Patrick Lencioni Quotes

I don't have a tolerance for long meetings. I generally expect to get things over with quickly.

Meetings with no goal, also known as 'coffee shop' meetings, can be huge time wasters if you're not efficient with them. 'Always know why you're meeting, and make sure it's important - try to keep them to 30 minutes, max.

I think there needs to be a meeting to set an agenda for more meetings about meetings.

The usefulness of a meeting is in inverse proportion to the attendance.

Our meetings are held to discuss many problems which would never arise if we held fewer meetings.

Meetings don't have to be endless to be eternal.

Most meetings are too long, too dull, too unproductive - and too much a part of corporate life to be abandoned.

I do have a rule that very few meetings are worth more than ten minutes.

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.

We need to have fewer meetings, not more—as we have to have time to put into effect some of the things we decide in these meetings.

Corporate America is drowning in meetings. To make one thing clear, I am not against communication. Quick one-on-ones can be extremely effective. I am talking about those hour-long recurring meetings, devoid of a clear agenda, and attended by many. I dread them.

Meetings are usually terrible, but they shouldn't be.

Whoever invented the meeting must have had Hollywood in mind. I think they should consider giving Oscars for meetings: Best Meeting of the Year, Best Supporting Meeting, Best Meeting Based on Material from Another Meeting.

Most people simply don't view going to meetings as doing work.

I find most meetings are a waste of time, because they are so ill-prepared and there's little opportunity for true synergy in producing better solutions than what anyone originally thought of. So I work hard to only attend those meetings that have strategic importance and miss all kinds of other seemingly urgent meetings.

I don't do meetings.

Has anyone ever said, 'I wish I could go to more meetings today'?

I just find that people can waste a lot of time in meetings, so I try to restrict meetings to the minimum that they need to be. But I have lots of time in my day where I am available to have informal conversations, where I grab someone to talk, and people can just walk up to my desk and talk to me.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'

The central purpose of a chairman should be to ensure that the shortest possible time should elapse between the beginning of any meeting and its end.

In France, we have a mania for meetings that start very early and finish very late. It wastes time and creates rigidity in schedules. Everyone knows I hate long meetings.

Meetings should be like salt - a spice sprinkled carefully to enhance a dish, not poured recklessly over every forkful. Too much salt destroys a dish. Too many meetings destroy morale and motivation.

Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn't make it productive or worthwhile.

If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business.

Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.