“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race
Has not achieved…and never will achieve…its full potential,
that word would be ‘meetings’.”
— Dave Barry
Have you ever been sitting in yet another boring, pointless, excruciatingly painful meeting and thought to yourself, “There’s got to be a better way!”? We’ve all attended those meetings…sometimes, we’ve been leading those meetings.
Which begs the question: Why the hell do we have meetings anyway?
Ask that question of employees the world over, and you’ll probably get some version of the following (aka ‘the company line’):
“To share information…”
“To communicate better…”
“To ensure that everyone gets the same message…”
“To build teamwork and esprit d’corps…”[1]
What they won’t say are the real reasons:
“Because we always have…”
“So we can look busy…”
“It’s an excuse to go to Vegas…”
“Because we don’t have any better ideas…”
In my years in business, I’ve been in a lot of meetings: big meetings, little meetings, annual meetings, sales meetings, team meetings, project meetings. I’ve attended as a participant, a facilitator, an observer, and a victim. Hundreds and hundreds of meetings. Thousands and thousands of people in those meetings.
And in all that time, I’ve never met one person who loves meetings. Not one.
Have you? Do you?
Didn’t think so.
So, right off the bat, let’s agree on two things:
- Meetings often have little or no value.
- We continue to have meetings.
Why do we keep having meetings when we can’t stand the thought of them? Here are a few reasons:
- We think we “have to”…we have no choice.
- We can’t think of any better options.
- We think they are supposed to be painful.
- We have fallen and hit our heads on something hard.
A couple of million years ago, our early ancestors gathered around the fire to brainstorm ideas for avoiding death at the fangs of saber-tooth tigers. If we were able to drop in on this gathering, the tell-tale signs of a meeting would instantly be recognizable:
- Domination by a small handful of particularly vocal humanoids.
- Several others whose ‘participation’ was limited to sitting, breathing, and making the occasional expression of annoyance or fear.
- A few who were busy carving messages into stone.
- An agenda that interested only those named on it.
- Ideas that were aired and then quickly crushed.
- A complete lack of energy, creativity, shared understanding, or agreement on next steps.
Invariably, that meeting would have been followed by one or more ‘meetings after the meeting’: small groups in dark corners of the cave, grunting all the things that no one had the guts to grunt during the original meeting.
There would also be general agreement that the meeting sucked.[2]
Yet here we are today, still having meetings that suck. No doubt our hairy ancestors had good intent, just as most of us do: get together, share information and ideas, create a plan for getting the desired results. But we all know the road that’s paved with good intentions, and it leads to a place whose attributes are not unlike how we often experience meetings.
Given a choice between attending a meeting and getting a root canal, many would gladly choose the latter. And it’s easy to see why: we only have 32 teeth, so at worst that’s 32 root canals and we’re done. Some people attend 32 meetings every week![3]
So why do we insist on having these organizational dental procedures?
Because we think it’s important to Communicate.
And we’re right. The problem is that we believe (despite a complete lack of evidence) that we are communicating by having a meeting.
Ask business leaders around the world if communication is important, and you will always hear an empathic Yes! Or Oui, Sí, Da or Hai. Nobody…and I mean nobody…will ever say that their organization would be better off if they communicated less. At the same time, they will also never say, “Hey, you know what? We should have more meetings!” At least, not out loud.
This belief in the value of communication has led to a proliferation of so-called ‘communication aids’: Smartphones, tablets, text messages, email, voicemail, instant messaging…all with the promise of improved communication. However, most of the time, they, at best, provide more communication, not improved communication. But that’s a topic for another article.
We have meetings because we sincerely want to communicate more effectively and efficiently. Yet far too often, they have no real value.
Why is that true? Here’s the short answer:
Meetings have little or no real value because we let them have little or no real value.
Notes:
[1]Okay, maybe they wouldn’t say “esprit d’corps”…unless they were French, or really, really snooty.
[2] Anthropologically speaking, there is no real record of Early Man using the word “sucked”, but I’d like to imagine they did. Or at least expressed that sentiment through guttural noises, gestures, or evocative cave paintings.
[3] I’ll do the math for you: that’s 1600 root canals per year. You’re welcome.
Listen to “Unsuck Your Meetings, Part 1” on audio:
Part 2 of Unsuck Your Meetings will provide the warning signs that a meeting is valueless.
Ronn Lehmann advises organizations and leaders on the human factors that determine their culture. Lehmann developed the Cultural Audit Process, which is designed to provide an outside perspective of an organization’s culture: what’s important, what’s rewarded and punished, what the rules are, and how people “show up.”
Success Authorities’ book, “Conversations for Clarity: Critical Questions Leaders Must Ask Themselves” is available now at Amazon!
