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February 25, 2022

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter by Marvin Weisbord

Notes: You Can Make Every Meeting Count...

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.
~Thomas Sowell

Book, prepared to provide teaching material so you will learn to:

• help groups achieve shared goals in a timely way,
• manage differences without flying apart,
• solve problems and make tough decisions without delegating the task back to you, and
• structure meetings to greatly increase the probability that people will share responsibility

I want to see progress . . . or it is a waste of time. But that isn’t the meeting’s fault. That is the fault of the person calling and leading the meeting.
—DARIN HAMER, IT professional, Topeka, Kansas (2006)

With the assistance of book, it is possible to become more effective in two ways:

• First, you will pay more attention to organizing meetings based on purposes.
You will discover the increased capability of those involved to reach goals they once thought
unreachable.
• Second, you will develop keener instincts for when you need to shift structure and when you
don’t. As your capability grows for letting people find their own voices, so will your self-
confidence in handling new situations no matter what a group chooses to do.

“Leading Meetings”

Principle 1: “Get the Whole System in the Room”
- how to put those with authority, resources, expertise, information, and need in the same
conversation.
Whether they act or not, they cannot avoid responsibility

Define a “whole system” as those who have among them authority, resources, expertise, information, and need.
Get the right cross-section if you want action on problems and decisions without a lot more meetings.

Principle 2: “Control What You Can, Let Go What You Can’t”
- offers guidance on how you can optimize output by managing a meeting’s boundaries—its
purposes, time frames, meeting conditions, list of invitees, the working group size, shifting
coalitions, agenda, and spectrum of views.

Exercise maximal control before the meeting (e.g., your role, participants, agenda, and time). During the meeting, control only those few things needed to keep people working on the task.

Principle 3: “Explore the ‘Whole Elephant’”
- can save you endless time and the misunderstandings that occur when people leap into
problem-solving and talking past one another.
Demonstration of ways to look at all aspects of a situation before acting on any one part.

Everything is connected to everything else. The best way to find all the connections is to hear from people who have firsthand experience.
Find out what every person has to contribute. In a short time, all participants will have a more realistic and complex view than any one person had at the start.
Get everybody on the same page before asking them to problem-solve or decide.
They will make better choices and be more likely to accept responsibility for their actions.

Principle 4: “Let People Be Responsible”
- provides you with a key philosophical perspective that will help you manage meetings without
feeling the pressure to diagnose group norms or to “pysch out” people’s motives as a condition
for building commitment.

You can encourage people to share responsibility for a meeting and its outcomes if you don’t take the entire burden on yourself.
One way to free yourself is to give up trying to diagnose individuals and groups, a task that grows
more difficult the more diverse the group. Instead, learn to work with people the way they are. Make structure the focus of your attention rather than individual behavior.

Principle 5: “Find Common Ground”
-offers advice on helping people discover values, ideals, and purposes shared by everyone present
regardless of differences.
The suggestion of a new approach to problems and conflicts when common ground is your goal.
We treat them as information rather than action items, getting them into the open, validating
them, and moving on without resolving them.

We define “common ground” as those statements every person will agree with after all views have been heard and disagreements made public.
The major benefit of finding common ground is increased cooperation and fast action on matters of shared concern.
When some people agree and others don’t, treat that as a reality to live with, not a problem to be solved.

Principle 6: “Master the Art of Subgrouping
- will put into your hands a little-known structural method that keeps groups whole, on task, and
open to new ideas.
Learning how to tell the difference between functional subgroups and those based on stereotypes
and how to use informal subgroups to head off conflict.

Functional subgrouping is the practice of inviting people to ally with others based on similar experiences, feelings, or points of view.
Groups will keep working so long as no member becomes a victim of stereotyping.
The way to head off fight or flight is to help people experience their differences as functional rather than stereotypical.
We do this by invoking subgroups if scapegoating or splitting seems probable.
In conflict situations, you can go further and form temporary subgroups in which people explore their positions.
Most of the time they will resolve and move on when they discover a legitimate spectrum of views, making confrontation unnecessary.

“Managing Yourself”

Principle 7: “Make Friends with Anxiety”
- redefines an unpleasant dynamic as “blocked excitement.”
Learning the benefits and procedures for containing anxiety in yourself and in a group, turning it
to creative action.

Learn to accept anxiety as an inevitable traveling companion when the stakes are high, issues complicated, perceptions diverse, and answers uncertain.
You can grow your capacity for leadership by increasing your tolerance for such natural conditions as disorder, ambiguity, and uncertainty.

Principle 8: “Get Used to Projections”
- presents a practical, albeit unusual, program for managing yourself.
Help with acceptance of your “projections,” the loved and hated parts of yourself that you find
reflected in other people.
The more parts you know, the greater the variety of human beings you can work with. This is a
key step to not “taking it personally,” that facile advice we give ourselves, often to no avail.
Demonstrate how to use this awareness to ease your path when working with diverse groups
whose members are projecting onto you and each other.

Projection means experiencing as originating “out there” parts of ourselves that we like or reject. We may project our hopes and fears on others, making them responsible for our feelings and our fate. Others do the same to us, especially when we take leadership. There are many benefits to
becoming aware of your projections. Not least of these is learning to detach enough from what happens in meetings that you stop taking personally whatever people say or do.

Principle 9: “Be a Dependable Authority”
- differentiates the authority that leadership confers from authoritarian behavior.
One pitfall we will help you avoid is responding inappropriately when other people project their
concerns onto you, making you the (unwitting) stand-in for parents, teachers, bosses, siblings,
and others they may have once idolized or loathed.

Anytime you assume authority, people test your dependability. The more emotional the agenda, the tougher the testing. Being dependable means staying cognizant of authority dynamics as they play out in every group. You cannot avoid authority projections. They come at you you lead. You can learn to keep your head and not take things personally. You can respond appropriately to dependency and interdependency without becoming hooked on your own brilliance or undermined by your suspected shortcomings.

Principle 1o: “Learn to Say No If You Want Yes to Mean Something”
- provides support for a vastly underrated skill—saying no to unrealistic requests and expectations
for “outcomes” and “deliverables” any time you suspect them to be unreachable

Saying no is an underused skill in a shorter-faster-cheaper society.
If you say no to conditions where you are not likely to succeed, you will save yourself and others much time and effort in meetings.
If you prepare yourself to say no, you will feel more secure, successful, and centered each time you say yes.

The book contains many rules, guidelines, tips, procedures, practices, and techniques for leading meetings.

Valuable ideas for the transformation of frustration and cynicism to creativity and energy on a daily basis.

The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions.
~Patrick Lencioni

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter

Marvin Weisbord, Sandra Janoff, Jack MacNeish (Illustrations)

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Marvin Weisbord

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