People Leading People

Fourteen years ago, I took a class at a tiny local theater. The goal was to create and then perform, a ten-minute monologue, which would happen on the last day of the class in front of an invitation-only audience. Our instructors - actors and improv people - led our group of eight through many exercises to stimulate creativity and practice the skills we'd need to stage and perform our pieces at the end. One of the writing exercises was called "The Truth Is." A timer was set for eight minutes and we were instructed to begin with those words, then just let the pen go where it wished. If you got bored, you'd start a new paragraph but it had to start with "The truth is..." and go from there. Afterward, each person got on stage and read their writing aloud. I took that class seventeen times over six years. All of my monologues came from the writings that began with "The truth is..." (Some of them are on YouTube if you're curious.) Lately, when I use

People complain about how much time they spend in meetings, how little work they get done because of meetings, and how frustrating it is to be present in those meetings. It's been eighteen years since I had an inside job so I'm empathetic but haven't lived it for a good while. But now I'm involved with an organization and I'll have a chance to put my money where my mouth is :-) The organization is a good example of well-intentioned meetings gone astray. Agenda? Check. A list of topics, pretty standard. Start time? Check. Location? Check. Basic housekeeping handled. But this is not enough to have a productive, satisfying, energetic meeting. You need a clear purpose ("monthly team meeting" doesn't count), desired outcomes ("talk about agenda items" doesn't count), a facilitator (it can be the person who called the meeting), and one more thing. At the risk of sounding like a Facebook "You Probably Don't Know This!" person, the