Issue No. 367 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a leadership book that John Maxwell delayed writing until he was 60 (until he had the requisite life experience), plus a two-buck Kindle book on improving your meetings. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and read recent book reviews on this blog page.
Invest 2 Bucks to Improve Every Meeting
What can you get for two bucks? Even Trader Joe’s “two buck chuck” is now three bucks. Maybe $2.00 will snatch a cheap fidget spinner. I can buy almost 2,000 staples (a half box) at Staples—not bad.
But this is the deal of the decade: Invest $1.99 for a Kindle book and you’ll immediately improve your meetings (guaranteed!). Wow! See today’s featured book.
SUMMER RE-RUN:
Leadership Gold: Lessons I've Learned from a Lifetime of Leading, by John C. Maxwell
Best-selling author, leadership guru, and pastor John Maxwell admitted this in 2008:
“I confess I’ve wanted to write this book for almost a decade. In a way, I’ve been working on it for most of my life. But I promised myself that I would not sit down and write it until I turned 60. In February of 2007, I reached that milestone and began writing.”
Oops! Alert to all my friends and colleagues who I’ve encouraged to write books: Wait until you’re 60! With the proliferation of books today (some good, many not so good), that may be good wisdom.
Anyway, it was worth the wait. Maxwell does hit gold. Sample chapters:
1. If It’s Lonely at the Top, You’re Not Doing Something Right
4. When You Get Kicked in the Rear, You Know You’re Out in Front
6. The Best Leaders Are Listeners
7. Don’t Send Your Ducks to Eagle School
12. Your Biggest Mistake Is Not Asking What Mistake You’re Making
16. People Quit People, Not Companies
26. People Will Summarize Your Life in One Sentence—Pick It Now
If you read this back in 2008, it may be time for a refresher. Invite team members to pick their favorite chapters and give 4-minute mini-reviews at your next four or five staff meetings. To order from Amazon, click here. To order the Participant Guide, click here. To listen to the 3-hour, 21-minute audio book on Libro.fm, click here.
FEATURED BOOK ($1.99 on Kindle!):
The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting: Lesson 18 from Leadership Gold (Kindle Edition), by John C. Maxwell
This is brilliant! John Maxwell has packaged the 26 chapters in Leadership Gold into 26 mini-chapter Amazon Kindle books.
So…would you spend two bucks to improve your meetings? Of course you would! Click now!
Here’s a taste of Lesson 18, “The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting” from my 2008 review:
Bucket No. 20 in Mastering the Management Buckets is “The Meetings Bucket,” so I was excited to read the chapter, “The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting," in John Maxwell’s book. He credits his meeting management wisdom to Olan Hendrix (the first president of ECFA), one of his mentors. That blessed me because Olan’s mentoring saved my leadership! (See my confession on page 17 of my book.)
In 16 quick-reading pages, Maxwell builds the case for turning routine meetings into productive action-oriented gatherings. Following the counsel of Hendrix, he writes that the meeting before the meeting: 1) helps you receive buy-in, 2) helps followers to gain perspective, 3) increases your influence, 4) helps you develop trust, and 5) avoids your being blindsided.
The “no surprises” rule is critical for the key people in each meeting—and typically that means you must meet with them in advance. Maxwell preaches: “If you can’t have the meeting before the meeting, don’t have the meeting. If you do have the meeting before the meeting, but it doesn’t go well, don’t have the meeting. If you have the meeting before the meeting and it goes as well as you hoped, then have the meeting!” (Read the review for my 2011 book-of-the-year.)
To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting: Lesson 18 from Leadership Gold (Kindle Edition), by John C. Maxwell.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) How many hours per week are you in meetings? How much training (books, audio, or workshops) have you had in the art of leading or attending meetings?
2) Pop Quiz! Ask your team members to identify three values of having the “meeting before the meeting.”
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Prune Sick Meetings! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
The Meetings Bucket in Mastering the Management Buckets challenges leaders to “design meetings like an architect designs buildings.” To help, take this clue on “pruning” from Dr. Henry Cloud in Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward.
If a routine meeting is “sick and not getting well,” Cloud offers this pruning example: “We have tried repeatedly to use these times for forecasting, and it just never works. We can’t get the information we need as the discussion progresses, and even though we have tried, it is confusing and a waste. Let’s stop using this meeting to do that.” (Read the review for my 2011 book-of-the-year.)
For more meeting resources, including Worksheet #20.1: "Weekly Update to My Supervisor,” the most requested template in all of the 20 buckets, visit the Meetings Bucket webpage.
P.S. Read John’s recent blog on board governance, "What the Board Owes the CEO," from his 2017 series on Max De Pree's book, Called to Serve.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As a board member and raving fan of Christian Community Credit Union (a non-profit), we proudly list the credit union as a sponsor at no charge.
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