Meetings are both useful and incredibly dangerous
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Meetings boil down to talking about some work to be done. What about the doing of the work? We do that in between the meetings.
But isn’t discussing the work part of the work. After all, there are important questions to be answered:
What needs to be done?
When should we do it?
Who will do it?
How will we do it?
Fair enough. I don’t deny that discussion can be helpful. But I feel like the balance between talking and doing is increasingly out of whack.
I’m no Yoda, but a serious disturbance in the force, I sense. So let’s get real and look at one of the attractions and dangers of modern meetings:
Imagine someone who is lazy. Or who hates their job. To them Yet Another Useless Meeting™️ is the perfect way to kill some time and get through another work day. I use the term “work day” loosely.
They don’t care what you call the meeting or why you invited them. They don’t care that there is no agenda. They will gladly sit there with their camera off for an hour. Half listening, half eating, half asleep.
I’m not against collaboration. It’s essential to success. But it’s because communication is so critical that we need to be better.
8 people meeting for an hour isn't a 1 hour meeting, it's an 8 hour meeting. It’s a whole day. Make sure its worth it.
https://davidreinecke.com
What needs to be done?
When should we do it?
Who will do it?
How will we do it?
Fair enough. I don’t deny that discussion can be helpful. But I feel like the balance between talking and doing is increasingly out of whack.
I’m no Yoda, but a serious disturbance in the force, I sense. So let’s get real and look at one of the attractions and dangers of modern meetings:
Imagine someone who is lazy. Or who hates their job. To them Yet Another Useless Meeting™️ is the perfect way to kill some time and get through another work day. I use the term “work day” loosely.
They don’t care what you call the meeting or why you invited them. They don’t care that there is no agenda. They will gladly sit there with their camera off for an hour. Half listening, half eating, half asleep.
I’m not against collaboration. It’s essential to success. But it’s because communication is so critical that we need to be better.
8 people meeting for an hour isn't a 1 hour meeting, it's an 8 hour meeting. It’s a whole day. Make sure its worth it.
https://davidreinecke.com