2017 – The Year for Shorter Meetings?

What does one do when there is so much change taking place and yet the majority of people are resistant to change?It is one of the great questions, and partly why there are seemingly more “Business Prevention Squads” that exist within management. The “Business Prevention Squad”? Yes they exist in all businesses. They are the people whose sole role is to be negative and to stop business happening – most especially change that may just affect them. It sounds partially comical but sadly it can be mentally and emotionally draining for those trying to drive businesses forward.  How does one handle such groups?Through Culture – or more precisely through a culture that is action based. Actions create actions and things just begin to happen with a culture that has an energy about it.  It is one of the issues of increased processes within businesses; it has led to less actions taking place. It is no coincidence that as technology and MI flow has increased, so process has become stronger and actual actions have decreased. We have written before about the fact that senior executives are being asked to make decisions 40% faster than a decade ago and yet the decisions made are taking 20% longer to implement. It is all a result of businesses learning how to handle the increase in MI flow and the change in process. There is a need to listen and learn maybe to some techniques from yesteryear when executives just acted in good faith and often on judgement.  Change will not go away. It will continue to get faster and faster. It will naturally bring the best and worst out of people. Maybe the lesson to learn from yesteryear is how to develop and give confidence to executives to just make decisions and act on their judgement. There is a need to help develop a new generation of leaders through actions and be accountable for their judgement. There is an old tale of Archie Norman who as CEO of ASDA had a room of table with no chairs next to his office. He would meet his executives in that room. Why?  The logic was that if one did not sit down they would not waffle. There is another CEO who would limit every morning meeting to 2 minutes. One had to convey a message in that time and this in time created a speed and energy. There are many executives who yearn for less internal meetings. Of course, internal commas are important but do they also create barriers. Maybe 2017 is the year for encouraging shorter meetings?Maybe 2017 is the year to free executives to use their own judgement more?