What’s the first word that pops into your head when you hear the word “meetings”? My guess is that most people’s response would not be “fulfilling”, “useful” or “progress”. In fact, my guess is that a majority of the responses would be categorized as negative like “ugh”, “waste”, or “too-many”. I know that’s two words, but you get the idea.
Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant, offered this quote, “One either meets or one works”.
Patrick Lencioni, author of Death By Meetings, says “The hard truth is, bad meetings almost always lead to bad decisions, which is the recipe for mediocrity”.
Why is it that meetings have gotten such a bad rap? I’ll offer a few reasons here but welcome your feedback in the comments section about other reasons. I’m only scratching the surface to get this conversation started.
Rat Hole Discussions. These are discussions that spiral out of control, taking up more time than intended. Often these occur between 2 or 3 people while the remainder of the meeting attendees sit there and wait for them to end, or worse yet go off to do another task like check their email or phone.
Beyond The Time Limit. After a rat hole discussion occurs, the rest of the agenda (if there is an agenda) is compressed into the time remaining. This often results in the meeting going beyond the intended timeframe and may cause the attendees to be late for other meetings or miss part of the discussion if they leave for the other meeting.
No Context. There’s nothing worse than getting a meeting invite for 60, 90, or 120 minutes that doesn’t contain some context about the purpose and topics to be discussed.
Cast A Wide Net. Okay the one thing that’s worse than no agenda or purpose statement is when the organizer uses the “cast a wide net” strategy for inviting everyone remotely interested in the topic, or not even very interested but recommended by someone.
One Sided Discussions. How about those meetings where the loudest voice in the room or the person with the most power/title monopolize the conversation while others just sit and listen, with no clear break in the conversation to add their two cents.
Too Many Meetings. Meetings are sometimes like rabbits; they seem to result in more meetings because a decision is not made, or the conversation is not yet complete. Other times, they are held when the information could have been communicated via email or in some other fashion instead of meeting.
As a project manager, I run many meetings and have for quite a few years. I’ll get occasional feedback that a meeting I hosted was a good meeting or well worth the time. However, this doesn’t happen all the time (or even for a majority of times). I’ve learned over time to include a context in my invites, I consciously work not to cast too wide of a net, but I sometimes experience some of the things on this list before and during my meetings.
So, what can be done about this to make meetings more productive and enjoyable? What would it take to make the first words you think about when you hear the word “meetings” be “fulfilling”, “useful”, or “progress”?
I think this is a worthwhile thing to explore. This is a journey worth taking, to see what people have to say on the topics related to meetings, share the findings, and start a conversation. I commit to write a post on a meeting related topic at least once a week, and maybe more. I hope you will provide feedback along the way from your experiences and add your thoughts to my findings.
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