Why People Hate Meetings. Why People Love Meetings

One of the biggest time wasters  can be meetings.  One of the biggest time savers can be (surprise!) meetings.   It is possible to differentiate between the two.    Usually the time wasting meetings are the meetings that people hate.   The meetings that save time (in the long run) are the meetings that people love.  Herewith, then . . . reasons why people hate/love meetings.

Why People Hate Meetings

When there is no stated purpose other than to fulfill the obligation having a "regular meeting."  This void is then usually filled with unnecessary "status reports", the bulk of which translate into "I'm going to tell you EVERYTHING THAT I'VE BEEN SO VERY, VERY, EXTREMELY VERY BUSY DOING  in order to justify my professional existence."  It follows then that whoever gives the most verbose report is the most valuable employee. Yawn.

Someone calls a meeting, but then is too busy to attend and "delegates" it to someone else as a "learning experience."    Rule of thumb: if the purpose of the meeting isn't important to the originator, it's not important to anyone else.

If the subject matter is as interesting as last year's bus schedule.

The allotted meeting time is filled with a monologue with no chance for input or ownership by anyone save the speaker.

Meetings that are scheduled first thing in the morning or last thing in the day as the most sure-fire way to assure that employees show up on time and don't leave their cells. . .er, cubicles. . .early.

When the end time of a meeting is ignored and the clock slowly ticks onto the next century.  People begin to see glaciers move past the office windows with envying speed.

Why People Love Meetings

Gotta love it when they start on time and end on time (or preferably a few minutes early because everyone has just been so efficient in disseminating necessary information).

Meetings that have a stated purpose that is meaningful to the enterprise and to participants' professional lives.

The presented information is professionally pertinent.

Take the above, and then add on an environment in which team players have ownership of the subject, are encouraged to dream and create, can say their opinions without retribution and everyone has the goal of arriving at the best common solution.

Some of the best times in my professional life were meetings in which the populace was engaged and everyone had the opportunity to contribute.    Even if the meeting went long, we felt we had both purpose and direction - which not only saves time, but creates a better workplace.

Part of the work of leaders is to build meetings that people love. 

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Brent Frerichs is the author of "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders" available for  e-readers, tablets, PCs and Apple Products through Amazon Kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/Courageous-Questions-Confident-Leaders-ebook/dp/B0095KPA6A/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372198031&sr=1-1&keywords=courageous+questions%2C+confident+leaders