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this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?
But we've worked together for several years, so he trusts my judgment.
this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?
Meeting culture is something that varies hugely between companies and industries and sectors. IMO that means that advice like this has limited utility unless you're aware of the differences. There are a few topics like this.
If the person you'd be telling it to is your boss, you probably don't have much sway to change the culture beyond regular feedback loops.
1. Context: Why are we here? What's the problem we're solving?
2. Actions: What decisions did we make? What are the next steps?
3. Follow-up: Who's doing what and by when?
Put this in a shared doc, a wiki, anywhere people can find it. If you can't see it, you can track it and you can't measure the outcome.
Just like developers measure the outcome of their planning and project meetings every sprint, managers and execs should do the same.
In theory, two things will happen once outcomes are tracked: Some managers will realise their meetings produce nothing useful, so they'll send fewer invites. And the company will shift focus from output to outcomes, which means fewer meetings and more real work getting done.
In practice, it depends on who you hire. People with less knowledge, experience, or agency tend to rely on meetings more than others.
I think this misses the mark for why people join. We're talking about a professional setting here, I'm coming to your meeting because you invited me to join, not because of fear of missing out (on what?). All the points given in the article are good, but it misses the most important one: if you're hosting a meeting, only invite people who MUST [0] be there. If the meeting could still take place and be useful without…
I don't think this advice is generic - there can be different perspectives here.
In a managerial role in a large corpo, doing what could be crudely characterized as office politics, I often have this sort of FOMO - missing out on new initiatives, budgets and projects which would be good for the team; or being unable to prevent others dumping hot potatoes onto us; or just not knowing what is brewing behind the scenes within the company. To a degree, I have to do this so that the technical guys don't have to.
My job, really, is to be invited to as many meeting as I can. I can then ditch the ones I don't think would be useful. Of course, often I sit on meetings that are a complete waste of time - but that is an occupational risk. I don't find these frustrating - they allow me to relax a bit, do my email, learn more about people in the meeting, or just practice my note taking.
First, a meeting is primarily not a way to spread knowledge. Knowledge should be spread in a format that is more resilient to time than our memories (which are surprisingly untrustworthy over even tiny time scales). For example; written text. The greatest benefit of text is that it can be asynchronously consumed, multiple times. Meetings are primarily for two things: I think this makes sense in the abstract but not a…
I agree though, for a small team to build a shared understanding and move quickly, just having a chat together is definitely more efficient. I don't think the ideas lined out here apply to that organisation size, however.
this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?
I think this misses the mark for why people join. We're talking about a professional setting here, I'm coming to your meeting because you invited me to join, not because of fear of missing out (on what?). All the points given in the article are good, but it misses the most important one: if you're hosting a meeting, only invite people who MUST [0] be there. If the meeting could still take place and be useful without…
Money, exposure, promotion, money.
People who attend more meetings and do less work get higher pay rises and promoted faster. They are also far less likely to be included in rounds of layoffs given their importance to the organisation.
this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?
People in leadership usually get there because they value time and efficiency, and if you don't spin that as "your agenda is trash" but "I cannot contribute to this meeting and would like to pursue my other tasks", I doubt they will be mad at you.
It can also be worth it to bring this up with your team and establish a meeting culture, as suggested in TFA. That way, you can discuss this openly and everyone has a shared understanding of what is okay.