Suffering from “Death by Meeting?”
- Apr 14
- 3 min read
TL;DR: At GP Creative, we’re big fans of Patrick Lencioni and the business principles he advocates. One of the biggest pain points for organizations is ineffective meetings, which cost them lots of time and money. In Death by Meeting, Lencioni gives a very practical framework for keeping meetings tight, purposeful, and engaging for maximum impact.
“This meeting could have been an email.”
We’ve all been there: stuck in boring, time-consuming, life-sucking meetings that don’t have a clear purpose or involve too many cooks (or the wrong cooks) in the kitchen.
Meetings are an essential part of our work, but are often poorly planned and executed. And few things sap resources and morale like bad meetings. As the Harvard Business Review published in 2017:
Many executives feel overwhelmed by meetings, and no wonder: On average, they spend nearly 23 hours a week in them, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. What’s more, the meetings are often poorly timed, badly run, or both. We can all joke about how painful they are…but that pain has real consequences for teams and organizations. Every minute spent in a wasteful meeting eats into solo work that’s essential for creativity and efficiency. Chopped-up schedules interrupt deep thinking, so people come to work early, stay late, or use weekends for quiet time to concentrate. And dysfunctional meeting behaviors are associated with lower levels of market share, innovation, and employment stability.
Sadly, this has become even worse since the pandemic. Today, more than ever, we have to be intentional about how we convene and lead our teams well through the daily grind and the higher-level thinking required to function effectively. When meetings are done well, so much can improve in our energy and output!
In comes Patrick Lencioni…
(Full disclosure: our agency is a big fan of Lencioni’s work. More than perhaps any other thought leader in business, he has left an indelible mark on how we work, the terminology we use, and the spirit behind what we do.)
Lencioni’s book/blueprint, affectionately known as Death by Meeting, presents a simple yet revolutionary framework that eliminates waste and frustration among teams and creates environments of engagement and passion.
What Makes a Good Meeting?
First, to ensure success, we need to paint a picture of what we should be aiming for.
“The mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants.” — Patrick Lencioni
Lencioni states that a good meeting has the following characteristics:
It’s exciting, engaging, and productive
It has a clear purpose
It includes some level of conflict (check out The Five Dysfunctions of a Team for more on this)
It ends in clarity and commitment
So, how do we get there?
The Blueprint
To reach that vision, Lencioni presents a very practical, four-part framework for meetings that make a difference. By implementing these rhythms in your organization, you’ll hopefully see an improvement in the intentionality and focus for what matters most…
Check-ins (daily): Gather your team to share your schedules and activities with each other. Keep it mercifully short — no longer than 10 minutes.
Tacticals (weekly): Spend up to 90 minutes reviewing weekly activities and metrics, and resolving obstacles and issues.
Strategy meetings (monthly): This is the time to discuss, analyze, and decide on critical issues (or projects) that will affect long-term success. This can take 2–4 hours.
Off-site reviews (quarterly): This is the time to get off-site for 1–2 days! Discuss top-level topics: review your strategy, competitive landscape, industry trends, key personnel, and team development.
It goes without saying that coming well-prepared to these meetings with the appropriate updates and topics is key. If that’s true, and once these rhythms are in place, you’ll start to see some real traction in your organization — and, hopefully, a significant increase in morale!
To get started, check out the free PDF below, which has helpful guidelines and information. You can also buy Lencion’s book for a deeper dive.
We’ve aspired to practice this framework and have encouraged others to do the same. Try it out in your organization, then let us know what you think!
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