Get rid of formal business meetings

Communication World, Dec, 1997 by Richard Nemec

I don't hold meetings myself, as an independent home-based writer/communication consultant. I still attend meetings convened by clients and their employees. My recent experience in that milieu, along with 25 years of organizational experience in the public and private sectors, prompts me to conclude in 1997 that "enough is enough."

Today's downsized organizational world in both the public and private sectors should be ashamed for perpetuating this gross chunk of unproductive, uncompetitive behavior at a time when millions of former workers' lives have been turned upside down in the name of greater efficiency, cost-effectiveness and global economic pressures.

The Perfect (Bad) Example

I am reminded of this all too often, and a recent meeting among a dozen people for one of my clients, a unit in a U.S. $3 billion globally focused company, presents an all-too-perfect case in point:

The young advertising manager who convened the meeting sat at one end and to the side of a large conference table. As is typical, more than half of the participants wandered in after the meeting's scheduled time. A flip chart and writing markers were positioned to one side of the rectangular-shaped table. They were unused at the beginning. No one really took charge to formally start this session. No agenda or background information was distributed.

In short, 15 or 20 minutes were wasted on small talk; and various pairs of people around the table carried on their own private discussions. Finally, discussion of the business matter at hand began. But without an agenda or clearly recognized chairperson, the discussion soon became unfocused. About 30 minutes into this chaos, a young industrial engineer attempted to bring some order by asking for the meeting's objective to be written on the flip chart. This precipitated sporadic banter around the table on an objective statement. In other parts of the group, individuals wrote their versions of a draft objective.

Eventually, the person sitting closest to the flip chart wrote a draft statement for the group to critique. This began what I call the "wordsmithing" portion of any meeting. And it began precisely on time, about 35 minutes into the session.

Discussions ranged from what is a "goal" as opposed to an "objective," and further, what is a "strategy" as compared with a "task." Then, the majority of the discussion for the next 20 to 30 minutes was concentrated on people detailing their favorite tasks, usually ones that don't require work on their part.

One-Hour Mark, Zip Done

As our meeting neared the one-hour mark, it was clear nothing was getting accomplished. The young ad manager stopped everyone to remind them that she was in charge and to reiterate why everyone was convened, including several field sales people who hate meetings, particularly with staff people who want to give the impression they are listening to the line workers before they do exactly what they want to do, which is usually bad for the operating people.

This was a meeting called to begin planning a major promotional event. All of the staff and line talent needed to conduct the program were gathered in the same room, yet more than one hour after the session ostensibly began, the group was still trying to come up with a catchy theme for something that had yet to be defined in any substantive way.

Nonetheless, someone had the draft theme written on the flip chart under the draft objective. Then, someone else talked about inviting "a celebrity," meaning an entertainer, politician or professional athlete who could draw news media. This prompted another person to blurt out golf child prodigy Tiger Woods' name. The discussion went off track.

At the one-hour-15-minute mark, we had an ill-defined objective, a supposedly catchy theme and the name of a 21-year-old multimillionaire golfer. But what we were going to try to create and how we were going to organize it were yet to surface in the rambling discussions. The industrial engineer tried to rescue us once again!

At about the 90-minute mark, the deceptively quiet and efficient engineer suggested that "some direction was needed," which at least prompted the group as a whole to focus on what it was trying to do. In the last 20 minutes the real meeting took place, rough outlines for an event, with a rough timetable were discussed. Work teams were formed and the next meeting scheduled (even though one person belatedly acknowledged he would be out of town on that date...there's always one!). What should have taken 30 minutes consumed almost two hours.

Meet Online Instead

My recent experience begs the question: Is there a better way? The answer is obvious: Yes, and everyone knows it, particularly in this age of e-mail and PC networks. Meetings tend to be operated democratically; e-mail works the opposite. He or she who controls the agenda, the objective, the outline, can control the process: E-mail makes this control more absolute by cutting out the "noise" which is the clutter of egos and personalities that gather around the typical meeting table.