If they come out 5 minutes before the meeting, they are pointless – no one is reading it – they are on their way to the meeting. If they come out two days before the meeting, they are read through and forgotten. And so much can happen in two days that they are probably going to change. Every story has a start, middle, and end – that’s what makes a great story. Lead with that…
Yourself. Your actions. Your purpose. You can make the best of a bad situation or the worst of a great one. Everything is in your hands in how you approach and how you deal with the situation at hand. That is you can control, that is where you can help people, that is where you can lead.
I was watching a lot of clips from Apollo 13 for a bit and one thing that kept striking me – their focus. I look at my desktop and sometimes see all the tabs of random thoughts occurring as I look at issues and problems and I think – “there is no way I could be in space, I’d have all these tabs and binders open just trying to figure out what to do.” Probably…
And carry a pen? Type on a keyboard? Be the first one there? Be the last one out? Wait till the end to ask questions. Whatever it is, just go softly, just be there, and let your actions dictate what sometimes becomes your words. Everything else will fall into place from there.
You only need to have meetings when a need arises. Anything else is put aside for IF a need arises that instead becomes a discussion on what people are up to and not really discussing a need per se.