The Pleasures of Sharing Information

Pssst, want a stock tip that will make you rich? Okay, here it
is: phone a public corporation and ask to speak with the CEO.

If a secretary tells you that the CEO expects to be busy in
meetings for the next six hundred years, call your broker and
sell the stock short. Any company unable to manage an activity
that should last an hour is on its way down the financial tubes.

Although it’s true that senior executives spend much of their
time in meetings, you can bet that a business is in trouble if
their meetings are out of control.

Surveys show companies waste an average of 20% of their payroll
on bad meetings. And that’s just the beginning of the problem.
Meetings keep people away from the tasks they were hired to
perform — tasks that make money for the company and keep the
business ahead of the competition.

Since bad meetings are so wasteful, you may wonder why anyone
tolerates them. Unfortunately, many business leaders think that
their meetings are just fine. They even believe that they’re
experts at holding effective meetings.

For example, when I phone companies to ask if they would be
interested in improving their meetings, I sometimes encounter an
assistant who assures me that the executives believe that they
hold wonderful meetings. Then the assistant snickers, coughs
softly, and regains enough composure to state that they don’t
need my services. At this point the assistant sounds like
someone on a sinking ship who is throwing a life jacket into the
water.

And that must make you wonder: why any intelligent person would
hold a meeting that wastes everyone’s time and produces nothing.

There are easy answers such as 1) they don’t know that their
meetings could be effective, 2) they don’t know what an
effective meeting is like, or 3) they don’t know how to hold an
effective meeting.

But what about the rest of them? That is, what about all of the
executives who know how to plan and organize and run an
effective business, but still hold bad meetings?

Let’s dig deeper. These executives actually want to hold bad
meetings because they prove to be useful. Here’s how.

1) They provide refuge. Bad meetings provide a sophisticated
form of executive busyness. Some people find this useful because
it keeps them from having to work on difficult tasks such as
planning, coaching, learning, and communicating. Compared to
these difficult tasks, sitting in a conference room is easy. In
fact, it is so easy that a six-year old could do it, assuming
you could convince the child to stay inside for such a pointless
activity.

Better: An effective meeting is business activity where people
work together.

2) They avoid responsibility. Bad meetings never end with
decisions, which means that no one ends up being held
responsible for doing anything. Some people find this useful
because responsibility implies accountability and accountability
requires results. Thus, without responsibility there is no
failure and everyone appears to perform well. This masks poor
performance so that everyone continues to receive raises and
promotions, even when they accomplish nothing because (you
guessed it) they spent all of their time sitting in meetings.

Better: Effective meetings produce decisions that someone is
responsible for implementing.

3) They provide excitement. Bad meetings feature all of the
elements of a good drama, such as conflict, tension, and pain.
For example, the participants deliver self-aggrandizing reports,
denigrate their colleagues, and engage in politics. Some really
terrible meetings play out like pathetic battlegrounds with
verbal gladiators battling for favors while the boss watches.

Better: Effective meetings occur in a safe environment of
respect.

4) They serve food. Bad meetings become an enviable executive
perk when they provide snacks, coffee, and (sometimes) meals.
The attendees then use eating to offset the boredom of having to
hear meaningless discussions. It also saves them the expense of
having to buy food.

Better: Meals should be a separate activity used to build
relationships and (sometimes) rest.

5) They entertain. Bad meetings resemble a party. People tell
stories, trade jokes, and argue over trivia. Some meetings
feature comedy performances by the office fool. Others feature
humorous belittlements by the office bully. And if neither of
these occurs, the absolutely unbelievable discussions amaze and
entertain everyone.

Better: Effective meetings use process tools to make methodical
progress toward results.

All of this shows why the type of meetings held in a company
should be of major concern when making investment decisions. If
the executives need to learn how, that can be fixed by
scheduling a workshop. Then you might consider investing in the
company, after they complete the workshop. If, however, the
executives hold bad meetings to avoid fundamental leadership
responsibilities, you should seek other investments.