A Facilitator's Guide to Building Better Meetings
Today's world is highly interconnected and diffuse – much more so than it was in the past. This has changed the way we think about leadership and expertise.
Before the industrial age, expertise was localized. A farmer, for example, knew a great deal about a small part of the world – his land. Leaders gathered and preserved such patchwork knowledge, making them stewards. Later, with industrialization, they became managers. They possessed specialized knowledge about the complex technical processes that made the world run and told everyone else what to do.
The digital age is different. Expertise is widely diffused and easy to access, but it can’t be stored in a single library or mind – it’s in the “cloud.”
That’s changed leaders’ roles. They’re no longer in the business of bossing other people around; their job is to help experts work together. In other words, they’re facilitators.
The key message here is: Effective leaders aren’t autocrats – they’re conductors.
The workplace has changed a lot over the last quarter-century.
In the late twentieth century, organizations were rigid hierarchies. At the top was the autocratic manager. His commands were relayed from one subordinate down to the next.
But now the emphasis has shifted: self-managing teams, it turns out, achieve more than individuals carrying out detailed instructions issued from on high.
Leadership is still vital, of course, but the role of leaders has also changed.
They’re no longer expected to micromanage every aspect of work processes. Instead, they facilitate the work of experts and help teams chart their own course toward organizational goals. They delegate for the same reason people go to hairdressers. You could cut your own hair, but the results are better when a professional is handling the scissors. In organizations, the best results come when leaders let the experts – their teams – do the trimming.
Of course, hair salons are much simpler operations than most companies: usually, folks make do with a single stylist. Organizations, by contrast, have to align dozens of teams, departments, and experts.
That alignment happens in meetings, which brings us back to this new breed of leaders. They don’t have all the answers, but they do take command of the questions. A bad meeting is a chaotic free-for-all that leads nowhere – in short, it’s a dissonant mess. A good meeting, on the other hand, is like a harmonious concerto. Individual instruments play their way through a piece with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Leaders, meanwhile, are like conductors – they guide this collaborative effort.
And that’s the art of facilitation. So how’s it done? Let’s find out!
Meetings That Get Results (2021) is a practical guide to the art of running more effective and efficient meetings. Designed for leaders tasked with facilitating meetings and group discussions, it emphasizes collaborative approaches to decision-making and problem-solving.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testen
Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
