How to Hold a Creative Meeting

The following is based on Prince's "The Practice of Creativity," pages 37-41.

The point of a meeting is to solve problems. Inform and read on your own! Solve problems together! The most valuable resource at a meeting are the minds of the people in attendance. Therefore to run an effective meeting you must position the minds in attendance to solve problems in the best possible way.

Positioning minds requires you to keep aggressiveness directed toward solving problems and away from personalities. People are emotional and attached to their opinions and ideas. The smallest slight or put-down damages a person's ability to contribute to the group.

Here's an example:

John: What if we made seat belts that fasten themselves?
Tom: That doesn't solve our problem. We're talking about overall safety, and seat belts are only part of the solution.
You: Tom, I think that John's idea actually does solve a big piece of the safety issue (this is your chance to protect John and his way of thinking). And you're right that we're talking about safety in the big picture (don't devalue Tom). Maybe you could think more about defining total safety while we look at John's idea?

This approach allows people to understand problems in their own way and keeps people valued and engaged.

Summary of effective meeting model:
1. Meetings are for understanding and solving problems. Inform people through email, don't bore them with lectures.
2. Protect each person's sensitivity and give direction for aggressiveness.
3. Recognize that a meeting is (to some extent) a personal competition that makes each person vulnerable.

For another source on meetings, see Seth Godin's post here.