Al Pittampalli calls himself meeting culture warrior. He’s on a mission to change the way organisations hold meetings, make decisions, and coordinate action. It’s a beautiful mission that echoes a lot with the work I do. His manifesto: Read This Before Our Next Meeting sets a new standard for the endless meetings intoxicating our corporate [...]
Coming to a closure is always one of the most difficult challenges a group faces. Recently, I was leading a workshop on meetings and many participants faced the difficult issue of decision-making. One of the participants put it clearly: ‘I hate it when I’m being asked to join a meeting to give my opinion [...]
Create an inspiring space! Habit number 4 of my ‘2 Rules and 7 Habits for Creative and Engaging Meetings’ is a reaction to all the poorly designed meeting rooms that abound in offices around the world. So many meeting hours are spent in uninviting, dull and poorly lit rooms. It’s depressing. Why do we [...]
You’re in a meeting. The stuff that’s being presented is boring, as is the presenter. You know the discussion will be long and tedious. So you start daydreaming. “Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization” is what Peter Drucker wrote in the The Effective Executive. You either meet or you work. You [...]
Finally there it is: my 7 minute presentation of ‘Creative and Engaging Meetings’ at the Creativity World Forum. Especially for all those who have voted for me but where not able to attend the Forum. And of course, also for all the other interested!
Ideas are just ideas. On itself, the value of an idea is nil. If you have a great idea but you don’t execute it, then nothing happens. The world just goes on as it went. And you’ve not made the change you wanted (did you really want to change the world or were you just [...]
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 [...]
Today I was flabbergasted. On two different unrelated occasions I asked: ‘how many hours a week do you spend in meetings?’ The first person I asked is project manager at a big public organisation, the second manager at a global consultancy. Both respondents gave the same answer: 5 hours a week. Example of [...]
When an organisation asks me to lead a change, the way meetings are run is rarely a topic of discussion. Points of attention are typically the organisational chart, job descriptions of the new positions (especially at higher level) and typology of the new culture. Meetings are usually overlooked. As if they didn’t matter. But [...]
About you
You're leading a team. And you hold meetings; regular ones, occasional ones.
Meetings consume valuable time so you want to get the most out of them. You want them to energize the participants, develop your team and help you achieve your change or innovation.
About Ruben
I'm Ruben van der Laan and I'm here to make your team flow.
I coach, (re)design and lead your meetings unleashing creativity, building teams and organising expediency.
