The badness of the meetings is twofold: the organisation in question's meetings, as is commonly the case, are tedious, unengaging, and dry. In addition, the time spent together by key people is used ineffectively.
So what can be done about it?
The first step
The first step in transforming meetings is to understand why they are so bad. Lencioni says there are two basic problems. First, meetings lack drama, which means they are boring. Second, most meetings lack context and purpose. They are a confusing mix of administration, tactics, strategy and review, all of which create unfocused, meandering and seemingly endless conferences, with little resolution or clarity.
Creating engagement
In order to make meetings interesting and engaging, Lencioni says, you have to find the appropriate level of drama, including areas of potential conflict. Following the example of film-makers, he suggests introducing the key issues (which may indeed be controversial) at the start of meetings and thrashing them out until resolution is achieved, or at least the key issues openly wrestled with. This 'compelling drama' will ensure that what's really at stake is addressed and also keeps people engaged.
Context and purpose
To create context, leaders must differentiate between different types of meetings. No amount of drama or engagement will suffice if people do not understand why the meeting is taking place and what is expected of them. Otherwise they will struggle to shift back and forth between tactical and strategic conversations, with little or no resolution of issues.
Instead, Lencioni claims that teams should ideally be having four distinct meetings on a regular basis. These include what he calls the Daily Check-in, the Weekly Tactical, the Monthly Strategic and the Quarterly Off-site Review - each with its own clear and distinct agenda and perspective.
Conducted properly, Lencioni asserts that - far from realising people's fear of meetings consuming more and more time - these events will actually save time by creating clarity, faster & better decisions, raised productivity and morale, along with more engaged people.
"A meeting is somewhere that minutes are taken and hours wasted."James T Kirk