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Meetings, Bloody Meetings
John Cleese coined the term in this chapter's title. It is the title of a very funny training film that he produced years ago. The movie demonstrated the horrors that we all experience in meetings, and offered some thoughtful ideas about how to address them. And as only John Cleese could do, he made the points in a most humorous fashion.
But this chapter is not a review of a 25-year-old training film. It will instead explore some of the reasons that cause so many meetings to fail, and suggest some of the things you can do to make your meetings more productive. If sales teams are going to work together effectively, they need to conduct effective meetings. Otherwise they will have a hard time developing innovative solutions for their customers.
Meeting regularly with your team is not a prerequisite for collaboration, but it sure helps. As we said earlier, conducting effective internal meetings is one of the three critical components of Innovative Team Selling.
One way to begin thinking about meetings is to do what someone suggested I do at my older daughter's wedding. I was told to take a few minutes, stand alone with my wife in a quiet corner, and just observe what was happening. “Everyone from your world is there,” she explained. “Just take a few minutes and watch what's happening. When you are involved in the event you won't see it; you need to look at it from a distance. If you don't do this, you'll miss something special.”
What great advice that ...
