I have always loved the satirical comment that meetings are the best practical alternative to work!

Previously my work meetings were like a national pastime, fun, but rarely productive.

I could go through all the ‘types’ of meetings and the usual business analysis of their productivity and how to improve, but that has been done to death in just about every business journal, self-help book and sage advice from the business expert imaginable.

I suppose the one thing I will agree on is that a meeting to be of any use has to be productive.  Surely the ultimate purpose of any meeting is to actually lead to the production of something….?

The other day I went to the home of a Balinese man for lunch, Wayan. He showed me around his home, which he pointed out was designed in the same configuration of all Balinese homes with sleeping rooms in one position, kitchen and dining room in another and a meeting area in another.

He stated that the meeting area was where the family get together at the end of each day to talk about their day and also to air any problems. He said it was important to resolve these things so that the next day was a new day. He said that if any one in the family was unhappy then all were unhappy until they sorted out any problems. He said they always did this because everyone wanted the new day to be a fresh start…. And he looked at me quizzically and said ‘Why wouldn’t you want that?’

Okay, I know since I have been writing my blog posts from Bali I may sound like a chapter in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ but maybe Julia Roberts and Ketut were onto something.

I thought about all the meetings I had been to where nothing was resolved and often animosity was they only outcome.

Also in our blended and often complicated family we tried the “Family Team Meeting” which was greeted with moans from the kids and trepidation (and hope) from my wife and I.  Thinking back now about those meetings I realised we did have the best of intentions, but not the best of methodologies (like most other meetings in the world!).  The agenda should have been what our heart was telling us and our outcomes only measured in the happiness of others.  Strangely enough now our kids all love the ‘family dinner’ where there are often 10+ people sitting around our dinner table (no mobile phones rule in force until after) actually talking to each other.  It is one of the most favourite things in my life.

I imagined myself at Wayan’s meeting where everybody there was looking towards the new day and everyone was ready to leave the old one behind. Grievances were left behind, failures were left behind, bridges were mended, caring and love were the key performance indicators.

I have often posted about living NOW: being mindful and not being trapped by the past or afraid of the future.

It is just that when you see these theories being an intimate part of a family, a culture and most of all the values of a person, I sometimes wonder if I really know where MY NOW is. Sometimes the realisation that now is not something you look for but something you have to stop and notice is as profound a realisation as knowing that each one of those moments never comes again.

There was a plaque I saw a few days ago (probably in a tourist shop, but where it was escapes me at the moment…) that said:

Yesterday is ashes
Tomorrow is wood
Only today does the fire burn brightly

Of course I looked it up on Google like you were going to (well, I hope!) and found that it is an old Eskimo Proverb…..

Just a thought, have you realised that the sayings, quotes or verse that inspires you, happens to often come from the simplest of lives.

I don’t go to a lot of meetings nowadays and miss them little.  But, I do intend to have a few meetings in the future.

The venue will be home, the participants family, the agenda happiness and the outcome a new day tomorrow.