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Have gone to any meetings lately? You know, staff meetings, association meetings, user meetings, network meetings, lunch meetings, planning meetings, meetings with vendors, meetings with employees, one on one meetings, group meetings, committee meetings…for a business leader sometimes it can feel like your business is the last place you spend time and that all of your time is “in a meeting”. You are probably hoping I will say this so I will: you don’t need all of those meetings to have a successful business. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to suggest that you are probably not even actually having the meetings you need. Let me introduce you to the concept of Purposed Collaboration. At the risk of being too elementary, collaboration is where two or more people come together to share ideas, challenge one another and create something more than any one party could do by themselves. Think of collaboration as where you invite a rowing team into your boat and everyone begins to row all in a powerful synch versus just you all alone in a canoe paddling you and your cooler across the lake. When you ad “purposed” to the concept – purposed collaboration – now the rowing team has a very clear target or finish line and a very straight line between where they start and where they end. Everyone knows when they are off course and the whole, unified goal is to get to the finish as fast as possible by maximizing every collective stroke of the oars. I bet I’m not describing very many meetings that you are part of, right? What I challenge you to do is this: look at where you are spending time with other people in meetings, whether it is staff, vendors, associates, networkers…whoever. And ask yourself, “Does this boat (meeting) have a straight course, with velocity and purpose, that can advance my business goals?” If the answer is no or you aren’t sure, the meeting is probably wasting your time and begin eliminating those meetings from your calendar. Now, there may be meetings that you have that, if restructured and had more purpose (like an agenda) are with the right people (rowing team) and could turn into a more productive collaboration. Consider what needs to be said to whom in order to set these meetings on a better course for you and your business. You might need to change out a few people that come to those meetings, you might need to take a more assertive role in leading the meetings or you might need to do the meetings standing up so that you don’t all get too comfortable lounging in those big, fat conference room chairs. Finally, there might be meetings that are missing. Who do you need to be collaborating with that could launch your business forward with a big leap? What stated purpose might you introduce to a person or two or three that you could invite into your boat once a month? And speaking of once a month – how often is really necessary to make the collaboration truly purposeful and agree on that. Pursue Purposed Collaboration. It may sound heavy at first, but trust me, it flies when you use it.
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