I just read through the short, but oh-so-sweet book Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli on Kindle for free. I was just about to order the hardcover version when I noticed that it was made available for free through August 9th thanks to the generosity of Citrix!
I won’t write a detailed review of this excellent Modern Meeting manual, except I will say that it is well worth reading for the way it encourages everyone to change the meeting culture in their organization for the benefit of everyone, from customers to top management and shareholders, and last, but not least you.
I also have to mention the Seven Principles of the Modern Meeting Standard, which are outlined on the author’s website. These are concize points that you could actually use right now. The principles are explained in even more detail in the manual.
David Heinemer Hansson, from 37 Signals, says meetings are toxic because they break workdays into a series of work moments. Achieving flow, the state in which we do our best work, can take long periods of focus. Interruptions force us to start over each time.
I’m tired of starting over. – Al Pittampalli, Read This Before Our Next Meeting
Read this manual and The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, and you might just find yourself with a completely new mindset, outlook – whatever you want to call it.
I like to call these kinds of books “tools to decode the matrix”, as we’re all living in a sort of Matrix with certain rules, traditions, habits, culture. Sometimes you have to bend a few spoons to see if these ways are actually any good, or simply “always has been, always will be”.
Enough of my senseless ramblings, you will now download and read the Kindle version of Read This Before Our Next Meeting (Amazon.com) for FREE (through August 9. 2011) too, or buy the hardcover version of Read This Before Our Next Meeting (Amazon.com).
