Name: The Meeting That Should Have Been an Email
Brand: Calma Editions
Price: 14.00 USD
Availability: InStock

The Meeting That Should Have Been an Email

$14.00

Redirecting a conversation before it wastes an hour

A short method for the meeting nobody wanted: how to spot it before it starts, redirect it in the first two minutes, and end it early without offending the person who called it.

About this book

The unnecessary meeting almost never announces itself. It looks reasonable in the invitation, reasonable in the first two minutes, and becomes unmistakable at around minute forty — which is roughly forty minutes too late to do anything about it.

This book is about the two minutes when something can still be done. It opens with the signals that identify the meeting before it starts: the agenda that is a topic rather than a question, the attendee list assembled by role, the recurrence that outlived its reason. These are visible in the invitation, which means the decision can be made before the hour is committed.

The redirect itself is a short, specific move made in the opening minutes, and the book gives the wording for several versions of it — the decision that can be made in the room, the update that can be written down, the discussion that needs three people rather than nine. The tone throughout is cooperative rather than adversarial, because the person who called the meeting is usually not the problem.

There are chapters on the meeting you cannot leave, on ending early without offending anybody, and on preventing the next one from being booked — which is largely a matter of making the alternative genuinely easier rather than simply refusing.