Moving week
Wednesday, 30 January 2008 | 37 readers so far
My company is moving its corporate headquarters. It is simply amazing how a 72-hour event can waste six months of a person’s life (mine). I exaggerate slightly when I say waste. On the other hand at least 50% of the meetings I have attended related to this process have been redundant or unnecessary.
Job satisfaction, in my mind, is highly dependent on how much employees are treated as stakeholders versus how much they are micromanaged. Meetings can be good tools for communicating. They can also be good tools for micromanagers to ensure that control is being maintained. I am not going to go into extreme detail on the topic in this post, other than to state I have never attended a meeting with more than six people sitting around a table at one time that wasn’t wasting four of the people’s time 75% of the meeting’s duration.
Did that confuse you? The bottom line is - think about why you are having a meeting and whether or not everyone really needs to be there.
1 January 31st, 2008 at 11:24 am
Oliver says:
I hear you. That’s why I left the corporate world. I think there’s a trend between corporate management and government, and how people think government can help. When you see that meetings are a way to make sure everyone’s ego is not bruised by asking everyone’s opinion, and that the slightest thing needs to be discussed, you understand why government creates more problems than it solves. I couldn’t take meetings in the corporate world. I actually left many when the issues were discussed but people kept talking just to talk. I am glad those days are over.
2 February 1st, 2008 at 7:09 pm
kindlingman says:
When you use the word ’stakeholder’, you have been assimilated into the Borg.
3 February 2nd, 2008 at 4:16 am
kitanis says:
Come on Trevor…
It gets no better in the Government world.. when I was active duty.. I was wondering why I would be called to meetings that nothing to do with me….
Now I am civil service and we have a meeting every monday or tuesday thats even worse!!! The meeting is Mandatory by the head of public affairs to hear what everyone is doing… “rolls his eyes” It turns out to be a “beat your own drum” fest
4 February 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
Trevor says:
Kitanis,
It’s actually worse in the government world
5 February 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
A. Rational Human says:
What’s worse, the four people who’s time is wasted, are the four who are actually getting something done. The others in the meeting are simply corporate dead weight who’s primary focus is to make sure that nothing is actually accomplished. The only thing worse than failure is success.
6 March 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Bill says:
I wasn’t long into my 5 years at the corporate HQ when I discovered that the most powerful person in the organization there wasn’t the Chairman, or the CEO or even the COO, it was the clerk who scheduled the meeting/conference rooms.
7 March 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Trevor says:
Bill,
We have lots of problems with our conference rooms because we use an Excel spreadsheet to schedule things and lots of people don’t bother adding their event to that file.
It’s an awful system. We should have an online tracker and enforce a policy of “if you didn’t log it online you don’t get to use the room even if you are the CEO.”