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-Paul Niven
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Books by
Paul Niven
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Welcome to my inaugural newsletter.
Considering I've written four books, and countless articles and blog posts on strategy and strategy execution, you may think a newsletter is long overdue. In fact, this is just one of a number of changes at The Senalosa Group. In addition to the newsletter, in which you'll find practical, easy to apply tips you can benefit from immediately, I invite you to follow me on social media, including: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. I'll be using all of these channels to stay connected with you, and share the latest advice, solutions, and best practices you need to keep your Performance Management systems robust and vibrant.
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This Month's Tip:
Three Ways to Improve Your Next Management Meeting
We live in polarizing times; whether it's politics, sports, or Wall Street, opinion tends to split down the middle with half the population supporting one view and the other vehemently defending the alternative point of view. But differences of opinion vanish when you bring up meetings. Most people agree they're of questionable value, and have plenty (to put it mildly) of room for improvement. If you want to make better use of your management meeting time, try these three tips at your next get together:
1. Create and stick to a focused agenda.
Everyone wants to be efficient with their time, but you simply can't cover everything from strategy reviews to monthly operating results to the latest IT initiatives in one sitting without sacrificing quality dialog for speed. That's the meeting equivalent of multi-tasking, but recent research on brain science is shedding new light on the long accepted virtues of multi-tasking. Turns out we can't do two things at once, and attempting to do so actually harms productivity. As the old saying goes, there is a time and place for everything. Your first responsibility in bringing your colleagues to the table for a meeting is to have a focused agenda that concentrates on a limited number of related subjects, or maybe just one, allowing time for analysis, discussion, and learning.
2. Listen more, talk less.
When I sit in on client meetings it sometimes occurs to me that everyone around the table is just waiting, very impatiently, for a chance to speak. When that time comes, based on the new direction in which they spin the conversation, it's pretty obvious they didn't really hear a word the previous speaker uttered, and are simply intent on getting their point across. In your next meeting I encourage you to take the time to really listen to your colleagues' point of view and, as Benjamin Franklin once noted: Gain knowledge by use of the ear, rather than the tongue. Before providing your own opinion, share what you believe you heard others say and don't progress until you can express it to their satisfaction.
3. Score the meeting's effectiveness.
After the meeting, ask participants to rate its effectiveness on a number of pre-determined criteria. The dimensions you choose to measure are up to you, but consider the following to get your creative juices flowing: Did the meeting begin and end on time? Were materials provided in advance? Did the facilitator review the agenda? Did the facilitator guide the discussion effectively? Was there active participation from all participants? Were actions recorded? Keep track of responses over time to determine whether or not your meetings are becoming more effective as judged by participants. To keep things really simple, try giving everyone a single piece of paper at the end of the meeting, have them record their thoughts, and drop the paper in one of two buckets, "Cheers" or "Jeers."
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Paul's Bookshelf
Here are two books I recently read and strongly recommend:
Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy by Joan Magretta. Harvard Business School Press, 2012.
As a student of strategy I've read Porter's work and it can be a daunting task. He is a scholar of the highest order and his work, while ultimately rewarding, can be challenging for the practitioner. In this book, Magretta, who enjoyed unfettered access to Porter throughout the writing process, provides a concise yet thorough synthesis of the strategy guru's principal theories, and supplies the reader with numerous examples of his ideas in action. I found myself peppering the margins with notes and am certain any organization would benefit from applying the models presented to their own strategic planning process.
Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity by Mario Morino. Venture Philanthropy Partners in partnership with McKinsey & Company, 2011.
In this lively volume, supported by numerous case studies, Morino convincingly argues his case for why nonprofit organizations must invest in Performance Management and rigorously measure outcomes. His reasons are many, varied, and always compelling, but in the end he asserts outcome measurement is a must for any nonprofit because it ultimately improves the quality of services for clients. In a refreshing twist, Morino avoids the mechanics of number crunching and analytics, and instead focuses much attention on the vital culture change necessary within most nonprofits to make this important transition to outcome measurement. Another reason to love this book: the Kindle version is free at Amazon! |
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That's it for this month. Please stay in touch!
Paul R. Niven, President |
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