Death by Meeting

In his latest page-turning work of business fiction, best-selling author Patrick Lencioni provides readers with another powerful and thought-provoking book, this one centered around a cure for the most painful yet underestimated problem of modern business: bad meetings. And what he suggests is both simple and revolutionary.

Casey McDaniel, the founder and CEO of Yip Software, is in the midst of a problem he created, but one he doesn’t know how to solve. And he doesn’t know where or who to turn to for advice. His staff can’t help him; they’re as dumbfounded as he is by their tortuous meetings.

Then an unlikely advisor, Will Peterson, enters Casey’s world. When he proposes an unconventional, even radical, approach to solving the meeting problem, Casey is just desperate enough to listen.

As in his other books, Lencioni provides a framework for his groundbreaking model, and makes it applicable to the real world. Death by Meeting is nothing short of a blueprint for leaders who want to eliminate waste and frustration among their teams, and create environments of engagement and passion.

• Table of Contents
• BackCover
• Death by Meeting - A Leadership Fable… About Solving The Most Painful Problem In Business
• Introduction
• The Fable
• Preview
• Part One: Flashback
• His Story
• Break
• The Ride
• Mediocrity
• The Ritual
• Malaise
• Part Two: Plot Point
• Misdiagnosis
• Mirage
• Alarm
• Second Domino
• The Invasion
• Interpretation
• J.T.
• First Shots
• When It Rains
• Serendipity
• The Referral
• Part Three: Protagonist
• Disorder
• Fireworks
• Smoking Gun
• Part Four: Action
• Second Half
• On The Table
• Wet Feet
• Bad Sequel
• Coming Clean
• The Spark
• False Hope
• Change-Up
• Fast Ball
• Detention
• Light Bulb
• Pushing The Envelope
• No Prisoners
• Film School
• The Hook
• Mining
• Practice
• Drawing Board
• Boxed Out
• Second Semester
• Multimedia
• The Daily Check-In
• The Weekly Tactical
• Out Of The Bag
• G2
• The Monthly Strategic
• Directing For Drama
• The Quarterly Off-Site Review
• Chicago Haze
• Part Five: Resolution
• Cramming
• Scrimmage
• Research
• Pre-Game
• The Meeting
• Letdown
• Friendly Fire
• The Announcement
• Closed Loop
• Fallout
• Fast-Forward
• The Model
• The Paradox Of Meetings
• Executive Summary
• Problem #1: Lack Of Drama
• Meetings Versus Movies
• The Hook
• Mining For Conflict
• Real-Time Permission
• Problem #2: Lack Of Contextual Structure
• Meeting Stew
• The Four Meetings
• The Biggest Challenge Of All: "The Myth Of Too Many Meetings"
• Sneaker Time
• A Final Thought On Meetings
• List of Figures

It is what can be expected by the author: a bit sentimental, naive, simplistic and disappointing. But on the other hand, he has a point and he makes it very well. I think this is worth reading, to at least get yourself thinking about his conclusion:

There are too few meetings!

The absolutely worst thing is that I came to the conclusion that he is right!

It is in fact recommended and worthwhile reading, but don't expect to enjoy the badly written book.