This is an article in Inc Magazine. Meetings in corporations, churches are just so often about posing, raising questions that really shouldn’t take everyone’s time and often create more problems than they solve. When I worked for Motorola, my cube was right next to a meeting room. That meeting room was used all day, everyday. Then the company said before there were any meetings, there had to be a summary as to why it was necessary, what would be discussed, justify those who would be present and what the hoped for outcome would be. All of a sudden a lot of people decided they didn’t need anymore meetings. I think that goes for most cases. So much could be taken care of outside of meetings and if it’s necessary to get a consensus, have your ducks lined up before hand instead of making everyone try to invent the wheel. If there is a flaw, sure bring it up, but don’t belabor most of what is necessary and obvious.

Kate Rockwood writes in June 2017 Inc Magazine p 40: “Imagine spending two full days each week just sitting in meetings. Oh, wait – you already do. And a Bain & Company study found, most leaders rate more than half of these get-togethers as ineffective. [Quel surprise, right?] Yet the calendar creep continues: ‘The percentage of time an organization collectively spends in meetings has increased every year since 2008,” says Michael Mankins, a partner at Bain and co-author of Time, Talent, Energy. When Mankins and his partners dove deep into this issue, they found the average manager spends just 6.5 hours a week on real work. [Again Quel Surpise!] ‘But when leaders treat time as a scarce resource,’ he explains, ‘they can liberate as much as 40 percent of unproductive time for executives and employees.'”

A lot of organizations should take a serious look at this and not treat meetings as some kind of pro forma way to conduct business and then wonder why little is actually getting done, or it’s causing more problems than it solves.