Comments on: 2012 resolution: fewer meetings, fewer bad meetings

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:47:12 +0000

Thanks for the feedback, Chas and Chris! Chas- you raise a very important point about discipline. Reminds me of The Power of Less…all of the book’s useful ideas mean nothing if you don’t have the discipline to carry through and stick with them. (And thanks for the Meetronome link!)

By: Chris Hardie

Chris Hardie — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:46:47 +0000

Thanks for this post – I appreciated it! And I’m grateful that horrible meeting culture isn’t a part of an eight-year-old’s worldview…yet.

Chris

By: Chas Grundy

Chas Grundy — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:04:03 +0000

Good post! I used to describe my work as “I don’t get to do any real work. I just go to meetings where we talk about work.”

Of course, meetings are sometimes important work. But you describe a chronic problem in organizations and the “modern meeting” ideas are good ones. Unfortunately, I don’t think the problem lies in knowing what makes a good meeting or a bad one; it’s discipline in sticking to this. (We all know how to lose weight or save money, they’re just not easy for many of us to do.)

After trying to direct some attention to our poor meeting culture a while back, I put this website (http://meetronome.heroku.com/) up on the screen for the duration of a large staff meeting. It was highly distracting and it ticked off the boss, but the point was made. I wish I could say there was a substantial change, but within a few weeks things went back to normal.