Just finished listening to ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins (downloaded via www.audio.co.uk).  The book it reminded me of was WIlliam Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’.

I did not think it was nearly as good a book.  But I thought it created some of the same uneasiness/ tension about behaviour of young people in extraordinary situations.

I thought the plot was weak, the characterisation very limited and all in all found the book very disappointing – given the hype.  But perhaps that is the issue – the hype has taken over.  I look forward to watching the movie – but am not very optimistic.

Have been thinking recently about how we structure a one hour football coaching session as against we run many of our business meetings.

The coaching session – potentially 3 or 4 coaches working with 40 players.  In advance we agree session objectives and roles to be undertaken by each coach in the session.  Perhaps open with 15 mins of warm up and stretching, move to three or four bases – rotate the players through the bases and close out with two mini games – probably with rules/ scoring systems altered to emphasise a particular skill.

We seek to ensure that players enjoy the sessions, that skills are developed and/or tested, that we simulate match situations.  We promote fairness, safety, creativity.

For a meeting may have 4-8 participants, a pre circulated agenda and pre circulated minutes of previous meeting.  Probably also allocate one hour for the meeting.  We spend 15 mins working though previous minutes and action lists, leaving 45 minutes to address the items listed on the agenda.  In theory the meeting should be a lot easier – smaller numbers, advance communication of what will be happening.  But, in my experience the meetings are no where nearly as successful as the one hour coaching sessions.  Why?

Unfortunately many meetings are not focused – what is the objective (or are the objectives) of the meeting?  Why are we meeting?  Do we accomplish our objectives?

The football session will start on time and finish on time.  Players will be active and play many roles.  Players will be tested.  Players will learn.  Many meeting start late, run late, are dominated by longwinded contributions from those who ignore (possibly do not understand) the purpose of the meeting.  and there is no coach to ‘spot and fix’.

I think members of committees who meet on a regular basis have a lot to learn from well structured football (or other sport) coaching.  Meetings need to be born again in many orgnisations.

Thanks to David for referencing this oped in the NYT.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/opinion/cohen-a-time-to-tune-out.xml

What chance do we have of our kids reading books when they are online all the time?

Interesting idea to reduce work related email during employee free time.