That remarkable thinker Theodore Zeldin (1994) says an opportunity is wasted every time a meeting has taken place and nothing has happened. If so, most of us spend a depressingly high percentage of our lives on fruitless chatter.
This is often no accident, since many meetings are not intended to achieve anything, having been proposed for sundry selfish reasons. A common one, which also begets much market research, is the desire of an individual or individuals to avoid being responsible for a decision. This is often wise, since whilst it is perfectly possible that someone may be fired for getting something wrong, few firms are so callous or determined as to get rid of a whole group because of something for which no one person can be blamed.
Some meetings have objectives so ludicrous it is inconceivable that can be achieved. Thus, about four years ago a client assembled about 16 people from all over the world in London to discuss nothing less than the complete restructuring benefits and services his vast organization offered to its millions of customers. How he imagined the very basis of his firm's businesses could be transformed for the better by eight hours' jabbering around a conference table i did not understand. i spent most of the day trying to calculate the cost in air fares and fees of those present - who included, apart from the company's representatives and those of their agencies, some astoundingly expensive management consultants from the United States and Europe.
Many meetings revolve around presentations, but few receive the rapt attention they deserve. A few years ago a friend, Roger Millington, entered the wrong conference room at a big agency. He thought he was talking to an audience of people selling ladies' underwear, whereas they were from Goodyear Tyres. He swears he was a good 10 minutes into his spiel before anyone noticed everything he was saying was hilariously irrelevant.
When I first became a creative director many years ago I soon learnt meetings were an even greater theft of time than procrastination and never attended unless forced to, merely sending in advance my written views on the subject in question, offering to turn up and discuss them if asked. I don't recall this ever happening, which probably says more than I would like about the poor quality of my thinking. In Up the Organization, Robert Townsend, who made Avis successful, suggests all meetings be held standing up so people will not dawdle.
But Zeldin is right. The greatest curse of meetings is that most produce nothing. Either there is no conclusion save that another meeting should take place or, if it is decided what should be done, it is not made clear by whom; and even if that essential point is established, it is rarely made clear by when it must be done.
If what I have written reflects your own experience, I am not at all surprised. But if your organization does not suffer from these vices, it either already is or soon will be amazingly successful. But dont get complacent. Given enough meetings, it won't stay that way long.
Source: Bird, D., (June 1996), MARKETING Insights & Outrages.
This is often no accident, since many meetings are not intended to achieve anything, having been proposed for sundry selfish reasons. A common one, which also begets much market research, is the desire of an individual or individuals to avoid being responsible for a decision. This is often wise, since whilst it is perfectly possible that someone may be fired for getting something wrong, few firms are so callous or determined as to get rid of a whole group because of something for which no one person can be blamed.
Some meetings have objectives so ludicrous it is inconceivable that can be achieved. Thus, about four years ago a client assembled about 16 people from all over the world in London to discuss nothing less than the complete restructuring benefits and services his vast organization offered to its millions of customers. How he imagined the very basis of his firm's businesses could be transformed for the better by eight hours' jabbering around a conference table i did not understand. i spent most of the day trying to calculate the cost in air fares and fees of those present - who included, apart from the company's representatives and those of their agencies, some astoundingly expensive management consultants from the United States and Europe.
Many meetings revolve around presentations, but few receive the rapt attention they deserve. A few years ago a friend, Roger Millington, entered the wrong conference room at a big agency. He thought he was talking to an audience of people selling ladies' underwear, whereas they were from Goodyear Tyres. He swears he was a good 10 minutes into his spiel before anyone noticed everything he was saying was hilariously irrelevant.
When I first became a creative director many years ago I soon learnt meetings were an even greater theft of time than procrastination and never attended unless forced to, merely sending in advance my written views on the subject in question, offering to turn up and discuss them if asked. I don't recall this ever happening, which probably says more than I would like about the poor quality of my thinking. In Up the Organization, Robert Townsend, who made Avis successful, suggests all meetings be held standing up so people will not dawdle.
But Zeldin is right. The greatest curse of meetings is that most produce nothing. Either there is no conclusion save that another meeting should take place or, if it is decided what should be done, it is not made clear by whom; and even if that essential point is established, it is rarely made clear by when it must be done.
If what I have written reflects your own experience, I am not at all surprised. But if your organization does not suffer from these vices, it either already is or soon will be amazingly successful. But dont get complacent. Given enough meetings, it won't stay that way long.
Source: Bird, D., (June 1996), MARKETING Insights & Outrages.
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