Boring Meetings Suck: Get More Out of Your Meetings, or Get Out of More Meetings

Agenda Item 1

Boring Meetings Suck … so Why Do We Have 'Em?

Why do so many meetings have to suck …

So badly?

So consistently?

How many millions upon millions of people are wondering every day: Why am I stuck in this meeting? I have far better things to do than listen to people put in their two cents several times over. And how on earth do I get out of here?

They're also asking—

• Why was I even invited?
• Why is this presenter reading PowerPoint slides? Couldn't this person have just mailed the presentation to everyone and skipped the meeting?
• Why is this meeting going a full hour even though we finished the agenda in 35 minutes?
• Why is this conference call being constantly interrupted with the question, “Who just joined?”
• Why is this meeting wasting thousands of dollars of human capital by endlessly talking about problems but never solving them?
• Why is the boss holding a meeting to get our input, but all the while wearing the intended solution on his or her sleeve?
• Why is the dreaded annual meeting a time we're told what we're doing wrong and preached to all day? Don't they ever want to hear from us?

Ever felt like this? Then you're in the right spot!

Where did we, as humans, go wrong? I think it goes all the way back to Adam meeting Eve. The objective of their meeting—to stay away from that fruit—was never clearly identified as an action item. And not much has changed since then.

In September 2010, a front-page story in USA Today reported that 49 percent of all office meetings ...