> More often than not, meetings are a waste of time, leaned on by people who don’t want to make a difficult decision and would rather punt it to a group.
I have a different experience. Meetings aren't the problem. Getting 2+ people together is important. The problem is how the interaction happens and the costs and benefits involved. No one said that leadership or communication is easy. Building collective will is both an art and a science.
I say this: don't blame meetings. They are necessary. Learn to run better meetings.
A meeting that does not result in 1) a decision 2) action items or 3) information distribution is a waste of time. As a team, meetings are necessary to get "on the same page". It is true, sometimes in a meeting we think, "This could have been done with email". And other times when there is an email thread with 20+ responses, we think "A meeting would have solved this faster" It is not always easy to plumb the depths of a topic to decide beforehand.
I have a different experience. Meetings aren't the problem. Getting 2+ people together is important. The problem is how the interaction happens and the costs and benefits involved. No one said that leadership or communication is easy. Building collective will is both an art and a science.
I say this: don't blame meetings. They are necessary. Learn to run better meetings.