Death By Meeting

OK, I’ll admit it, I don’t like meetings. I’ve never been a big believer in meetings. And while I know that sometimes meetings are necessary, I avoid them as much as possible. You see, I think Peter Drucker had it right when he said, “Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings the better.”

I do believe that communication is critical and sometimes meetings are the most efficient way to communicate to a large number of people. But I think a truly useful meeting is more the exception than the rule.

Let’s face it, we’ve all sat through some pretty horrible meetings. We’ve probably even run some real duds ourselves. If, like me, you have led a significant number of meetings over the years, you’re bound to have been in charge of some real clunkers. I know I have.

Here are some examples of why meetings go so wrong:

The Dunce. We all know that intelligence varies. It did in the elementary classroom, and it does in the meeting rooms of every company in America. That’s why I think Dale Dauten was spot on when he said, “A meeting moves at the speed of the slowest mind in the room. In other words, all but one participant will be bored, all but one mind underused.” Amen.

Dauten is undoubtedly right if a true Dunce is leading the meeting. The Dunce is the lowest common denominator in the room. He will plod along as he leads the meeting and everyone else will be bored to death because they can, and will, be 10 steps ahead of him at every moment.

And if the Dunce isn’t leading the meeting, he will still slow it down. He will ask an inordinate number of questions to try to understand what everyone else in the room is grasping much more quickly. The others in the room will be bored, as Dauten said, and will likely be showing their impatience with their colleague.

The Motor Mouth. Some people just like to talk. Give them an audience in a meeting and they just won’t shut up. A good moderator may be able to manage them, but if they happen to be leading the meeting, look out!

In my experience, no one loves a meeting more than a Motor Mouth. He knows if he calls a meeting, he’ll have a captive audience so he can pontificate on whatever the subject of the day is. The only thing that is accomplished in his meeting is that he gets to give his lecture.

The problem with the Motor Mouth is that the meeting isn’t collaborative in any way. There is no give and take. There’s one person droning on and a room full of people who are struggling to listen.

The King (or Queen). This person likes meetings because they provide the opportunity to demonstrate his or her superiority. This person gets to be King or Queen for as long as the meeting lasts.

It might be that these people get to show that they are smarter than everyone else in the room. Or it might be as simple as because, by calling a meeting, they get to be in charge of the room. The King or Queen sits on a “throne” at the head of the table and rules colleagues for a while.  The meeting’s purpose becomes secondary to the royal leader’s narcissistic need to be in charge. As a result, the meeting produces little but an ego boost for the King or Queen.

The Numbers Player. Ever been to a meeting where the other party shows up with an entire army of colleagues? You have no idea who all these people are or how they could conceivably contribute to the meeting, but they’re there anyway.

It can happen when two departments are coming together for a meeting within the same company or when representatives from two different companies are coming together. But someone decides to play the numbers game.

I think this happens because someone is insecure. The person you intend to meet with may feel that he can’t adequately handle the situation so he brings “backup” to handle any conceivable issue that is raised.  Or maybe it’s the person’s boss who is insecure and demands to attend the meeting to monitor what’s going on.

I sat through a meeting the other day where the other side had twice as many people in attendance as we did, and I thought we had one too many. Of the eight people they had gathered around the table, two never spoke after introducing themselves, and two others probably didn’t need to, but did anyway. In other words, they could have been just as effective with four people and not wasted the time of four others. But there’s safety in numbers.

The Compulsive Meeter. Ever worked with someone who every time a subject came up they’d say, “We should have a meeting about that”? I have.

I’m not sure what drives this compulsion, but I know it can drive you crazy if you don’t put a stop to it. The worst case is that you work for the Compulsive Meeter and can’t just ignore his meeting requests.

It may just be that the Compulsive Meeter has nothing else to do, so he wants to set up meetings.  Or it could be that he’s lonely and is looking for people to help whittle away the hours. I don’t know because I truly can’t understand why anyone would want to spend their days in meetings.

My only advice is to avoid the Compulsive Meeter at all costs. He’ll suck the life out of you.

There are many reasons why meetings can be so inefficient, and they all come back to the people running the meeting. So if you call a meeting, make sure that you:

1. Have a legitimate reason for the meeting
2. Set an agenda and state an expected outcome
3. Set a time limit to keep things moving
4. Achieve the desired outcome and end the meeting

If you do this, maybe you’ll never be guilty of another “homicide” — death by meeting.