Changing the Environment

January 26, 2005 - by Robert E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail: views@aol.com

No, I am not going to talk about Global Warming or Pollution Control, just the environment under which we work. I have often written about changing the test environment where we conduct package and price testing at the point of purchase or group attitude studies (Focus Groups) in the participants' homes. Now we are seeing more and more of our office work being conducted in our homes as opposed to our offices. How about our meetings? Has anyone experimented with a change in the meeting environment? I know many companies use off site meeting facilities such as hotels, recreational facilities, vacation resorts and even facilities set up specifically for meetings. Are there other places that could add value to the meetings? I think so.

I read where a Former Chairman of Campbell Soup held a board meeting in the back room of a supermarket. After the meeting, the board members roamed the aisles, talking with shoppers about their products.

A very profitable Texas steel company prided themselves on conducting their executive meetings on the plant floors, parking lot or anyplace else where the workers were readily available for questions and answers.

I have been told that companies like Corning Glass, Equitable Life Assurance and Johnson & Johnson noticed that people got too comfortable in meetings and they were going on too long. so they removed the chairs. Everyone has to stand up. The average time spent in meetings was cut drastically. So were the number of meetings.

In my days at P&G we had a Director by the name of Tim Fealy who conducted his office meetings without chairs. Yep, vertical meetings. From personal experience, I can say that the vertical meeting concept is effective. You get to the point quickly and resolve the issues in a minimum of time. Would a change in your meeting environment produce a positive result? Is it worth a try?

As Bob Kriegel says, "Meetings have become the practical alternative to work." Or as Milton Berle once said, "They keep minutes and lose the hours."

Views during the Summer Months of "2004"

Since 1994, I have been faxing the Views. Sorensen Associates wanted to email the Views to their clients and agreed to email to anyone else requesting them. This agreement has worked very well, especially for me. During the summer of 2004, however, while Sorensen Associates was making major changes to their computer systems, the Views were not emailed. If you are on the email distribution list and want to read those issues of the Views, just go to the "popsg.org/views" website. You will find those Views plus all the other Views I have written since 1994. Sorry about the inconvenience.

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