Quotes about Meetings

In business meetings, observers would be nonplussed that Charlie and Jared Kushner invariably greeted each other with a kiss and that the adult Jared called his father Daddy.

The other aspect of NATO summits he found irritating was that they were group meetings. He was almost invariably enthusiastic about one-on-one world leader meetings—no matter the subject, no matter the leader—and agitated about collective gatherings. He worried about being ganged up on; he suspected that plots had been laid to trick him.

They reminded us that the freedom struggle was not merely a question of making speeches, holding meetings, passing resolutions, and sending deputations, but of meticulous organization, militant action, and, above all, the willingness to suffer and sacrifice.

Real-Time Agenda Once the lightning round and progress review are complete (usually no more than fifteen minutes into the meeting), now it is time to talk about the agenda. That's right. Counter to conventional wisdom about meetings, the agenda for a weekly tactical should not be set before the meeting, but only after the lightning round and regular reporting activities have taken place.

a leader's first priority is to create an environment where others can do these things and that cannot happen if they are not having effective meetings.

Now imagine if I were to ask a room full of executives which they enjoy more: meetings or movies? They would probably think I was joking. And yet, meetings should be more interesting than movies because they have more inherent potential for passion and engagement than movies do.

Ad Hoc Strategic Meetings In some cases, a strategic or critical issue that gets raised in a Weekly Tactical meeting cannot wait for the next Monthly Strategic meeting on the schedule. Still, that doesn't mean it should be taken up during that Weekly Tactical.

Another challenge in making strategic meetings work is the failure to do research and preparation ahead of time. The quality of a strategic discussion, and the decision that results from it, are improved greatly by a little preliminary work. This eliminates the all-too-common reliance on anecdotal decision making. The key to ensuring that preparation occurs is to let team members know as far in advance as possible what issues will be discussed during the Monthly or Ad Hoc Strategic.

Meetings are boring because they lack drama. Or conflict. This is a shame because most meetings have plenty of potential for drama, which is essential for keeping human beings engaged.

Douglas Thornton [an English Christian missionary to Cairo, Egypt with the Church Missionary Society from 1898-1907] was often more amusing than he tried to be. He had a delightful way of mixing up two kindred proverbs or idioms. Once he told his companions that he always had two strings up his sleeve. They then asked him if he had another card to his bow. Such exchanges enliven heavy committee eetings and create wholesome laughter.

I spend a great deal of time with the President. We have a very close, personal, loyal relationship. I'm not, as they say, a potted plant in these meetings.

can replace being in the same space. That's exactly why we need to keep creating the temporary worlds of meetings, small and large, on campuses and everywhere else. In them, we discover we're not alone, we learn from one another, and so we keep going toward shared goals.