Bullshit meetings and how to avoid them.

Where did all the meetings come from. Now, more than ever, frontline and middle managers are being dragged from one meetings to the next. Project meetings, product development meetings, change management meetings and meetings to discuss the forthcoming meeting meetings, to name just a few. All day, every day. Always exactly an hour long and almost always bullshit meetings designed to keep people from getting anything done.

If your job purpose is to manage a team, surely the only essential meeting that you must attend is a team meeting. Ironicly that’s just about the only meeting the great bulk of managers don’t, won’t or can’t attend (or even organise) on a regular basis.

There’s really not that much to commend the founding fathers of industrial age management theories, but they did at least understand that the point of managers was to organise labor, which is to say… people.

Two hundred years later we’ve learned that in the knowledge age people don’t need to be ‘organised’ like illiterate factory drones, but there must be something more useful managers can do – other than hiding in little glass boxes, huddled with other absent managers, talking about work they haven’t done.

Not all meetings are bullshit. But plenty are.

Here are 6 proven ways to avoid or shorten those hours of your life you’ll never get back:

1. Do what matters first. Fill your diary with things that do matter: one-on-ones, coaching sessions and team get togethers, weeks in advance. Most managers don’t use their electronic calendar to schedule coaching and planning sessions, and they pay the price when other people take control if their empty schedule. High Performance Leaders know they can’t be in two places at once, so they block out chunks of time, even when they’re planning to just ‘be available’ for their team by sticking close to home base. People with packed calendars get left alone (to do their job). That’s exactly how the CEO’s PA keeps you out of his diary.
2. Send someone else (or have a revolving designated attendee). If there are 6 managers in your workgroup organise each manager to attend a different meeting alone. Then catch up on the ‘shop floor’ (not in a meeting room!) for 10 minutes (max) to share highlights and compare notes. Knowing she’ll have to report back a summary is good for the person attending the meeting because they would have otherwise been half asleep and forgotten the lot.
3. Huddle with your team of peers every day for 10 minutes at 8.30 to keep each other in the loop. If you’re booked in to the same meetings decide who will represent both (or all) of you and share the essentials tomorrow. Trust me, if you only have to hear the concentrated version, even as little as 10%, you’ll know more than most of the attendees, who’s brains were wiped clean at the start of the next meeting.
4. If you absolutely must attend, keep meetings to half an hour. It’s amazing how much gets done and how creative people get under a 30 minute deadline. The 60 minute meeting is an arbitrary number. It’s convenient because it fits neatly on a clock and most calendaring software defaults to an hour. Don’t get sucked in by these flimsy reasons.
5. In team meetings have a 15 minute rule. Conversation is like gas, it expands to fill the available space. People will go on endlessly about the same point if you let them. Allocate a maximum of 15 minutes to a topic.
6. Learn to listen. Like most people, when I don’t feel heard I will keep making the same point over and over. Listen, acknowledge and move on. You’ve all got more important things to do.

Remember, those meetings might make you feel important but, in reality, they’re keeping you from important work. Conspire with your team of peers to break the cycle of time wasting.

Manager absenteeism is the number one reason team members are disloyal to their boss. When their direct manager is missing in action team members get justifiably and actively annoyed. On the other hand, highly loyal team members value attributes that reflect availability.

It’s not possible to be supportive and absent. Managers can’t be encouraging and be in meetings all day. It is difficult to give feedback and coach if you’re not in the same room. Availability is the single biggest differentiator between high and low performing managers, between loyal and disloyal team members.

About Jason Moore

Jason Moore consults on culture and leadership effectiveness and regularly facilitators leadership workshops. He is also an entrepreneur, author and coach. Jason co-developed the High Performance Leader diagnostic Tools(which help leaders uncover the causes of under-performance and disengagement in teams and work-groups) and blogs his thoughts on making work a better place to work.