Meetings considered harmful
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Meetings considered harmful

At work, meetings are ‘more than three people coming together to discuss something’.
All organizations have meetings - but ZinZen® won’t - and for good reason.
Just looking at the amount of Dilbert cartoons and the urban dictionary it seems I’m not alone…

Why?

Meetings don’t have a purpose

Meetings are an assembly for a certain purpose…
At work, which purpose is that again?

1. Present something

Presenting is best done in a blog, podcast or vlog. Unlike a meeting - they are asynchronous and reusable. It takes a bit of time to get right - but at least you’re not wasting a multiple of that time delivering a confusing message to a big group. You can also safely collect and integrate feedback from a few people first - then progressively increase the group size.

2. Discuss something

Discussing is a means to an end - not a purpose in itself. If you want clarification on something that can’t be answered in a single message or a 2-minute voice chat - it’s better to have a discussion with exactly three people. One asks the questions, the other explains, the third observes - and intervenes if the discussion repeats itself or gets side-tracked. Make sure you ask the person with the authority to explain.

3. Decide something

Work decisions are made by the one person responsible. Giving your opinion to that person doesn’t require a meeting. A ‘group decision’ also does not require a meeting - only a vote per person delivered in whatever way is convenient for them.

4. Improve relationships, creativity and innovation

Seriously?
Let’s just forget our worker hats have fun together as people!

Meetings are barbaric

Ok, ok. I’m exaggerating a little. But big meetings do bring out our ‘animal reflexes’.
It’s a place for communicating hierarchy - when, in my opinion, there shouldn’t be any.
Those who talk - shout. Those who don’t - suffer.

Meetings don’t get documented

With a few exceptions, meeting minutes are a combination of:

  • never read
  • never accurate
  • never trusted
  • never adapted to the target audience
  • never found

Meetings slow you down

It’s hard to get the all these people together at the same time - and preferably in the same place. Two weeks go by … then someone shows up late, in the wrong place, or not at all.

Bottom line

If you need meetings - you’re doing it wrong.

Wishing you all the best!



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2023-05 Anonymous1
Interesting and totally agree.
I think a lot of meetings have more wasting time (which harmful) but not all of them. Specially for cases like learning, learn directly from teacher/specialist/scientist/etc is not just info; you will learn info, attitude, mentality, wisdom, etc. That can specially be a powerful tool for learning in physical meetings.