Usted es me todos: Best of the Issue: Do Your Meetings Stink?

December 18, 2018

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Do Your Meetings Stink?

From Amy Bernstein
Editor, Harvard Business Review

I hate meetings. Chances are you do too. They're often pointless and last way too long — no wonder 90% of people report daydreaming their way through them, and 73% admit that they use the time to do other work. And yet research from Steven Rogelberg finds that managers may not be getting the message. In fact, 79% of them rate those meetings "extremely" or "very" productive. So how can you find out if the meetings you schedule are actually valuable, or if they're just a venue to hear yourself talk? Fortunately, running a good meeting is a skill that can be learned — and Rogelberg provides an objective way of assessing and improving your chops. Your employees will thank you.

For a lot of folks, the phrase "innovation culture" conjures notions of a fun workplace that encourages experimentation and collaboration. But in reality, creating and sustaining such a culture is really hard. Gary Pisano argues that's because we don't understand how it really works. "The easy-to-like behaviors that get so much attention are only one side of the coin," he writes. "They must be counterbalanced by some tougher and frankly less fun behaviors. A tolerance for failure requires an intolerance for incompetence. A willingness to experiment requires rigorous discipline. Psychological safety requires comfort with brutal candor." In other words, creativity must be managed actively — and Pisano describes how to do that right.

Cell phones. Credit cards. Earbuds. Robots. It turns out that some of the defining technologies of our time were inspired by…science fiction. And leaning on science fiction is one unique way of helping your company come up with breakthrough ideas, according to Nathan Furr, Jeff Dyer, and Kyle Nel. "Ursula Le Guin once said she wrote science fiction to dislodge her mind — and her reader's mind — 'from the lazy, timorous habit of thinking that the way we live now is the only way people can live,'" write Furr and colleagues. For me, the message is that you can't simply engineer your organization's way into the future; you have to create it as well.

Thanks for reading,
Amy Bernstein

In the Issue:

Why Your Meetings
Stink—and What to Do About It

by Steven G. Rogelberg

Leaders consistently rate their own meetings very favorably — and much more positively than attendees do. And when managers assume all is well, they are less apt to solicit feedback and seek opportunities to improve. That leads to frustrated employees. Luckily, anyone can learn to run a good meeting. Here's a guide to diagnosing your meeting problems; better preparing for and facilitating the gatherings you lead; and seeking feedback to further hone your skills.

The Hard Truth About Innovation Cultures

by Gary P. Pisano

They're not all collaboration, experimentation, and sunshine. The positive aspects that get so much attention are only one side of the coin and must be counterbalanced by some tougher and less fun behaviors: an intolerance for incompetence, rigorous discipline, brutal candor, a high level of individual accountability, and strong leadership. Unless the tensions created by this paradox are carefully managed, your attempts to create an innovative culture may be over before they begin.

When Your Moon Shots Don't Take Off

by Nathan Furr, Jeffrey H. Dyer, and Kyle Nel

Many companies looking for breakthroughs struggle to move beyond incremental ideas, because cognitive biases trap people in the status quo and prevent them from seeing big opportunities. But four tactics can help firms overcome biases and think far more creatively: science fiction, analogies, first principles logic, and exaptation.

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