I’ve already blogged about how ideas propagate. Richard Dawkins stated they do this the same way as our genes. Ideas travel from mind to mind, are being used, recombine, fall apart, get lost and father new ideas.
Our meetings can become so much better
From that point of view, meetings are nothing more than consciously created places to speed up this process. Why else would different brains join together in one room and discuss about weighty and important issues? Meetings are being organised because we want things to run quicker and more smoothly, because we need the propagation of ideas.
The intricate relationship between meetings and sex
Meetings have the same function for ideas as sex has for genes. And the Italian carmaker Fiat has pushed this parallel to the next level in underneath viral.
So let me ask you this question: if the sex would be as bad as your standard meetings what would you do? Meetings are intended to propagate ideas but they hardly do so. If they would then meetings would give us energy, make us feel happy, inspire us and enrich the world of ideas we’re carrying with us in our heads.
Even the effectiveness of ‘brainstorming’ (largely known as the ultimate idea-generation and propagation meeting) is matter of debate between scholars and practitioners.
This leaves us two questions:
- How do we make meetings that give us a kind-of-sexual experience (i.e. propagate as many ideas as possible)?
- And how much more would those meetings deliver compared to the meetings we’re currently holding?
I believe we can dramatically improve the effectiveness of our meetings. And that’s why I’ve developed the 2 rules for an engaged meeting. Soon will follow the 7 habits that go with it.
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