Our Love/Hate Relationship with Meetings

Do you groan when you're invited to a meeting? Is the meeting itself boring but the participants interesting? We all love to hate meetings, whether they're meetings at work, PTA meetings or meetings for your religious organization. The truth is that we really only feel this way on the surface.

I secretly love meetings. I think that many people will agree with me that it's politically correct to act like meetings interfere with your focus in completing your work or daily responsibilities but in truth, they make us feel important. Think about how you would feel if you knew that a group you are a member of held a meeting but you weren't invited. You might be insulted or wonder why you were not included.

I think that what people really like about meetings is the socializing and refreshments (if they are offered) before and after the meeting itself. Meetings also give us a chance to get away from our desks / cubicles / offices for a while and see other people. It's actually an excuse to not do your work. Then, after the meeting we have an excuse as to why we didn't have enough time to complete our tasks.

When meetings are carefully planned, someone has written an agenda of topics to be covered. Agendas are a good way to make sure that everything that needs to be covered is discussed and it gives the participants an idea of when the meeting is coming to an end.

A paper published by the North Carolina Division of Aging and Adult Services titled "Managing Meetings" gives some great pointers on how to run effective meetings. Some of the highlights are: Don't use the meeting time to conduct business that concerns only one or two parties; have separate calls with those people. The next hint is: to keep the group from an endless debate, agree to a time limit on discussions before decisions are made. The best advice in the paper is: if the business is done before the designated meeting time, adjourn the meeting early. The participants and their bosses will be pleased with your focus and meeting skills.

A good meeting planner ensures that someone is taking detailed notes of the meeting. The notes are then distributed as "meeting minutes" to all attendees and also to those who didn't attend but were invited. This ensures that everyone knows the meeting had a purpose and that work was accomplished.

The economist John Kenneth Galbraith summed it up best when he said, "Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything."