Whenever I refer to the term practice, I am including these three components: (1) the actual doing, (2) some principles or processes that provide a minimal structure to hold the practice, and (3) self-reflection.

Using Silence to Work Better

1. Clarify the theme of the meeting: for example, project management learnings, business development experimentation, or operations optimization. This theme can be shared prior to the meeting. 2. At the beginning of the meeting, invite those who have a topic they would like to discuss to write their name, topic, time required, and number of people req

So how do we set agendas during a meeting? One way is what I call the “agile agenda approach”:

5. Proposal, version 2. The proposer reformulates, completely changes, or drops the proposal. 6. Objections. Objections are shared with the facilitator and discussed to see if they are valid. If an objection is deemed valid, it must be integrated into the proposal (new version). 7. Visual confirmation. When there are no more objections, everyone signi

Self-Determining Attendance The holy grail of horizontal culture might be the ability of employees to self-determine attendance at meetings.

The term think time was coined by researcher Robert J. Stahl, who documented the

Most people like to be invited to do something rather than required to do something. Organizations tend to forget this, but in a horizontal culture, inviting people is foundational. When you invite people, you move away from “Do this because you have to” and move toward “I invite you to do this because we are here and this is where we are going and

Summary Meetings are an ideal place to grow a horizontal culture. A variety of practices can help make meetings more collaborative egalitarian, and efficient: 1. Clarify purpose together. At the beginning of a meeting, make sure the purpose is clear. 2. Check in before jumping in. Check-ins help a meeting be more fluid and efficient because everyon