I like the points you bring and yet I think that you are missing a part that is potentially the biggest driver of meetings: keeping busy and avoiding accountability.
Being seen as busy is crucial to justify one’s position, promotion and power, and meetings are the politically acceptable way to stay busy, as you can always claim “alignment” or “knowledge sharing” and no one can push back against that.
Avoiding accountability is just human nature and meetings are, again, the perfect escape route: bring it to a broader team and you will walk out sure that nobody will ever point the finger.
Of course meetings can be tremendously useful, if organized well (agenda, objective, preparation needed) and if chaired by a leader that has the balls to end by clarifying accountability, responsibilities and timelines.
It’s just hard to meet this criterion, because it requires going against the system inertia, which is incredibly tough and makes you instantly annoying/dangerous.
It depends of how powerful you are with respect to the meeting.
If powerful enough, decline with a word explaining why - people will understand and you’ll eventually solve the problem at its root.
If less powerful but still relevant, join the meeting and be the one who brings structure: what’s the agenda? what decisions are we here to make? who’s accountable? - if senior enough and polite enough, you won’t be excessively disliked.
I like the points you bring and yet I think that you are missing a part that is potentially the biggest driver of meetings: keeping busy and avoiding accountability.
Being seen as busy is crucial to justify one’s position, promotion and power, and meetings are the politically acceptable way to stay busy, as you can always claim “alignment” or “knowledge sharing” and no one can push back against that.
Avoiding accountability is just human nature and meetings are, again, the perfect escape route: bring it to a broader team and you will walk out sure that nobody will ever point the finger.
Of course meetings can be tremendously useful, if organized well (agenda, objective, preparation needed) and if chaired by a leader that has the balls to end by clarifying accountability, responsibilities and timelines.
It’s just hard to meet this criterion, because it requires going against the system inertia, which is incredibly tough and makes you instantly annoying/dangerous.
This is a valid point! I didn't think about it when writing the article, but for certain cultures, it's true.
What would you suggeset as a remedy?
It depends of how powerful you are with respect to the meeting.
If powerful enough, decline with a word explaining why - people will understand and you’ll eventually solve the problem at its root.
If less powerful but still relevant, join the meeting and be the one who brings structure: what’s the agenda? what decisions are we here to make? who’s accountable? - if senior enough and polite enough, you won’t be excessively disliked.
If not powerful at all, tune out and do emails.
Thank you for these great additions!