Death By Meeting

Do you know the book by Lencioni?

There are countless other books written by people all about how our meetings could be facilitated better.

Today, I participated one such meeting.

The meeting was scheduled for an hour.
The agenda was sent 5 minutes before we started.
The agenda included enough items for a 3-hour meeting.

We started late with not everyone there.

After moving through a few easy "for your information" agenda items, we got to the one that took the entire rest of the hour.

It was an agenda item that someone thought was important.
It potentially is, but it wasn't urgent.

We spent 45 minutes going around and around and around on this one topic.

A topic that didn't need to be talked about today.
A topic that NO ONE was complaining about.

I finally said, "It sounds like we are trying to fix something that isn't broken."

"Exactly" said another.

One minute after the hour, I left saying that I had to go.
I didn't actually have to go.
I did have to respect myself, though.

By leaving, I missed out on the whole reason I had come to the meeting in the first place -- to participate in what I considered to be the more important and more urgent matter.

When I was an employee, I could sit through meetings like this all day long, and reason with myself that at least I was getting paid to be there.

Today, I wasn't getting paid. I am a volunteer.
Today, I skipped an otherwise important-to-me meeting for this one.
I regret that decision.

We can do better.

Have you been to any deathly meetings lately?

Originally posted on LinkedIn

​Read Deeper Not Faster