Academic perspective Comment
Picture the scene. At a well-known
blue-chip firm the great and the
good have gathered for the biannual
meeting of big cheeses. The agenda is
each division’s product development
initiatives and the progress made
since the last get-together.
Because all eight divisions are going
to present the agenda is long and
taxing, with thousands of PowerPoint
slides to get through.
The first leader stands up and gives
a slightly undercooked update on his
team’s innovation project. Interesting
idea, badly presented. But it isn’t
Geoff ’s sugar-free delivery that’s an
issue, it’s the content. Geoff has barely
taken his seat when he observes
slightly puzzled looks around the
table. A creeping realisation is
rippling from person to person.
The chair calls on one of the other
leaders to explain the awkward unease
that’s settled on the room.
“We’re actually working on a pretty
similar idea,” she pipes up.
“Erm, and so are we,” chimes
another. The room breaks into
chaotic chatter.
When the session adjourns for a
break the chair takes the three
offending divisions aside to try and
make sense of things. Each leader
offers the same explanation: they all
outlined their propositions at the
Spring meeting and each received the
green light to proceed. But not one of
Meetings are a tax on
our best people’s
energy – and it’s time
for a massive tax cut
them can remember a single detail
from each other’s proposals. Hence
the duplication.
This is a true story a listener of my
podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat shared
with me. Sadly it’s all too relatable.
But what does it tell us about
modern work?
I often wonder what would happen
today to a child who underwent a
Freaky Friday-style teleportation into
the body of one of their parents. ‘You
seem to spend all day in meetings
pretending to pay attention,’ they’d
probably say.
According to Officio we Brits
spend 16 hours a week in meetings.
But many of my podcast listeners tell
me that their own meeting quota is
significantly higher. The travesty is
that if we’re barely paying attention
beyond our own contribution then
we’re burning through our best
cognitive hours feigning fascination.
So why is the burden of meetings
the abiding experience of work for so
many of us these days? Largely it
seems to be down to the laudable
goal of trying to keep colleagues ‘in
the loop’.
Since our first excursion to the
playground as children, the fear of
missing out on some insight has felt
so brutally excluding that we’ve
always valued being kept in the
loop with the latest news. And so
it is with work. If we see neighbours
gathering their possessions and
moving towards the conference room
a visceral FOMOOM – Fear of
Missing Out On Meetings – kicks in.
We might hate the meetings we
attend but our curiosity about those
we’re not invited to is unencumbered
by reality.
But no-one should have more than
a day’s worth (eight hours) of
meetings a week. And getting to that
goal should, rightly, involve some
difficult decisions. Meetings are a tax
on our best people’s energy – and it’s
time for a massive tax cut.
When meetings are the exception,
rather than the norm, our energy
and attitude towards them
transforms. When we apply scarcity
to a decision we become more honest
in our prioritisation.
Our experience of work is often
determined far more by the everyday
realities of meetings and emails than
by even the best-resourced wellness
programmes. So if you’re looking to
fix your culture you could do worse
than start with your calendar.
One charity told me recently that
it knew it had a problem with its
cultural transformation programme
when no-one turned up for the threehour
kick-off meeting.
None us want to be Geoff; we want
our best ideas to be heard. And we’re
only going to get there if we lower the
meeting tax. HR
Bruce Daisley is EMEA vice president for Twitter, author of The Joy of Work,
and ranks 14th on our HR Most Influential Thinkers 2019 list
hrmagazine.co.uk November 2019 HR 13
/hrmagazine.co.uk