Books in brief
101 Ways to Make Meetings Active: Surefire Ideas to Engage Your Group
by Mel Silberman
Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer 1999
ISBN 0-7879-4607-9

Consultants spend a lot of time in meetings, often carrying an implicit responsibility to animate them. So this sounded like it would be a useful book. It's one of dozens of almost identical titles published by the San Francisco publisher of books and journals on non-profit management, Jossey-Bass. This one is a dud.

The surefire ways of galvanizing meetings suggested in this volume would make clients look at me in a new — but very weird — light. A typical example of how I should, according to Mr. Silberman, get things going: "Make a list of the categories you think might be appropriate in a getting-acquainted activity for a meeting you are planning. For example, month of birth [!], favorite color [!!], shoe color [!!!], clear some floor space, call out a category, and after participants form appropriate clusters, ask them to shake hands. Then gather the group together and discuss the diversity of participants revealed by the activity." The other 100 tips are in a similar vein and are unlikely to lower participants' blood pressure or raise your credibility.

There are a couple of tips and reminders in it that 'A-types' like me tend to forget: layout of rooms matters to the chemistry of meetings, so make sure you get one that is conducive to participation. There are some pointers on managing conflict in meetings, suppressing the opinionated and nurturing the meek. But, really, it's a side of double-spaced notes at most-not 322 pages!

A more general analysis of just how far a little content can be stretched in the Magic Kingdom of Jossey-Bass is penciled in for a future edition of The Platform.
— AE

AEA Consulting LLC

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