Continuing the current hot trend of couching business counsel in fables, author Patrick Lencioni takes on the ogre of the
deadly dull
meeting and through story and advice, wrestles it to the ground. The book is in large part about boring
meetings and the author manages to reproduce their tone exactly. The protagonists are the boss, Casey, and an employee named Will who eventually loses his temper in the face of one more stifling, useless meeting. The author plants lessons about meetings throughout the story, revealed by the characters’ experiences. However, after the fable comes an undiluted section of advice: about 40 pages of straightforward, expository prose about how to have more effective, engaging meetings. If you want useful workday advice and prefer to save fairytales - even those with built-in lessons - for bedtime, start there.