Meetings don't work.
Or, at least, the majority of staff meetings are time-wasting, productivity-killing, creativity-stifling products of wishful or delusional thinking.
Before the pandemic and its mass movement to remote and hybrid work, meetings were already problematic.
We've all seen how meetings fail.
Most meetings in the office result from a policy to hold regular — often weekly — staff "update" meetings. Or they're the result of procrastination. We can't make a decision right now, so let's schedule a meeting. Or some new initiative, problem, or idea inspires action, and scheduling a meeting feels like action.
Once the meeting begins, eyes glaze, and some meeting participants start mentally tuning out the conversation while pretending to pay attention. (Others don't even pretend; it's become increasingly normal or acceptable to stay glued to a laptop or phone screen during meetings.
Meetings are often dominated by attention-seekers, ladder climbers, extroverts, and long-winded speech-makers. In contrast, others mostly remain silent with little to no correlation between saying something and having something to say.
Meetings suppress creative thought. Most end in a fog of vagueness, without clear objectives, deadlines, and assignments.
And employees hate them.
Here's why meetings don't work anymore and what to do instead.
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