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Meetings can be boring. They can be pointless, tedious, and downright painful.

There’s no point trying to hide that fact.

Meetings are ALL of these things and more and yet, meetings are essential. 

As people who work with other people… we need to touch base from time to time.

Instead of ignoring or embracing how awful meetings can be, why not try to do better?

That’s what today’s book, Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni, is all about. Here at Digi, we’re all about helping progressive leaders of spiritual communities reach people with hope, healing, and light…

Sometimes, to do that well, it helps to have the right tools to engage those people.

Yes, even through meetings.

First, we’ll dive into some key highlights. Then, we’ll share with you how we at Digivangelism use the tenants of this book every week and how we think you could use them too!

Click here for the video version of this post!

Death By Meeting Highlights

One of the most helpful ways Death By Meeting encourages better meeting practice is by outlining multiple different types of meetings that leaders and communities may have.

This may sound like a simple thing, but all too often meetings that should be separated blend together, creating one disorganized meeting rather than multiple shorter more-focused meetings.

Lencioni does more than just encourage breaking up meetings though. 

He outlines best practices from everything from daily check-ins that last no longer than 5 minutes to quarterly off-site meeting retreats.

Lencioni also walks you through how to effectively hold each type of meeting.

For example, one meeting aspect that we have held onto closely since reading about it in this book was starting each meeting with a short “drama”.

This drama injects a sense of conflict and purpose into our meetings, serving as a reminder but why we are doing what we’re doing.

Rather than sitting down and easing into the meeting saying “I guess we should just get started…”  we are invigorated by a purpose that we have identified.

A purpose that solves a problem for people we long to help.

This starts us off each time with a reminder that this meeting is worth our time and energy.

Another piece of advice Lencioni offers is that conflict should be created within your meetings.

When the meeting leader is constantly looking for conflict, space is created for differing opinions. Attendees are encouraged to speak their mind and share their true opinion without judgement.

According to Lencioni, after a consensus is made everyone should be expected to be on board regardless of differing opinions, but at least everything was able to be thrown on the table.

How many meetings have you been to where you did not feel like you were able to speak your mind freely? Lencioni would say that this is an unhealthy meeting.

He also says that bad meetings in leadership are usually a sign of a gap between performance and potential for the whole body

 So what does this all mean for you as a leader of a spiritual community?

 Well, let us hear what we got from the book first and then we’ll get to that.

Digivangelism Death By Meeting Takeaways

We have used the practices in this book weekly over the past year.

But most importantly,  we have modified his suggestions to fit our team and our lifestyle.

Too often people read books like this and can’t get on board 100% with the way the author framed a certain idea. Unfortunately a lot of these people often bash on the book or write it off completely.

 Instead, we try to learn from books like this. 

Even if we cannot take the principles 100%, you can always learn something.

And so a daily check-in for us looks a lot less daily than Lencioni may like.

And actually, we have a really hard time sticking to just 5 minutes. But we are okay with that.

We have made use out of Lencioni’s weekly tactical suggestion as well. 

Nearly every week without fail since August 2020 the framework he gives for this Tactical ensured we always have something to talk about…. 

(Not that we don’t have enough going on with our ebook writing, t-shirt making, weekly education, – like this video -, Digital Communications Reviews, and conferences that we’re very grateful to be part of!… Actually, this book probably helped keep our heads together through it all.)

Lencioni’s suggestion  for a quarterly off-site review has also been a gift of life to my co-owner and I.

 It’s so easy to get in your own head and get into a routine and a regular check-in where you back away from it all can make a world of difference.

How You Can Use Death By Meeting

So how can you use this book as a leader in your community?

First of all, know that it is a short book. I know you’re busy, but you can knock this one out.

I think one of the best ways it will help leaders is to show them the need for focus and give them a framework for how to accomplish that focus in their meeting.

 Beyond focus, it will also reinvigorate purpose back into your meetings. You will no longer wonder why you were meeting or meet without reason.

We hope that this increased focus and purpose give life back to your bones as you do hard and faithful work in your ministry.

Oh, and don’t sleep on trying those quarterly retreats!

Whether it is a team for a staff or taking some intentional time for yourself to step away from it all every few months, you might be surprised what it does for your ministry and your mindset.

Life By Meetings

We hope that this review will spark life back into your meeting. For more digital ministry tips and trends, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter here.