Recently I have been running my Cabinet meeting in a manner that is different than in the past five years. My two senior executives now sit at the head of the table, and then proceed to open and run the meeting per the agenda that we have agreed upon. In running a meeting this way, as the overall leader but not as the leader of the meeting, it affords the ability to observe your own meeting -- rather than to lead it. In doing so, I find it possible to hear everyone’s positions and opinions better because I am spending less time trying to “lead to produce value” and more time on “participating to produce value.” This of course depends upon having two excellent senior leaders -- like I get to have in my CAO and COO -- who are thankfully open to my experiments. Because what can occur from time to time is that I do need to step in and lead the meeting as the heat turns on -- but I can recede into the background just as easily as well. As I progress along this track, I’ll share more thoughts about the pros and cons of this approach. -JM

Back to Top