# Death by Meeting **Patrick M. Lencioni** | [[Action]]  --- > "Think about your favourite movies. You can probably remember the opening scenes. Something about them got your attention and hooked you. And that's what you have to do in your meetings. Give people a reason to care." Meetings are the work. Not an interruption from the work—they *are* the work. For those who lead organisations, meetings are pretty much what we do. So how pathetic is it that we've come to accept that the activity most central to running organisations is inherently painful and unproductive? > "For those of us who lead and manage organisations, meetings are pretty much what we do. How pathetic is it that we have come to accept that the activity most central to the running of our organisations is inherently painful and unproductive?" Lencioni's diagnosis: meetings fail for two reasons. **Lack of drama** (leaders suppress conflict) and **lack of contextual structure** (everything gets thrown into the same confused stew). The fix isn't fewer meetings—it's better meetings. Hook people in the first ten minutes. Provoke healthy conflict. Separate tactical from strategic. Make people care. This isn't a book about productivity hacks. It's about recognising that if your meetings are boring and ineffective, you're failing at the core activity of leadership. --- ## Core Ideas ### [[The Two Problems with Meetings]] **Lack of drama.** Meetings are boring because they lack conflict. Not destructive conflict—**constructive ideological conflict**. > "Meetings are boring because they lack drama. Or conflict." When intelligent people discuss issues that matter, disagreement is natural and productive. Resolving those disagreements is what makes a meeting engaging, even fun. Most leaders go out of their way to *eliminate* drama, which drains interest. > "When a group of intelligent people come together to talk about issues that matter, it is both natural and productive for disagreement to occur. Resolving those issues is what makes a meeting productive, engaging, even fun." The leader's job: **provoke and uncover important disagreements**. Even when it makes you temporarily unpopular. > "The leader of a meeting must make it a priority to seek out and uncover any important issues about which team members do not agree. And when team members don't want to engage in those discussions, the leader must force them to do so. Even when it makes him or her temporarily unpopular." Conflict is nothing more than an anxious situation that needs to be resolved. Avoiding it doesn't make it go away—it just makes meetings pointless. **Lack of contextual structure.** The single biggest structural problem: throwing every type of issue into the same meeting, like a bad stew with too many random ingredients. > "The single biggest structural problem facing leaders of meetings is the tendency to throw every type of issue that needs to be discussed into the same meeting, like a bad stew with too many random ingredients." Tactical updates, strategic debates, and long-term reviews require different formats. Mixing them guarantees nothing gets resolved and everyone leaves frustrated. Different meetings for different purposes—each serves a valid and important function. --- ## The Four Types of Meetings ### [[Daily Check-In]] Five minutes, standing. Purpose: avoid confusion about how priorities are translated into action. Quick forum to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Everyone reports their activities for the day. Standing up keeps it fast. No one steps on anyone else's toes. ### [[Weekly Tactical]] Forty-five to ninety minutes. Purpose: resolution of issues and reinforcement of clarity. Structure: Lightning Round (everyone shares their 2-3 priorities for the week), Progress Review (report on 4-6 key metrics like revenue, expenses, customer satisfaction), then Set the Agenda (only *after* the lightning round and progress review). Counter to conventional wisdom: **the agenda should not be set before the meeting**. You don't know what needs discussion until you've heard the lightning round. > "The agenda for a weekly tactical should not be set before the meeting, but only after the lightning round and regular reporting activities have taken place." Two overriding goals: remove obstacles and ensure everyone is on the same page. Critical rule: **avoid lengthy discussion of underlying strategic issues**. Park them for the Monthly Strategic. ### [[Monthly Strategic]] Two to four hours. **The most interesting and important meeting**. Where executives wrestle with, analyse, debate, and decide upon critical issues that will affect the business in fundamental ways. Focus on only a few issues—quality over quantity. Requires preparation and sustained intellectual engagement. **This is where you embrace messy, passionate, unfiltered discussion**. Why it matters: provides a timely "parking lot" for critical issues that come up during Weekly Tacticals. Gives you confidence to table issues, knowing they'll be addressed. **Ad Hoc Strategic Meetings**: If a strategic issue can't wait for the next scheduled Monthly Strategic, create an ad hoc meeting specifically for it. Don't hijack the Weekly Tactical. ### [[Quarterly Off-Site Review]] One to two days. Purpose: step away from daily/weekly/monthly issues to review the business in a holistic, long-term manner. Four components: Comprehensive Strategy Review (reassess strategic direction), Team Review (assess behaviours, trust, and cohesion as a team), Personnel Review (discuss key employees across departments 3-4 times per year), and Competitive and Industry Review (step back and look at what's happening around you). This is where you gain perspective. Information about competitors and trends bleeds in gradually—off-sites let you synthesise it. --- ## Key Insights **Leaders must make it a priority to seek out and uncover important disagreements.** When team members don't want to engage, the leader must force them to—even when it makes them temporarily unpopular. > "Every time you're on the verge of getting into a crucial conversation that might get heated, you bail out." Consensus is usually not achievable. The likelihood of six intelligent people coming to sincere and complete agreement on a complex topic is very low. > "Consensus is usually not achievable. The likelihood of six intelligent people coming to a sincere and complete agreement on a complex and important topic is very low." The alternative: have a passionate, unfiltered, messy, provocative discussion. Discussion ends when the leader decides all information has been aired. If no one has made a compelling enough argument, **the leader breaks the tie**. Once the decision is made, **everyone supports it**. That's why it's critical that no one holds anything back during discussion. **Hook people in the first ten minutes**—set up the plot from the outset. Participants need to be jolted a little so they understand and appreciate what's at stake. Employees aren't expecting Hamlet, but they're looking for a reason to care. Ironically, most leaders eliminate drama and avoid healthy conflict, which only drains interest. **Don't mix tactical, strategic, and review activities into one meeting.** Each meeting type serves a distinct purpose—respect that. Regular cadence creates predictability: you know when each type of issue will be addressed. Weekly Tacticals should always happen, everyone always attends, run with discipline and structural consistency. --- ## Connects To - [[The Truth About Employee Engagement]] - Both argue that engagement comes from wrestling with meaningful issues, not avoiding conflict - [[Nine Lies About Work]] - Lencioni's emphasis on constructive conflict aligns with the idea that people need truth and clarity, not artificial harmony - [[Playing to Win]] - Monthly Strategic meetings are where you do the hard work of strategy: making real choices and committing - [[The Fifth Discipline]] - Separating meeting types equals systems thinking; different loops require different tempos and structures - [[Supercommunicators]] - Healthy conflict in meetings requires matching conversation types and creating space for real dialogue --- ## Final Thought Meetings are the work. If your meetings are terrible, your organisation is terrible. You cannot delegate this or optimise it away. The work happens in rooms where people talk, debate, and decide. The diagnosis is sharp. Meetings fail because leaders avoid conflict (lack of drama) and mix everything together (lack of contextual structure). The fix: hook people in the first ten minutes, provoke healthy disagreement, and separate tactical from strategic discussions. The insistence on conflict is striking. Not politeness, not consensus—**messy, passionate, unfiltered debate**. The leader's job is to provoke disagreement, ensure all views are aired, then decide and commit. Avoiding conflict doesn't preserve harmony; it creates frustration and disengagement. The operational structure: **four meeting types**, each with a clear purpose. Daily Check-In (5 minutes, standing) for coordination. Weekly Tactical (45-90 minutes) for obstacles and clarity. Monthly Strategic (2-4 hours) for wrestling with big issues. Quarterly Off-Site (1-2 days) for perspective and long-term review. Don't mix them. Respect the cadence. This isn't about making meetings tolerable. It's about making them the most valuable activity in your organisation. And that starts with giving people a reason to care.