If you worked anywhere where there was machinery, or equipment or appliances and one of them did not work properly, what would you do? You’d get it fixed – right? There’s no question when it comes to things like machines or equipment. Why not meetings?
Survey after survey shows that meetings in the workplace (and sometimes outside work) are the most unpopular activity in the working day. The research has been done over and over again for years – same result.
There are three factors: There are too many meetings. They go for too long. They are not productive.
I cannot remember the number of times I have been told that a meeting was held to decide whether to hold a meeting.
So if meetings are so universally disliked, why don’t they get fixed?
Some say its because no-one cares. The most common reason is habit and complacency – people are so used to broken meetings that they think they can’t be fixed.
Well, I dispute that. Broken meetings can be fixed and the fixes are relatively simple.
When I go into an organisation to do an impartial meeting diagnostic, I nearly always see the same 3 problems:
- People don’t know what decisions are going to be made or issues to be addressed (usually because there is no agenda), and so …..
- They don’t or can’t prepare and so ……
- Decisions get deferred to the next meeting …. when it all starts again – the cycle of broken meetings.
Of course there are lot more reasons than those 3 but the fixes are simple.
If you’d like to fix your meetings, call me in to do a Meeting Diagnostic – you’ll be surprised at what I find.
David Price
I fix broken meetings
0418 888 018
