First Friday Book Synopsis

I have spent 13 years reading business books and presenting synopses of these books to folks ready and willing to learn.  It took a while (I’m not all that sharp!), but I think I am beginning to learn some things myself.  In fact, I think I am ready to state, for certain, that there are 2 ways to guarantee mediocrity (if not outright failure):

1)    Have a poor work ethic

2)    Don’t have regular (team/executive team) meetings.

#1:  Have a poor work ethic.
The sources are too many, but let’s start with the 10,000 hour rule (popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers).  I summarize it this way in my presentation:

…centerpiece to this book is the 10,000 hour rule… — with much intentional practice!
“Practicing:  that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better”  (Outliers).

Or, to put it another way, putting in 10,000 hours does not guarantee that you will reach the pinnacle of success; but, not putting in the time practically guarantees that you won’t reach that pinnacle.

In other words, to remind us all of the obvious, it takes work, hard work, to be successful.

#2:  Don’t have regular (team, management, executive team) meetings.
This is the one that has most captivated me.  I am looking for this everywhere I speak, in every book I read, and everywhere else I can.

The insight hit home after reading the Verne Harnish book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, but it took a while to see it in action.  Now I am looking for it, and finding it, everywhere I look.

The Rockefeller “habits” are Priorities, Data, and Rhythm:  an effective rhythm of daily; weekly; monthly; quarterly; annual meetings to maintain alignment and drive accountability (“until your people are mocking you, you’ve not repeated your message enough”).

In the book, Harnish points to this:
Mastering the Daily and Weekly Executive Meeting
(Structure meetings to enhance executive team performance).
• meetings overview:
• daily & weekly – execution
• monthly – learning
• quarterly and annual – setting strategy}.

This is the discipline, the habit, that I am looking for, paying attention to, and have become convinced is a (maybe the) critical key to genuine success.  Assuming that a company or organization has hired competent, passionate people (admittedly, this is a big assumption), then it is imperative that these people get together in regular meetings to tackle those key goals/priorities for the organization.  I wrote about this as practiced at Mighty Fine Burgers (see this post), and here is a clue from Zappos, from this article:

For instance, Zappos.com, the shoes and clothing e-retailer now owned by Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, has agents meet about once a week for hour-long, one-on-one coaching sessions in which a supervisor and agent each take a call. The two then discuss what the agent did well and what could be improved the next time around.

Of course, you need to pay attention to what occurs in such meetings, but don’t miss what comes first:  weekly meetings!  The rhythm of weekly, regular meetings!

As I said, I am asking around about this a lot.  I find absolute consistency – excellent teams, excellent organizations, spend intentional, regular times in meetings.  They do not skip those meetings.  It is part of their routine, their ritual, their “rhythm.”

Yes, yes , I know… a lot of people sit through a lot of bad meetings.  And that is a problem.  So, yes, learn to run your meetings well.  If you are a leader, learning to run a good meeting may be the next important skill for you to master.  And, always, don’t forget to have an agenda, with something important to discuss/work on/accomplish.  The most successful organizations meet about the same thing over and over and over again. It takes that kind of “long haul” attention to get really good at anything.

But if you want a sure fire path to mediocrity (or outright failure) just try getting by with no meetings. That is a guaranteed path to failure.

You accomplish what you meet about!  Yes, you do!