It is Friday evening and I am pooped. It seems as if the entire week was spreadsheets, meetings, and phone calls. But I have to say that I accomplished a great deal. Then I began to mull it over: I have lots of meetings and I get stuff done. In fact, I think that most of my meetings are easily categorized as “productive.”

That doesn’t seem to be at all the norm where meetings are concerned.

The Norm

I think of all the topics I discuss with people in other firms, it’s only “meetings” that can create universal disdain. It’s quite fascinating; people simply hate participating in meetings. The most common descriptors being “terrible,” “boring,” “tedious,” and “waste of time.” None of that sounds very positive at all.

One must wonder how a single activity can be so pervasive while also being so reviled. If meetings were so detrimental, so senseless, you would think that someone would stop the insanity train and invent better mechanisms of project and staff communication.

My Revelations

I admit that, for a very long time, I also felt that meetings were little slices of hell that I was periodically forced to endure. Then, as my career progressed, I began to feel differently about meetings. But it was a bit of a mystery.

Now, as I reflect on those times, I realize that my agony was more to blame on a sense of not being in control. I felt that I was an unwilling part of a machine that someone else was operating. I think this is not an uncommon feeling. People crave a sense of control and feel ill at lease when that feeling is lacking.

Additionally, it seems as if an overwhelming percentage of meetings are focused on the negatives of a situation. Whether the meeting is specifically called to resolve a problem (or worse yet, lay blame) or it’s a sense of pointlessness, it all contributes to an overall sense of negativity. And that weighs heavy on the minds of meeting participants.

I honestly believe that it is these two factors that are to blame for the universal disdain of the “meeting.”

Simple Solutions

As curious as the idea that “everyone hates meetings” can be, I feel that the two major steps I take to have continuously productive meetings oddly simple. I realize that plenty of people say they have the answer to bad meetings, and I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that I follow a few simple guidelines that result in productive meetings and I am willing to share.

Community Control

As I stated earlier, I believe that a major contributor to Meeting Phobia is a sense of lost control. People feel summoned to meetings and thus view their treatment as pawns or, worse yet, that their presence isn’t even helpful.

To combat this, I simply make sure that everyone in the meeting is a an equal. This isn’t at all difficult because before I invite someone to a meeting, I ask myself “Is this person’s participation necessary?” You might be surprised how often the answer is “no” and therefore that person isn’t invited.

Since everyone has something to contribute, some input that they control, no one feels like a pawn.

Negating the Negatives

I don’t believe in calling people together to focus on the negatives of a matter. You might assume that means I don’t deal with negative situations, because I certainly do. However, I am interested in facts, not blame. I will never blame, or seek blame, in a group. Those matters are best handled privately, if at all.

Secondly, I long ago learned that last impressions are as important as first impressions. Psychological researchers refer to this as the Peak-End Rule, among a few other names, and simply put: how a person remembers an event is greatly influenced by the final moments. To make use of this I simply make sure that every meeting ends on a positive note. That’s it. And you would be surprised how powerful a technique it can be.

Meets and Bounds

So, as you can see, the path to productive meetings where everyone has something to willingly contribute is not difficult. And yet so many businesses continue to have staff members suffering from Meeting Phobia. It’s a shame, really, when you see how easy it can be to sway the perception of meetings in your office.

I hate that so many people dread meetings, especially in the world of intellectual workers. In that context isn’t the meeting precisely the best mechanism to gather and share information? And when you get down to it, “gathering and sharing” is the most basic description of all our jobs. So, if we dread to attend or participate in meetings we are literally avoiding a huge part of our responsibilities.

Put that way, doesn’t it seem alot more serious than just “hating meetings” …