Was That a Meeting or Kindergarten?

Some people dream of owning a fancy car, not me, I dream of riding in a fancy car---with Jerry Seinfeld, while discussing meetings. Until that happens will you discuss meetings with me? No fancy car, just you, me, LinkedIn and maybe a cup of coffee, while I tell you the three times business meetings felt more like kindergarten.

Even if you don't have kids, you've likely been around a kid who was asked what they want to be when they grow up. I don't have scientific research to back this up, but in my experience with kindergarten kids over the years, the answers are about the same. One kid says firefighter, then there is a veterinarian, a future doctor, a police officer, the Lego obsessed future architect or engineer, and one kid who simply says, "I want to be rich." The parents and teachers all giggle at the last kid, and the naivety of youth, while remarking, "Kids say the darnedest things." Well you know who else says the darnedest things? Business leaders in meetings. The equivalent of a kindergarten kid saying, "I want to be rich when I grow up," is a leader who tells you the company goal is to make more money. If this happens at your next business meeting, I encourage you to run. Making money is a result, not a purpose. I never attended a business meeting at Enron, but I'm pretty sure when they were goal-setting, making money was at the top of the list. Making money is not a goal, it's not a purpose, and if you say it at a meeting I'm going to tell Simon Sinek on you.

The blame game is another characteristic of meetings that feel like kindergarten. When my boys were little we had a marker in the microwave oven incident. Upon discovering the exploded marker in the microwave, I immediately turned off the microwave. Then I sat both boys down to find out who was responsible, and how it happened. True to form for their age group, they each blamed the other. Why even discuss blame? So I could address the situation with the correct child, and prevent it from happening in the future. I did this only after the immediate crisis had passed. In the midst of a business crisis, everyone gathers round the conference line or conference table and it never fails, someone says, "he, she, they did it." How is that helpful? A strong team rallies together to solve the crisis first, not lay blame. And if you start the blame game in a meeting with me, I'm going to write your name on the PowerPoint screen.

There were a few great years, five to be exact. I remember them like they were yesterday, those five years when no one mentioned my age in a meeting. You know who else talks about age? Kids. When my kids were 3 and 5, my eldest would call his brother a baby, "He can't play with me, he's too young, he's a baby." "Your brother is exactly 26 months younger than you, he isn't a baby, please give him a chance," I would reason. Well, as you know, kids, like people at work, can be unreasonable. In my mid to late thirties, people stopped telling me I was too young. They listened to my ideas and sometimes disagreed, but not because of my age, gender, race or educational background. Unfortunately, those days were short-lived, because I no sooner entered my forties and was told my idea wasn't good because I might be getting too old. Too old at forty-two? There are a lot of things you can call me, you can even argue that my ideas are plain stupid, but you better not blame my age. If you blame my age, you're going straight to my office, where for the next hour I will lecture you on the success of Iris Apfel and Nick D'Aloisio, and maybe even make you write their birth years 100 times.

Meetings are important, even critical to a company's success, but if they start to feel like kindergarten, it might be time for recess...or a new coffee mug.