are shouts or insults; the ways in which conflict and agreement are expressed.
· The way decisions are made (when they are made…): there are contributions from the group, decisions are made prior to the meeting, voting takes place and work is done to reach consensus, and implementation is planned.
Who sets the meeting agenda and how: Does only one person create the meeting agenda, or do all participants contribute their expectations? Is the agenda distributed in advance? Or do people arrive at the meeting without knowing what will be discussed?
· Level of participation: everyone present can speak and be heard; some people monopolize the floor; only one person speaks, and everyone else is a spectator.
· The valuation of the other's time
Finally, and in the context of this last point, we have found that punctuality is often a critical factor, both of displeasure (at one extreme) and effectiveness (at the other) in meetings: arriving and starting on time, without any exception, internally creates the habit of better management of one's own time and that of the rest of the work team, as well as achieving the proposed objectives regarding the treatment of the agenda topics.
That's why we want to suggest a trick: never leave the most important topics until the end, hoping everyone will get to them. Address them at the beginning! It's an excellent way to educate everyone to arrive on time, knowing that otherwise they'll miss the most important part of the meeting.
And if you have any doubts, think about the politician in our story.
Until the next news!
