Collaboration 2.0 - Never Have Another PLC Meeting!

This is the third post in a series on collaboration.

I call it the Law of Imbalance:  we feel a benefit from calling a meeting, but not from attending a meeting somebody else has called.

Most of us feel like we can either have a meeting or get work done, but not both.  Meetings interrupt the flow of the day, chopping it up into bits like a food processor.  We are robbed of the time necessary to get into a focused state of productivity.  Jason Fried makes this point eloquently in his TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work).

Al Pittampalli, author of Read This Before Our Next Meeting, is careful to exclude conversations, group work sessions, and brainstorms from what he calls "meetings."  I think this is brilliant, because sometimes we do need to talk, we need to work together, and we need to leverage each other's creativity.

A culture of celebration is essential to PLCs, so I'd add celebrations to this list of non-meetings.

Richard DuFour might agree.  He is very careful to define collaboration literally - it means "co-laboring," or working together.  In his books and keynote presentations he is constantly warning educators to stay focused on the right work - high levels of learning for all students.

Pittampalli outlines seven principles for what he calls Modern Meetings:

1. They support a decision that has already been made.
2. They move fast and end on schedule.
3. They limit the number of attendees.
4. They reject the unprepared.
5. They produce committed action plans.
6. They refuse to be informational.  Reading memos is mandatory.
7. They work only along a culture of brainstorming.

Conflict and coordination are hallmarks of the modern meeting.  

We expect conflict about the decision that has been made, and we expect that the decision is open to modification based on that conflict.  Otherwise, there is no purpose to the meeting - a memo will do.

We expect coordination to execute our action plans.  As the DuFours frequently say, clarity precedes competence.

When was the last time you attended a meeting with this level of focus?  My answer would be "maybe never."

Educators have a lot to learn from the final principle.  We need to separate the old-fashioned meeting mentality from productive group work.  Google has transformed traditional meeting spaces into "war rooms" that maximize the generation and recording of ideas.  Check it out at 

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3028471/google-ventures-your-design-team-needs-a-war-room-heres-how-to-set-one-up.

You can read more about the principles of modern meetings. at http://modernmeetingstandard.com/.

Successful PLCs don't meet - they work.  Be sure to maintain this distinction.

References:

Pittampalli, A. (2011). Read this before our next meeting: The modern meeting standard for successful organizations.  Do You Zoom, Inc.