“ How you can lead your team to peak performance ”

by Steven G. Rogelberg

Book Cover

Not revolutionary if you’ve read 3 blog articles on the topic. Save yourself some time and just read the last chapter if you go for it - it’s a summary and I don’t think the rest of the book offers much more. It has nothing surprising and it’s somewhat science, the subtitle (lead your team to peak performance?!) is definitely overselling though.

summary

Meetings are not useless, but most of them are not scoped and badly orchestrated. Scope the meeting properly, shorten the duration and cut the list of participants, use tools such as doc review, start strong, make sure it stays on point, encourage participation terminate early.

notes

Time

  • do you really need the meeting
  • shorten to the point of pressure. Don’t default to 1h or 30m, try 48m or 25m
  • don’t start late, but more importantly, don’t finish late. Studies show finishing late is the most disruptive and depressing thing for participants
  • huddles should be completely timebound
  • cancel meetings that arent useful, or where not ready, even if last minute
  • recenter meeting on the point at hand.
  • use and display a cost calculator.

Agenda

  • presented as cure all but agendas are usually badly done (repeated, vague, non directive)
  • determine what questions to answer and what will be different after the meeting
  • don’t reuse agenda
  • provide the agenda ahead of time and ask for agreement on goal, for additional points
  • gather input before the meeting

Dynamic

  • start the meeting energetically, be clear on outcome
  • make sure to add dynamic
  • be careful about distractions (phones/computers)
  • walk
  • stand (no more than 15m)
  • determine roles - who’s the leader? the note taker?
  • remove habits, change format, questions, sitting, …

Thinking

  • encourage conflict and saying stuff.
  • doc review - first part of the meeting is everyone reading the document
  • use silence - allow silent break during the meeting for people to think.
  • brainwriting instead of brainstorm, everyone writes in one document
  • use intervals - split meeting into smaller meetings with an interval used to synthesize
  • separate discussion and decision to prevent early consensus

Reduce attendance

  • Split meetings into multiple smaller more focused meetings
  • Solicit input and ideas prior to the meeting in writing
  • Send minutes and conclusion, promise a follow up meeting if necessary

Gather feedback, send surveys.


About Reading Notes

These are my takes on this book. See other reading notes. Most of the time I stop taking notes on books I don't enjoy, and these end up not being in the list. This is why average ratings tend to be high.