meetings. Twenty senior executives from the home office sat around
a conference table. A pattern emerged almost as soon as the dis-
cussion began. The senior marketing executive would offer a new
idea and immediately the controller would evaluate and discard it.
Every time an idea was buried, it was for one of the six classic
reasons:- It will never work.
- We can’t afford it.
- We’ve never done it that way before.
- We’re not ready for it.
- It’s not our responsibility.
- We’re doing fine without it.
I had assumed that at this senior level, the tools for creative col-
laboration were known and practiced. Not so! The right-brained
creators and the left-brained evaluators were doing what they
normally do, wrestling and struggling. Tempers began to flare,
people took things personally, frustration mounted, and heels dug
in deeper. This is the first danger of “unconscious” meetings: People
with the best of intentions can end up at war with one another
because they don’t understand the use of filters. I stopped the group
and told them the story about the fellow moving his piano:A man is moving his piano. It’s half in and half out of his apart-
ment. He struggles and struggles and works and works. Finally,
a neighbor walks by and offers to help. The owner sighs and
says, “Great.” The two of them struggle for half an hour without
any gain. Finally the owner says, “It’s no use; we’ll never get it
out!” At which point the neighbor says, “Out?”The point of the story is simple: Coordinated effort is necessary for
results. If the insurance group had continued in its original fash-
ion, both groups would have been exhausted and frustrated by the
end of the meeting, and very little would have been accomplished.Tools for Investment Teams 8708-13 ware 87 1/19/01, 1:11 PM