Meetings, meetings, and more meetings. . .

By Thomas R. Schori, Ph.D., and Michael L. Garee, Principals,  Millennium Marketing Research, 808 E. Ironwood, Normal, IL 61761-5239. Tel. 309-532-8466 -

One of the things we make it a point to do when we travel on business around this country is to buy a local newspaper, in order to get a feel for what’s on people’s minds in various parts of the country, particularly as it relates to business concerns and issues.

Recently, while in the Atlanta, GA, metropolitan area, we ran across this illustrative tidbit submitted by a reader of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "If you had to identify one word the reason the human race has not achieved, and never will, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’"

While, obviously written with a little bit of tongue in cheek, this remark certainly hit a responsive chord with us, because during our business careers in the corporate world, we spent considerable time¾years, actually!¾in endless, usually mindless, time-wasting meetings!

Today, since we run our own business, rarely are we faced with the "meetings" problem, Still, the memory of it is fresh enough in our minds that this newspaper reader’s comment got us to thinking again about this all-pervasive, genuinely irritating business phenomenon.

The basic idea behind holding meetings, business or otherwise, is, of course, quite sound and virtually as old as the human race itself. How better to bring issues to the table for discussion and/or resolution than to get a group of concerned (or affected) people together for a meeting? It’s what most of the business world has allowed meetings to turn into that is the problem, not the idea of meetings. And, if you’re employed by a medium- to large-sized business, and if you’re at a level where meetings have become an integral part of your workaday life, you certainly know the drill.

In our experience, and probably in yours as well, here’s generally how the typical business meeting is set up and conducted:

• Usually, though not always, the senior person in attendance "chairs" the meeting. And, by virtue of that pre-eminent position, the chair has virtual free rein to set not only the tone and tempo of the meeting, but it is he or she who serves as the "gate-keeper" for what will actually be discussed during the meeting, or more importantly, what will not be discussed.

• Most often, seating arrangements for participants will be based strictly on "rank," with the most senior people seated nearest the chair, who normally occupies the "head" of the table. Those of lesser rank are of course seated farther from the chair, usually in descending rank order, i.e., the lower one is in rank the farther he or she is seated away from the chair.

• Seating arrangement usually parallels the order of speaking as well. That is, "underlings" normally (and usually, wisely) wait to make their contributions until all of the "mucky-mucks" have had an opportunity to first make theirs.

• Once the initial remarks and formalities are taken care of, the posturing and pontificating begin with a gusto, with those who usually have the least contribution to make taking the longest, most verbose route to make it.

• The length of the meeting rarely is under an hour, and more normally is two to three hours. The really important meetings may take an entire morning, afternoon or even the entire day! They might even go on for several days running!

• Regardless of the stated purpose of the average meeting, rarely, if ever, is anything actually accomplished or even agreed upon during the meeting. More likely, the normal business meeting is merely the starting point for more meetings, as in, "Ted, let’s you and I get together after this meeting to discuss so and so." "Mary, why not set up a meeting with John and see if you can come up with suggestions on the best way to deal with such and such," ad infinitum.

Is it any wonder, then, that the typical businessperson¾with the sole exception, of course, of those people who actually thrive on holding or attending meetings or those who use meetings as a means of justifying their pay and/or existence!¾has grown to despise and dread meetings? Is there any way to turn this situation around? Maybe.

What if, by popular acclaim, business meetings of tomorrow were subjected to some stringent new guidelines and requirements such as the following:

• No meeting could be called at all unless two-thirds of those being "invited" to the meeting agreed that it was even necessary in the first place.

• No meeting, regardless of its importance, could last longer than one hour. And, for every minute a meeting exceeded this one hour limit, the person calling it would be fined the equivalent of one hour’s pay.

• Meeting participants were allowed, no, make that required, to loudly boo any person, regardless of "rank," who at any time during the meeting began posturing, pontificating or otherwise began making a nuisance of himself or herself.

• There would be an absolute requirement that some substantive agreement be reached or decision be made by the end of the meeting. Again, if this was not the case the person calling the meeting would be fined the equivalent of one hour’s pay.

OK, so we’re dreaming! But wouldn’t some approach like this be a refreshing alternative to the typical dreaded, mind-numbing business meeting of today? Oh, well, it’s just a thought. Maybe we should call a business meeting ourselves and discuss it further, although we’ll tell you this right up front: We have absolutely no intention whatsoever of actually reaching any kind of solid agreement or making any hard and fast decisions about the issue.