Zen (non) Meetings (From 2010)

Dont do it!! In every aspect of my life I try to stay positive and find the good in all things. This applies especially to my working life where it is very easy to fall into the trap of only focusing on the negative, which I believe is ultimately a futile exercise. I realised recently that I love my work but I hate meetings. Sometimes I can even end up in meetings about meetings in which I wonder if I am trapped in some kind of kafkaesque alternate dimension where I have been sentenced to go from one pointless meeting to the next. I tried to recall I can’t think of a single meeting where there were more than two people in attendance at a scheduled time and place and the result was nothing less than a complete waste of energy. “Yes Dave! We know meetings can be mind numbing but they are needed to make an organisation function” I hear you whisper. I don’t think they are. In theory meetings serve three purposes: 1)to allow the exchange of information, 2) the generation of ideas, 3) to create a social context where people can get to know their co-workers better. In my experience the modern meeting fails on numbers 2 and 3.The forced situation of a meeting does not allow for the space and humanity that genuine creativity requires- and really good ideas need creativity- the artificial social context of a meeting doesn’t allow for genuine relationships to develop, in fact they can possibly contribute to resentment of one’s colleagues. Going back to the first purpose of the meetings I reckon the technology now exists to bring people up to speed without taking away from their useful working time. I wonder what would happen if we asked the question: Will this meeting mutually enrich all those in attendance? If there is even the slightest hint that the answer may be no then don’t have the meeting. This will give the people the space they need to work on the stuff that will cause the success that having people fully engaged by things they are passionate about brings. I think that passion breeds passion and truly successful people will naturally seek out those they can share that passion with, thus allowing creativity to grow organically. Obviously this is a very idealistic view of a world without meetings. Also you may be sitting there thinking that you find it hard to get passionate about your work at all, then your passion should be finding a to do something that you will care about. It all comes down to one idea. Call it the rule of mutual enrichment: If all the people in attendance aren’t going to be happier and more stimulated at the end of the meeting……then don’t have it.