Meeting Renegade
Some days (read: most days) I have so many meetings, most of which are now online, that I am about ready to jam a hot poker into my eye just to avoid yet another one.
Even though this is not all that different than the back-to-back meeting days in an office, somehow it feels like an even more egregious insult to our sensibilities while we’re homebound and basically molded to our chairs as we “go” from one meeting to the next. Like, it almost feels depressing to say “Well, I’ve got to go to my next meeting now” when we all know we ain’t GOING nowhere.
Meetings are, as a rule, usually run pretty poorly. No agendas, no time management, lackluster participation…ugh, I’m falling asleep just typing this out. Frankly, I think we overuse meetings because we feel too nervous to just get things done or feel we have to cover our asses for one reason or another or need to coddle a group along to agree to a thing.
Well what if we just go MEETING RENEGADE and break all the rules??! I mean, pretty much every rule we’re used to has been shattered in these times, so why not break a few more??
Naturally, I have an extremely logical way to think about meetings differently. Here goes:
Do you really need this meeting? Probably not. Cancel it.
If after #1, you think, yes, I really need this meeting…return to #1. Seriously. You probably don’t. Cancel it.
OK if after #1 and #2 you STILL think you need this meeting, fine. Make it a 15-minute meeting. Start on time. End on time. Save the chit chat for the virtual happy hour you likely have scheduled for later.
If you get to #3 and think, I can’t get this hour-long meeting done in 15 minutes!!...think again. Yes, yes you can. You are strong. You are smart. Bottom line your thoughts, ask others to do the same, get your sh*t done, and hit the “End meeting for all” button at 14:59.
Seriously, if you use the logic funnel above, your life will improve by like 1000%. And that’s a scientific fact. You don’t even need to look that up, I’m sure it’s true.
If after all that, you still have some meetings on your calendar and you really don’t want them to suck the life out of you and everyone else, try one or more of these suggestions:
Start by asking everyone to take some deep breaths. And before you get really worked up about how woo-woo’y this sounds, consider that getting more oxygen into your body changes your chemistry. So if people come in from their last meeting all wound up, bummed, frustrated, nervous, whatever…this gives them a way to make a somatic change before they dig into YOUR meeting.
If you decide to violate the earlier impenetrable logic and your meeting is longer than 15 minutes, have everyone stand up and stretch for 1-2 minutes during the call. It gets the blood pumping, the oxygen flowing, and frankly just makes us feel better to move around instead of continue to work on our pancake butt.
Tell everyone up front what needs to get done in the meeting (what decision needs to get made, what action steps need to be decided, etc.) and tell them that as soon as that happens, everyone can go. Even if there are 49 minutes left of the meeting time. This will help motivate everyone to stay on task and stay focused.
If you are not the meeting organizer and you don’t know why you’re going…decline the meeting. Or, in a slightly less bold move, email the organizer and let him or her know your role for the meeting is unclear to you so they have the chance to let you know why it’s necessary…or perhaps with enough of these, they’re realize no one really needs this meeting, they can just send an email, and everyone walks away a winner.
I’m sure you have a few of your own – share them! If we can’t get rid of meetings all together, let’s at least avoid pancake butts. For all of our sakes.
