Some Meetings Exist Because the Boss Is Anxious

Meetings are supposed to accomplish something. Make a decision. Solve a problem. Set a direction. Get the right people aligned.

But sometimes that isn’t really why the meeting exists. Sometimes the meeting exists because the boss wants to know what’s going on.

So ten people stop working, join a meeting and spend an hour explaining what they’ve been doing.

Ten people lose an hour so one person can feel caught up.

That’s not a one hour meeting. That’s ten hours.

And if it happens every week, that’s 520 hours a year spent keeping one person informed.

The problem isn’t that leaders shouldn’t know what’s happening. Of course they should. The problem is using everyone else’s time to manage your own need for information.

There’s a difference between a meeting that moves the business forward and a meeting that makes leadership feel more comfortable. One creates clarity. The other creates the feeling of control.

You can usually tell which one you’re sitting in.

Nobody makes a decision. Nobody leaves with a new direction. Half the room barely speaks. Someone gives an update that could have been three sentences in an email. Then everyone goes back to doing exactly what they were doing before the meeting started.

If nothing changed because of the meeting, what exactly was the meeting for?

This gets expensive fast. Not just because of the hours.

Every unnecessary meeting interrupts momentum. People stop what they’re doing, switch gears, sit through the meeting and then try to get their brain back into whatever they were working on before.

The calendar says the meeting took an hour. The disruption can last longer.

That doesn’t mean meetings are bad. Good meetings can save enormous amounts of time. But a good meeting should have a reason to exist.

A decision needs to be made. A problem needs to be solved. Ideas need to be exchanged. Something needs to happen that is better accomplished with those people in the same conversation.

If the purpose is simply I want everyone to tell me what’s going on, there may be a cheaper way to get that information.

Before putting another meeting on the calendar, ask one question:

If nobody makes a decision in this meeting, why does everyone need to be there?

Sometimes the biggest source of friction in a business isn’t the work. It’s all the things we make people do before we let them get back to it.

Stanley Barsch
Founder, Motion Wins