They can be like enduring a root canal…without Novocain.  Sometimes they are like trying to run a marathon… with 50 pound barbells strapped to your feet.  Other times they are like last week’s Sunday paper…placed at the bottom of a bird cage.

No, not people…meetings.

Whenever employees are asked, “What is the worst waste of your time at work?” the frequent answer is “meetings.”

Meetings are faulted for being too long, unfocused, an opportunity for some serious axe-grinding, a forum for incompetence, and normally do not result in any substantive changes.

I have a series of practical suggestions for LeMonAide readers who have organizational responsibility for meetings. 

--Plan the agenda by asking for input from the participants prior to the meeting.

--Send a copy of the agenda out to everyone who has a good reason to attend.

--Announce a start and end time for the meeting and never…ever violate those timeframes.

--Find a meeting room with natural light.  The research is abundant that natural light improves the productivity of a team.

--Use a round table or, if you are using a large conference table, move the attendees to one end.  Keeping distance between people at a minimum enhances communication.

--Stand at the very beginning.

--Script your first few sentences and then memorize so everyone knows you know where you are going.

--Use a flipchart, whiteboard or PowerPoint slide to visually challenge the group with the salient question/decision that should be answered by the conclusion of the meeting.

--Immediately bring the conversation back to the focus for the meeting if someone tries to hijack the proceedings.

--Frame discussions by using a workplace scenario.  Ask the participants to work in pairs to come up with a solution to the problem in the scenario.  No one will be snoozing.

--Give timeframes for discussion such as “In order for us to complete our task today, let’s take just 10 more minutes for this discussion.”

--Continually summarize with, “Here is what I have heard so far in our discussion….”

--Make specific assignments as a result of the team meeting.

--Send a very short e-mail summary of what the team accomplished and include an option for participants to contribute agenda items for the next meeting.

A boring meeting is like a blind date:  you will quickly know if this will be worth your time.

If there is a meeting with no agenda, there is no meeting.

The only place in American business to get paid a lot of money for clipping fingernails, counting ceiling tiles and grinding axes is…in a meeting.

If the name, “Ury,” sounds familiar, you probably have the book Getting to Yes.  This work is the Holy Scripture for the art of negotiation.  The coauthor of Getting to Yes is William Ury.  Great book, but Ury’s recent book is the one I want you to go out and buy today.

The Power of a Positive No is Ury’s latest contribution to the informed reader’s library.  William Ury directs the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University which has become a fountainhead for practical negotiation skills for management and labor, nations at war and people who cannot resolve their conflicts.

Ury has moved from a world view to the personal in this book.  He will teach you the cost and benefits of saying “no.”  You will learn how to stay true to your “yes” while telling the other person “no.”  And, what I enjoyed the most, you will learn specific linguistic skills to assert your “no” without permanently alienating the other person.

The ISBN is: 13:978-0-553-80498-0, published by Bantam Dell, 2007. 

New, Free Article

If you feel like you have “hit bottom” in your personal or professional life, you may be interested in downloading my latest article, “How to Bounce Back After Hitting Bottom.”

This article presents five strategies for resilience.  This short piece would especially be apropos for a company or organizational newsletter.  To download a copy of this article, just go to our website at www.execenrichment.com and choose the Downloadable Resources option.  You’ll then see a list of available articles.

New Course

If you are in a leadership position and need new skills to motivate an “entitled” workforce, call me about my new course, “How to Grow Your Organization By…Giving It Away."   This learning event is built around the premise that employees will work out of their collective gut if they are made “owners.”  Ownership can involve stock options, bonuses and incentive pay, but “ownership” is ultimately between our ears.  And, the leadership of any organization is pivotal as to whether or not a workforce feels like owners.

Give me a call at 800-373-4040 or send me a reply to this LeMonAide and I will give you more information.

I have a debt of…47 million.

That figure is not dollars:  it is people. 

In this hyper-political season there is one subject we cannot sweep under the rug any longer and it is health care for the 47 million Americans who are not covered under any health care program.

If you have not figured it out, these 47 million people are costing…you and me.  The easiest response is to blame the 47 million.  It is a nice, round and impersonal number.  After all, we reason, if “they just worked hard like the rest of us” they could pay their monthly health care premium.

Look again.

For someone making minimum wage, working two jobs, is it possible to afford health care insurance if your monthly, before-taxes paycheck is $2,000.00?  Do the math.  I do not think so.

For instance, my wife and I are presently paying $1,400.00 per month (both of us are independent contractors with no history of serious health liabilities) for health insurance that requires the first $2,000.00 of regular office visit fees to be paid out-of-pocket.

In an online survey conducted last month by Harris Interactive, 85% of respondents said they were “concerned” or “very concerned” about health care costs, compared with 79% who said they had a similar level of concern about the war in Iraq.

This same survey revealed some scary statistics like 29% of the respondents said they had not filled a prescription because of the cost and 28% said they had delayed a medical procedure because they just did not have the extra cash.

So, here are the hard facts.  According to research by Dr. Paul Ginsburg, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, from 1999 to 2003 the per capita spending for services covered by private health insurance increased by 39 percent.  Notice that the hourly earnings of U.S. workers, during the same time period, increased by only 14 percent.

The conclusion is clear.  Those of us who are paying monthly health care premiums are subsidizing the 47 million Americans who cannot afford medical attention.  More specifically, the family physician has been replaced by the Emergency Room doctor who is subsidized by the hospital that has to continually raise the rates for care.

This repeated scenario is an untreatable organizational carcinogen that is slowly filling our national financial veins with spreadsheet toxicity.

Somewhere in the very near future our society has to insist on three treatment plans in order for us to maintain the health of this democracy.

First, the government must endorse a plan that creates an impartial watch-dog that will guarantee price-gauging does not pockmark any solution.

You are saying, “Right, just what we need, another governmental agency!”  Well, do you think this present capitalistic system that is turning double-digit profits every quarter for drug and health insurance companies can be trusted to regulate themselves?  Come on, if the promise of profound profits hangs at the end of this carrot, do we expect for-profit companies to deny themselves, and their shareholders, reduced profit margins because they have an ethical commitment to keep the nation physically and financially healthy?

Second, someone in Washington has to bring together the best minds in academia, industry and government to “play with ideas.” 

I am confounded that Steve Jobs can entice the minds at Apple Computer to dream and then produce the IPod and IPhone.  YouTube can pull in billions in profit by giving people a worldwide theatre for their home video.  And, why does Southwest Airlines continue to laugh all the way to the bank while we continue to scream at each other as we write larger monthly checks for the right to quality health care?

There are 47 million people in this society who need a new idea on how to hold on to health.  We have new ideas for stuffed French toast, invisible fences for our dogs and makeup that will not smear in the rain.  Why can we not find a big idea to keep us healthy?

Finally, we have to develop a national consensus that when we are physically well, we are rich.  We wear our wealth on our wrists, around our necks and the metal that surrounds us when we drive down the highway. 

We all know that if we are sick, none of the trappings of success really matter.  Life, when pulsating with pain, is reduced to its lowest common denominator.  If you have your health, you have everything.

Is it not time we stop blaming someone, a company, our government about why we are 47 million (people) in debt?  Is it not time for some healing?

When checking into a hotel, here are five safety tips that will save your life or your property.

First, never ask for your room number at the check-in desk.  The person behind the desk should write it down.  Obviously, you do not want some professional thief, on coffee break in the lobby, to overhear that conversation.

Second, visually find the closest stairway or outside exit from your room.  If the fire alarm system blares into your blissful dreams, the last thing you want to be doing is running up and down the hallway looking for a way out.

Third, use the in-room safe.  These are normally free, easy to use and often found in the closet.  You may want to write down the combination and keep that with you if you are prone to “senior moments.”

Fourth, if there is an adjoining room to yours, check to make sure the door on your side is locked.  You cannot believe the number of times I have found this door was not secure.

Fifth, leave your TV on, at a reasonable volume, while you are temporarily out of the room.  You want to keep any nefarious person guessing.

Have a safe stay.

If you would like to personally meet with me during the month of April, here is my schedule.  Please call 800-373-4040 to set up an appointment.

The hyphen is abused, misused and often abandoned.  I am out to make sure this punctuation mark gets its moment in the LeMonAide sun.

Hyphens are used in the following circumstances:

--with compound numbers (forty-one, two-thirds)

--with prefixes and suffixes (self-confidence)

--with a compound adjective when it precedes the word it modifies (the well-known actor)

There is an unusual form of the hyphen called the “suspending hyphen.”  This hyphen is used when there is a series of hyphenated adjectives.  Notice there is an extra space after the first hyphen to indicate there is a relationship with the last adjective.

Long- and short-term securities

Private- and public-sector partnerships

Ice- and snow-packed roads

How is that for a little hyped-hyphen harangue!

In the euphoria of the telephone conversation I said, “No problem, I will send that to you no later than noon tomorrow.”

It was a simple fax and it was important to the client.

Well, the morning cranked up. My cell phone was insatiable, my staff warbled with wanton warnings about deadlines and that article was still not polished for publication.

What happened to the fax?  It wasn’t until two days later that I remembered, while flossing, I did not fulfill a promise.

I strongly recommend an electronic organizer or a cell phone with a detailed calendar function if you are missing deadlines.  If that device can vibrate or jangle a reminder, you will have a much better chance than I did satisfying a disappointed client. 

If I watch Baby Einstein one more time, Lord, I will throw up.

We both know putting her in the ExerSaucer and cranking up the Bert and Ernie DVD, at The Furry Arms, is the only way I get to sit down.

I am just so tired.  Tired of trying to find the Bippy and tired of constantly checking her Dippy.

Tired of being glued to her to make sure she doesn’t poke her eye out or smash her fingers in the kitchen cabinet doors.

Then, sometimes I watch her sleeping on her back with both arms stretched out like she is worshipping Someone. 

O God, remind me, while cleaning up the spit-up and monitoring her trying to sit up that Your hands smoothly slipped this child into mine.