“I Meet — Therefore I am”
“Fantastic idea! – Let’s call a meeting of the entire team to hash it out,” burbled the hyperactive marketing veep. “Better idea: This IS the meeting,” I fired back. “Now let’s get to work.”
With all that’s been written about staff reductions, longer hours and the need for higher productivity, you’d think some management genius would point out the biggest time-waster of all: meetings. Maybe one already did and I missed it while in a meeting.
I hate to meet. I would rather endure the most awful torture — say, eating my mother’s southern-fried megapoly-saturated cooking, aka “grease-boarding” — than be forced to sit in a meeting of longer than 5 minute’s duration. But I’d never admit this to anyone face to face. They’d probably call a meeting.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like people. I love them. But spend endless hours meeting with them around a mahogany table as powerpoints flash on a screen, blackberries go off, and trays of yesterday’s pastries roll in & out? Forget it. I’ve got better things to do.
It not just “official” meetings that get to me. Whenever I visit a client site, I’m astonished at the numbers of people milling about in what they call strategic discussions, i.e. “chit chatting.” These are usually the same folk who complain about how overworked they are. If they just went in their offices, shut the door and worked, they’d be done at 2pm and home in time for “Oprah,” still a waste of time, but at least an honest one.
Apologies to Descartes and his immortal “Cogito Ergo Sum,” but what’s the Latin for “I meet, therefore I am”? It’s the best way to describe people who get life meaning just from talking.
Sure, you should have a meeting at the start of any major program or initiative. A short one. There you decide what’s to be done and who’s to do it. Period.
Otherwise, cast a cold eye on those who continuously request meetings. Agencies in particular. We love meetings, a great way to rack up billable hours for doing nothing. Meetings give us long lists of “to do’s,” and the chance to send weekly reports afterward on things we’re “following up” on. After a bit we like to abbreviate status items to “agency f/u.” That about sums it up.
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