A story from the old days…
As soon as I gained the authority, I banned all meetings. Meetings were stupid. I had been in endless and seemingly pointless meetings, so I thought I would liberate everyone from the tyranny. Meetings were stupid. Period.
No long after my decree, it became evident that no one knew what was going on. Our people were not connecting to projects, each other, the company, or our mission. It turns out meetings were not as stupid as I said.
Later I learned I was acting out a construct called: Chesterton’s Fence. In 1929 G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book, The Thing:
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
And so, I learned not to call things stupid just because I did not understand them. Instead I learned to ask why. Without a clear understanding of the why behind any practice – improvements cannot be made. Later we did manage to improve meetings, making them shorter, more meaningful, and more fun. I would have been wiser to ask why first.
Asking why is an important part of sales and marketing. If you are interested in such a thing, check out this post on New Trade Routes.