The Future of Meetings

Everything in Business Revolves Around Meetings - And We're Doing It All Wrong

I'm going to say this very bluntly and up front - in the future meetings will only be about bringing each other up to date and making sure we're all in sync. Why? Because at this point of our development, the human ego can't stand listening to another person speak for a long time. Even if that person is the owner of a huge chain, or the chairman and founder of a very successful company, it's very difficult for us to listen to someone else speaking.

There is a solution to this - a really great alternative to how meetings are currently conducted - but before we get into that let's first agree that we have a serious problem - that we're all really tired of meetings in their current format.

Let's be honest - what are we all thinking in these meetings? "I can't wait for this meeting to be over so I can get back to my real work. So I can feel good that I'm actually getting something done, and not wasting time in these endless meetings ...."

For the last decade or so we've been faking it really well. We've been scheduling back to back meetings to justify our salaries, and sit attentively in these meetings "doing our job". Then during the pandemic everything else about our job fell away and all that was left were these Zoom meetings, where we had to appear to be "on" and "engaged".

Let's be honest - we're all faking it really well. Even with all the wellbeing experts and entertainment the companies brought on board - all this Zooming was cutting into our private time. We didn't have to spend hours getting dressed up, commuting to work, going through all the motions of looking busy in the office, etc. But we did have to be on Zoom a lot - and now all this pretending is starting to catch up with us.

Tired of Pretending

Everyone's trying to figure out the Great Resignation and don't understand that we're tired of pretending that listening to our bosses and managers speak or lead a gathering for hours at a time gives us any sense of fulfillment - it doesn't!

People can sense when something is going to make them feel good or not - and they know going into a meeting that they will feel just as empty when then leave. So what's the point?

Soon all human decision-making will be based on whether we feel a certain experience will provide us with the fulfillment we crave - and if it won't, then why waste our time? Just because someone is paying me will no longer be enough.

There is a solution to this - a really great alternative to how meetings are currently conducted - but before we get into that let's first agree that we have a serious problem - that we're all really tired of meetings in their current format. And even if you ask your employees if the meetings bore them to death - do you think anyone will answer truthfully? Even relatives that work for you won't answer truthfully because they want to keep receiving a paycheck - so they keep pretending.

Sesil Pir talks about all the things HR leaders are getting wrong in her latest Forbes piece - The Wellbeing Schmooze, and she also highlights what leaders need to be focusing on to get wellbeing right - "This is what many companies start to do: Challenge campaigns around walking, sending dietary baskets to employees, introducing new applications to monitor sleep, etc. while all at the same time continuing to create endless priorities that compete, promote wrong people into leadership positions, allow toxic behaviors that work against psychological safety, etc. The two do not match...

Dr. Martin Seligman, father of the thriving positive psychology movement delves into fascinating empirical evidence culled from years of rigorous research in his book Flourish. He identifies five endeavors crucial to human flourishing — positive emotion, engagement, good relationships, meaning and purpose in life, and accomplishment. As you can imagine any of those categories are complex in human becoming and require holistic examination to bring a different version of self out in a given experience."

So the future of meetings or any company event that takes me away from where I feel I'm truly getting my best work done, will have to provide this sense of human flourishing that comes from having all these above-mentioned things. But as I'm always saying, none of this will come naturally, and no man-made method can take us to the next level. We can't solve this problem from the same level where it started.

As I said earlier, we will talk about how any company gathering needs to be conducted from now on. But we can't talk about any of that without first agreeing that we have a problem. And it's a really big problem because everything in the workplace revolves around these meetings. Maybe it can start at the top in this case with even CEO's and other top leaders admitting they are bored to death in meetings.

There is a better way - we simply need to agree to start.