Will there be Donuts?: Start a business revolution one meeting at a time

Will there be Donuts?: Start a business revolution one meeting at a time
David Pearl

Today, the very word ‘meeting’ conjures up images of time wasted in badly lit, airless offices. People sitting around tables unsure why they are there and wishing they were somewhere else. Hour after hour. Day after day.David Pearl can change that and in this book he shows how you can take back control of your working life.“Will There Be Donuts?” is about a big mistake that almost all companies are going to make this year. And the next. And the one after that. We’ll call it nearly meeting.It happens the length and breadth of the business world, from boardroom to shop floor.‘Will There Be Donuts?’ is business expert David Pearl’s first book and he draws on his 2 decades of consulting with some of the biggest companies in the world to re-educate the reader on how to hold meetings and, crucially, how to make them great.His client list is a who’s who of FTSE and NYSE names and they seek his advice on how to engage employees at every level to make their meetings more efficient, effective and engaging.His list of achievements in the field includes:• Identifying £30million of savings by changing ineffective meetings at GSK.• Persuading the CEO of Skandia International to saw through his boardroom table.• Showing the Department of Work & Pensions that having your mobile phone on in a meeting could be seen as a good thing.At every level of an organisation, not just the very top. if your meetings are ineffective then it’s likely that your business is too. “Will There Be Donuts?” will reinvigorate you as a person and as an employer/employee.Consider the following:You are in a role which requires you to attend three hours of meetings a day. Let’s say you’d score those meetings 70% effective. Let’s also imagine there are 100 people like you in the company and that your average wage is £60k.You personally just wasted 5 whole weeks in meeting time this year. Your company lost a combined 2500 days of productivity; that’s the equivalent of 11 person-years costing the company £675,000. What’s more, if you were to continue at this rate for a conventional career, you’d be burning a total of 9 years, 6 months and 3 days of your working life. All for the sake of some ineffective meetings.“Will There Be Donuts?” will help you reclaim your working life.

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For Joanna, Elsa, and Zachary

Cover (#u00247504-51c1-5ce6-946d-752dc5cc1caf)

Title Page (#ulink_2d682db4-773e-5d5b-9bf2-d7ba17a1e11d)

Dedication (#ulink_cbaffd75-b663-51d1-b7c8-5d8742566cb5)

Acknowledgements (#ulink_731f0c57-d001-54ae-9db9-118fe260983d)

Foreword (#ulink_9ae061cd-d476-55f7-93a8-59ad9fb954c9)

PLEASED TO MEET YOU (#ulink_5deb4d81-e9db-57bd-91c6-dd9cc8c6a51a)

1 NEARLY MEETING (#ulink_05ceab56-d1f1-5d35-9e18-5a2047533b5d)

2 REALLY MEETING (#ulink_99c9ea92-3694-5a50-9f2e-ec9dc9fe547a)

3 THE ANATOMY OF MEETINGS (#ulink_db33ac7a-4fdf-5f0c-91b6-7ffc711d22de)

Intent (#ulink_50899d46-e88f-5d0e-8317-40c24a758c53)

Connect (#litres_trial_promo)

Context (#litres_trial_promo)

Content (#litres_trial_promo)

4 THE SEVEN BASIC MEETING TYPES (#litres_trial_promo)

Information (#litres_trial_promo)

Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)

Decision (#litres_trial_promo)

Invention (#litres_trial_promo)

(Re)Solution (#litres_trial_promo)

Selling (#litres_trial_promo)

Meeting (#litres_trial_promo)

5 MEETING MISCHIEF (#litres_trial_promo)

NEXT STEPS: DON’T LET HARRY MISS SALLY (#litres_trial_promo)

Your Real Meeting Checklist (#litres_trial_promo)

Let’s Stay Connected (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

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My thanks to everyone who has kindly contributed their experiences and insights to this book.

—to Sue, Shelley, Michelle, Paul, Esperide, Kai, and the whole PG team.

—to my agent Julian Alexander, who makes the right meetings happen with the right people at the right time.

—to my editor, Nick Canham, who helped spark the revolution; Steve Burdett, who worked so hard on the manuscript; Laura Lees for the great PR; Tim Broughton for his marketing expertise; and all at HarperCollins who have made the whole experience a real pleasure.

—to my parents for providing a rich source of anecdotes, some of which they will be surprised (pleasantly, I hope!) to find featured in this book.

—to Jean and Thomas for sparking off at least one revolution.

—to Jeremy, Bruce and all the Lively Artists, as well as Phil and all at Upstage.

—to the two Davids—Glass and McCready—who’ve taught me more than anyone about what’s really going on when human beings meet.

—and finally, to all of you everywhere who got fed up with nearly meeting and decided to start really meeting instead. Keep going!

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Back in March 2011, at the earliest stages of the book, my editor Nick Canham called a meeting. He wanted to get his colleagues at HarperCollins interested in the book; enrolled, excited. Clearly he did OK, or we wouldn’t be here now. But I was curious. What was it that had brought these hardened publishing professionals to the meeting? Was it the importance of the subject? The irrefutable logic? The exquisite prose style?

I told them I’d bring donuts, said Nick.

That gave us our title. And it gives us our starting point. If the donuts are the most interesting thing about your meetings, this book is for you.

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It’s something we often say, but don’t always mean. In this case I really am pleased to meet you, if only by the rather arm’s-length medium of this book.

My intention in writing Will There Be Donuts? is to make the world a more interesting place. Or rather that you will. I am just going to help you make it fun.

And we are going to do it one great meeting at a time.