How to turn around a stalled meeting!

Tom, over at Management Skills, offers up this great meeting turnaround strategy in his post called, Simple Exercise.

Check it out.

I like that he is offering managers a concrete example of how they can get a languishing meeting back on track and in high gear. You need to be willing to be direct and strong, but sometimes that just what's gotta be done to get people in the game.

His request for 12 questions in six minutes is a bit agressive, but I am guessing this is a facilitator technique to keep people from dawdling. :-) Am I right Tom?

Comments

[Tom Foster]

It's a twist on "Work expands to fill the time allotted." People will think quickly if you ask them to think quickly. My experience tells me that I get no better results whether I give people 15 minutes or I give them 6 minutes. So, if each team goes for 12 but only gets 10 questions in six minutes and I have three teams, I still get 30 questions.

The interesting part, however, is to examine the quality of the questions beyond number five. The first five questions are usually top of head easy stuff. Questions 6-12 are the ones that generally produce the most insight.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Tom - I know you'd have an interesting explanation - thanks!