The 25 Minute Meeting

CHAPTER 8 Add variety

A participant in a workshop once shared a story with me about a transport and logistics company that hired some consultants to come and automate some of their more manual tasks.

When developing a data input screen, based off the manual form, the consultant asked, ‘What is the purpose of this box at the top that has “AR” and then the number 0?’

The employee shrugged and said, ‘It’s always been there and we were always told just to put the number 0 in it’.

Intrigued, the consultant began a historical search of the documents seeking an alternative number to 0 which might shed light on what the AR stood for and what meaning it had to the work. They waded through decades of historical documents and it wasn’t until 1945 that they started to see numbers other than 0 in the box.

Turns out AR stood for Air Raids, as during World War II the number of air raids needed to be documented as they had an impact on the running of the transport business. From 1946 onwards, there were 0 air raids, but the reason for recording them faded as the years went by until it became one of those things they did, just because they did!

Sounds crazy, right?

Meetings are like this. Just because we have always sat in rooms around tables, staring at projected images and screens, doesn’t mean we have to.

They say a change is as good as a holiday, so let’s look at how we might turn things on their head and start adding even more value to our meetings by changing where and how we conduct ...