If I had a nickel for every pointless meeting that I attended, I’ve have quite a few nickels. In the corporate world, Americans waste untold amounts of time listening to people blather on about irrelevant things.
I was curious about solutions to this common problem. To this end, I sat down with Dr. Rick Brinkman, author of Dealing With Meetings You Can’t Stand: Meet Less and Do More. The following is an excerpt from our conversation.
PS: What motivation for writing this book?
RB: My parents met in the ghetto in the beginning of the war. My father is German and mother is Polish. They married and were sent to Auschwitz and survived through the grace of multiple miracles — including finding each other again after the war.
I have always felt, even as a child, that I was on a mission to turn conflict into cooperation. I’ve been doing my part by teaching communication, performing 4,000 programs in 17 countries over the last 30 years and writing 5 books.
In my experience, everyone at a meeting has something of value to contribute. The integration of people’s different points of view on any subject creates what I call Holographic Thinking™— which quickly produces higher-quality ideas and solutions, so you can meet less and do more.
Read much more in the Huffington Post interview with Dr. Rick on Dealing with Meetings