A recent survey of more than 200 respondents paints a vivid picture of the state of meetings in organizations today. Key themes expressed by those interviewed describe a workplace in which people:
- Spend time on meeting topics that matter…an extraordinary amount of time.
- Believe that time in meetings isn’t as well spent as it could be.
- Hate tangents and starting late.
- Are frustrated by spending time in meetings that don’t clear outcomes or some specific purpose.
- Are pretty clueless when it comes to knowing what’s supposed to happen when meetings are over.
- Feel they haven’t had the chance to bring their best thinking to the table.
The whole meeting mess seems to be getting messier.
You’d think we’d have this figured out. It’s not like meetings are a new phenomenon. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe meetings are such a longstanding part of organizational life… that practices get handed down like some of the family holiday rituals we dread. That’s just the way things are done. Just wait it out till next year. Perhaps we look at meetings as part of the hard organizational structure like a bearing wall or concrete foundation – impenetrable without major reconstruction. Not so.
These meeting messes are just like coffee spills on the table, dust on the blinds, a crushed cookie on the carpet – easily cleaned with the right supplies. Read on for some things to think about – and most importantly DO – to clean up the meeting mess in your organization.
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