Meetings, meetings & meetings

I hate meetings. So do the rest I believe so.
At the sight of email notifications concerning meetings make me sick in the stomach! I have become desensitized to bad meetings. I believe most of us dread at the thought of a meeting. Why? It is one of the activities that waste time and cause worthless frustration at work (besides performance appraisals and budget planning).
Each time I walk into meetings, only the first one hour will capture my attention. Beyond that, my mind gets saturated and goes blank! Most of the time, we are, stuck in a meeting that we don’t want to attend, thinking of all the work piled up on our desk, while we half listen to someone droning continuously about a topic you have no interest in. When the meeting finally ends, less than half the agenda has been completed and everyone gets out their calendars to block the next date for another meeting. Why are meetings objectives not met? Worse still, meetings were dragged for hours which leave us fatigued.

As it happens, meetings never seem to reach a consensus or come out with any clear decision at the end of the day! I just don’t get it. It left me wondering why people gathered in the first place. Some people spend most of their normal working day in various kinds of meetings, i.e. project progress meeting, town hall meeting, staff meeting, departmental meeting etc etc...

There are days when the whole week is fixed with meetings and the only time available to do my own work is either very early in the morning, before the first meeting is scheduled, or late in the evening when it’s past our working hours. For all you know, we end up sacrificing 40% of our working hours in meetings especially during peak season and most of the time, 50% of that meeting time is wasted. I hate to admit; far more often I had to work late in the evenings to make up for unproductive hours wasted for meetings. Already staying up after-work-hours is conflicting with my personal agenda. Worse still, there is no perks for us doing so (executives can’t claim for overtime). In the end, I had to forego more of my personal and family time just to catch up on work I would have otherwise done in the earlier part of the day.

Meetings are usually intended to provide the whereabouts of projects progress, new management decree, and financial reporting of the business entity. Of course meetings can be fruitful, only if they’re held for good reasons, are well managed, and last but not the least, consensus is reached on the purpose of meeting is absolutely necessary. A collective mind is beneficial when it help generate new ideas, provide solution if we bump into stumbling block situation, or even refocus our directions to be right on track in order to meet the goals established at the beginning.



However, one should bear in mind that, “Too many cooks can spoil the broth”! Unfortunately the belief of many heads is always better than one, may not be true all the time. Based on my personal work experience, after exiting the meeting room, I can go numb and mind boggled wondering what the conclusion at the end was! I would be left baffled for a moment.

I wish I can avoid meetings but it is part and parcel of my life. At times, my week will plagued with different meetings and my work (either wet lab or data analysis) would be foiled and it gets delayed which is beyond my means. I end up getting overworked and not able to manage my schedule as planned before. I rather convey the progress of project in a more appropriate manner that is through email or one to one session with my superior efficiently ( I express better in this manner and I am more focused and not disturbed by short, annoying conversation of others across the boardroom).

Each time I walk out of meeting room, I’m neither motivated nor energized. Instead I feel it took away my precious time working on my project which is a blot in my schedule and does not my day good thereafter. If possible not to have one, everyone will be relieved-except few who like to interfere other people jobs as an excuse for not getting on with their own. I am done with one meeting yesterday with my international collaborators and consultant and another one coming ahead for tomorrow’s slot; the biweekly progress meeting! Arrrggghhhh…(Btw, I realize that our foreign colleague keeps meeting on time and focused on the objective. They don’t crap on unnecessary issues and adjourned within the effective time)

Why do organizations allow such a continual waste of time and energy? Something to ponder. It’s time for a revamp of how meetings should be made to get the most out it.