Blog Post 9/21/2009

Do you ever consider all of the things in our life that have the purpose of being broken? Pinatas are one good example of this.

A pinatas purpose, its goal in life, is to be broken. By taking this beautiful creation and smashing it open the pinatas second goal in life is achieved – delivering candy to children.

When you consider the purpose of the pinata you quickly realise that ultimately the pinata’s final purpose (to provide children with fun) is the only purpose it delivers on in a responsible and efficient way.

You see, the pinatas beauty is the artistry of the container itself. Surely it would be more efficient to deliver the candy in a bowl to the children; maintaining a beautiful piece of art would be a more responsible use of the pinata itself. The action of smashing the pinata is quite fun though.

So, through destruction we derive  joy.

Destructive Purpose

Don’t get me wrong, I <3 pinatas. I was so excited to see my daughter take her very first ever whacks at a pinata. Sometimes things with a destructive purpose are a real joy. However, I understand that there are a lot of other things we do with destructive purpose in life that aren’t enjoyable.

At your organization do you call meetings where you struggle to build agendas? Do you have meetings that are cobbled together around issues that not everyone has an interest in?

These meetings are destined to breakdown. Participants become quickly bored and agitated about the time they are wasting. Facilitators of meetings like this lose the trust and respect of their audience. This break in trust and respect often leads to a break in morale.

The primary problem with these meetings is that they are driven by an agenda (either the stated one or the subtle one that comes from above). So instead of hosting destructive meetings how do you start hosting responsible and efficient meetings; meaningful meetings?

Injecting Purpose

One simple question that usually has difficult answers is, “What is the purpose for this meeting?”

Answer that question first before doing anything else. If someone wants to start building an agenda before you have your purpose completed then stop them. Even if you are the one calling a meeting don’t develop the purpose alone, have someone else sit with you.

This collaborator will help determine if your purpose really requires convening a meeting and whether or not the purpose is driven by personal agenda or if it will drive an organizational agenda.

Once you have a clarity of purpose the agenda will write itself and you will easily determine who are the right people to invite. Instead of a destructive meeting you now have laid the groundwork for a productive meeting and possibly innovative discussion.

Try It

1. Sit down with someone else to plan your next meeting.
2. Sit across from each other or in a circle if there are several of you.
3. Put a big piece of blank white paper in the center with some markers.
4. One at a time talk about what the purpose of the meeting might be and let each person write their idea on the paper.
5. Once everyone has had a chance to contribute a thought or idea work together to boil those down or expand them, depending on what seems appropriate.
6. Take a clean sheet of paper and write out a final version of your purpose in its center – this becomes the core purpose behind everything that happens at the meeting.
7. Now, and only now, are you ready to create your agenda. If something doesn’t fit with the core purpose then it shouldn’t be a part of this meeting.