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 Death by MeetingYour committee meetings need both drama and context.
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I'm not sure what it says about me or my ability to lead my church or our meetings, but I was eager to read this book as soon as I heard about it. Death by Meeting (2004) is the work of Patrick Lencioni, a business consulting guru with a number of top-selling books to his credit. There's nothing Christian about this book (though church life is referenced sympathetically), and this is certainly not the go-to book on how to do effective ministry. But most of us in the church go to meetings. And all of us probably wish those meetings were a little better. So if we can get, filtered through Scripture, a few common grace pointers from a business junkie, why not take them? Most of the book is a fable about a video game company with really good people and really bad meetings. I'll skip over the story and get right to the take-home points. Lencioni highlights two problems with meetings. He's talking about meetings in the business world, but I think much of what he says can apply to elders' meetings, church staff meetings, worship committee meetings, or any other type of meeting. The first problem is this: meetings are boring. And the second is like it: meetings are ineffective. Meetings, says Lencioni, are boring because they lack drama. They are ineffective because they lack contextual structure. Lack of DramaMovies are interesting because they deal with conflict, be it real or imaginary, external or internal, epic or poignant. Meetings, conversely, are boring because "most leaders of meetings go out of their way to eliminate or minimize drama and avoid the healthy conflict that results from it." Lencioni urges leaders to inject drama into a meeting at the outset. This doesn't require theatrics, just an effort to show people that what they will be talking about really matters and everyone's opinion matters. More importantly, he cautions leaders against steering away from debate and disagreement. As one who has sat in many meetings and has led many meetings, I can testify to this danger. Most of us don't like conflict. So we figure a good meeting is one in which everything is quickly approved and we get done on time. I've seen it often: pastors aim for boring meetings. After all, he doesn't want to make his job harder. He doesn't want to present his proposals only to have them shut down by lay critics. So over time the leadership team gets bored. Nothing happens at meetings. And when the real gut-wrenching issues pop up, the "good" leader knows how to quickly avoid those discussions. Lencioni says the opposite. "Avoiding the issues that merit debate and disagreement not only makes the meeting boring, it guarantees that the issues won't be resolved." But, you may be saying (as I was saying too initially), "If I encourage vigorous debate, we'll never finish our meetings. Won't we get sidetracked down a thousand rabbit trials?" Not if you pay attention to the second problem. |        
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