Beyond the Meeting by Raffaella Napoli
Foreword by Peter Hawkins
How often have you sat in meetings, that are dominated by one or two loud voices and are full of people reporting back on the past weeks, and which develop very little new thinking to take the work forward?
A good team meeting not only reflects on what has been done but spends more time looking at how we can turn yesterday’s problems and challenges in to today’s learning and tomorrow’s improvement. An effective team instead of just exchanging pre-cooked thoughts, i generates and cooks new thinking together, thinking that was in nobody’s head prior to the team coming together. In an effective team people leave the meeting more focussed, more energised and more motivated than when they arrived, and knowing how they can make a greater contribution to the collective team effort.
But effective meetings at work are sadly quite rare. They require an effective team leader, a committed team and most importantly a team that have built the collective capacity to be more than the sum of their parts.
In this delightful book by Rafaella, she shows very clearly the steps a team need to undertake on the journey from an ineffective team, to a high performing team, then to a team that functions at more than the sum of its parts, and finally to becoming a high value creating team, that co-creates exceptional value with and for all its stakeholders.
The value of a good team meeting, is not achieved by completing the agenda, or finishing on time, but in how the meeting impacts what happens after the meeting. Does every team member become more focussed, more productive and able to contribute greater value to the collective purpose and key outcomes of the team? Is there greater collaboration and synergy between the team members? Is communication between meetings improved? Does each team member represent the whole team when they are out engaging with stakeholders, whether these be customers, suppliers, employees, investors/funders, or the wider community? Is each person’s work more purposeful and meaningful as they have a greater sense of how their contribution connects with the contributions of others in ways that make 1 + 1 +1 +1 + 1 +1 = 10 or more, and not 6 or less?
This is not an easy journey but can be achieved successfully with a good map and with a systemic team coach guide such as Rafaella Napoli and her colleagues. Not only does she clearly layout the five key disciplines a high value creating teams must continually develop, but she provides tools for developing these in your team. She also illustrates with examples of teams that have undertaken the journey and the progress they have made.
We now live in times where the world has between 3 and 4 times more people than the year I was born, and with the world wide web, AI and fast travel is more interconnected than ever before, and with greater complexity and speed of change. The days of the heroic leader who can be the place of integration for everything that happens in their country, organization, or team are past, and what is need is collective leadership teams. I have written extensively about the difference between a team of leaders, and a collective leadership team. In a team of leaders, each person takes responsibility of their distinct part of the work but leaves responsibility for the whole with the team leader. Whereas a collective leadership team, each team member stands shoulder to shoulder with the team leader, committed to the success, not just of their part, but the whole enterprise.
The meta-crisis of our times require a major shift in human consciousness. In the past few hundred years humans have increased their IQ and to a limited extent their EQ. What is now desperately needed is for humanity to increase its ‘We. Q.’ is collaborative intelligence, not only in teams, but in families, communities, countries and globally. Rafaella has made a significant contribution to this important development in this important new book. I hope many will read it and more importantly apply it at work and home in ways that increase their contribution to this great work of our time in evolving human consciousness so we aa a species are future-fit to positively contribute to our wider ecology.
To have a student who is passionate about learning and applies what she has learnt is a blessing. But to have a student who then takes the learning and recreates it in her own way and creates her own signature approach is an even greater blessing.
This is what Rafaella has done in this very useful book which I warmly recommend.
You can find out more information about this book, along with many others from our Associates here: Books by Associates – Renewal Associates
