April 14, 2024
April 14, 2024
I picked up this book to learn how to survive meetings and the meeting culture in general in tech companies. I expected a slow, preachy, lecture-ish non-fiction book that makes you hate your life. But I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading it.
This book is written in the form of a novel which starts by establishing the world, the characters, the antagonist and eventually, the protagonist who saves the day. I was more intrigued and interested in how their lives pan out by the end rather than learn anything about stupid meetings.
The story revolves around a gaming company Yip Software, their CEO Casey, the employees and their acquisition by another company called Playsoft. On a visit, the antagonist J.T. Harrison from Playsoft observes that the meetings at Yip are horrible and decision making at the company takes a hit because of that. Under this scrutiny, Casey reads between the lines and realises his job is at stake.
Enter our protagonist, Will Peterson, who joins Yip as Casey's temporary assistant. He also observes that the meetings at the company are horrible and that his boss's job is at stake because of it. Utilising his Film Studies background, he comes up with a proposal to make meetings interesting and productive by studying how and why movies are so gripping and interesting.
The author of this masterpiece, Patrick Lencioni, uses this premise to draw the readers in. He makes sure readers are completely invested in the story, characters and what's at stake for the the likeable characters, employees, Casey and Will. It totally worked on me at least.
The rest of the book takes the reader on journey through Will as he figures out how to make meetings interesting and effective through his trials and errors. It's a great way to write a non-fiction book.
Patrick also goes one extra step and isolates the core learning and framework of effective meetings from the rest of the story. Once the story reached it's conclusion, the reader gets to read through The Model (or framework) that can help make meetings interesting and effective.
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I hope more non-fiction writers borrow this structure instead of writing in chapters-anecdote-learning format. As a reader, I was hooked and completely invested in the fate of the characters while also understanding the core message the author wanted to convey.
