Meeting Madness
Meetings have become a way of life. There are staff meetings at work, PTA meetings, meetings for social organizations, and even family meetings. Think of the word meeting and you have a sense of what is supposed to happen: a gathering of people who want to exchange ideas and knowledge. There are some good reasons to have meetings, and there are even more bad reasons to avoid them. As a leader, you must separate the two and support the useful type while trying to eliminate the unhelpful type.
Why We Meet
Humans are social creatures, spending considerable time, money, and expense to spend time with others for no discernable practical reason. Oh, we all have rationales for congregation, whether the setting is a service at a church or temple, having drinks with friends, scouting a potential someone for a personal relationship, or sharing an interest in amateur theatre, sailing, books, or antique cars.
We often organize much of our lives to enable more meetings. There are special interest groups, associations, impromptu gatherings, parties, and many other occasions and excuses for gathering with people. Try to see your own inclination to attend and even arrange all manners of meetings.
However, there is generally little action in meetings. Although there may be some effective decision-making when a meeting has direction and effective structure, most of our meetings are really for emotional needs. It's okay to spend a period with friends, show off, and share some good fortune and fellowship — so long as you remember that's what you're doing.
Meetings Go Awry
Unfortunately, meetings have become one of the biggest wastes of time in our lives because we default to using them whether we need to or not. How many meetings have you attended where people could have more easily addressed issues through a short note or memo? However, we have eons of social history and inclination that gives us a drive to be around each other. Compounding that are some enabling inclinations in modern organizations:
Meetings satisfy a need people have to visibly justify what they do for their pay.
When people decide in consort, they are safe from individual responsibility and blame.
Activity is often so scattered that multiple people from around the organization must agree to a course of action.
Meetings have become a modern jousting field for power and control.
People have developed a habit of having meetings.
Between our natural inclination and these organizational factors, we tend to believe that any answer starts in an official meeting. Sometimes a meeting is a good venue to accomplish something, but often it isn't.
