100%

100% on point. We have a company policy that meetings are either 25 or 50 minutes to make sure you are never late for the next one or can prepare a little before it. It is highly frowned upon if you break that threshold and didn't plan accordingly.

And that video is an 11 on a 1-10 scale of being spot on

Perfect 10

AtlAg05 said:

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I read an article a few months ago where one of the points was, people tend to add more things to come up with a solution. They did a survey on an issue and it was 90%+ of respondents wanted to add functionality rather than remove blockers/issues causing it.

Adding start/stop rules for meetings isn't addressing the underlying issue. Too many ambiguous meetings where no one knows the goal or who can answer it.

I've tried to include a goal so I know if the meeting was a success and people know what we will be talking about.

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Can you expand on the bold?

Jason Ag said:

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AtlAg05 said:

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I read an article a few months ago where one of the points was, people tend to add more things to come up with a solution. They did a survey on an issue and it was 90%+ of respondents wanted to add functionality rather than remove blockers/issues causing it.

Adding start/stop rules for meetings isn't addressing the underlying issue. Too many ambiguous meetings where no one knows the goal or who can answer it.

I've tried to include a goal so I know if the meeting was a success and people know what we will be talking about.

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Can you expand on the bold?

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The quickest example is this thread about having too many meetings, as some suggested and what some do at my work, have all meetings start 5 min after normal times. We add in more steps and things to do rather than figure out what meetings can be consolidated/removed so we don't have as many. Or don't allow forwarding, know which key people are required so others can't join if they aren't required.

He missed that part where there was the "I saw you had a 10-minute break in your schedule, so I threw some time on the calendar!" - when they damn well know that 10 minute break was for you to hit the head and grab a sandwich in between all the meetings.

Red Pear Luke (BCS) said:

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He missed that part where there was the "I saw you had a 10-minute break in your schedule, so I threw some time on the calendar!" - when they damn well know that 10 minute break was for you to hit the head and grab a sandwich in between all the meetings.

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I actually had to ask a director NOT to schedule a recurring meeting during the lunch hour. Some people just have no clue

Aust Ag said:

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I know plenty of people that don't really eat lunch. And don't understand others desire to do so.

Weird

To me, lunch break is also a time to recharge and do something not work related, like read Texags and catch up.

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I go to the gym and run then lift. I get very frustrated when people schedule meetings during that window. If the day is rough and I need the time I put an OOO meeting on the calendar far to reserve the time.

DannyDuberstein said:

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Yeah, one of the directors reporting to me had implemented a Monday meeting with her managers (about 6) . The director goes on maternity leave for 4 months, and as part of picking up her slack, I step in to lead this meeting. After a few weeks of having these things, I realize that it was largely an unproductive roundtable of everything that was wrong with no one bringing solutions (we had an SAP implementation, so problems are plentiful but nome of them were being solved by this dog**** meeting). After about a month, I killed the thing.

Made it clear that when we meet, it needs a specific purpose and be geared to solution. You have a problem, then let's get the right people in the room and solve it vs having a weekly jerkoff session that was not just unproductive, but honestly kind of depressing and not motivating. Let's deal with this stuff vs wasting time.

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Well you have your answer right there. You have a female Director. Females don't like solutions. They like beaching and moaning about problems. If you are married, you would have seen this over and over again. I think they just like the emotional rise and fall they get from the problem at hand and the additional drama it creates. Men prefer to come up with a solution quickly to avoid downstream drama.

Disclaimer: I did have a male boss once who would not let me implement solutions. He loved the rush of always being in crisis and firefighting mode. Maybe that justified his job.

I had a brief glorious period in my corporate life where a manager I worked for put in place a policy that no one was allowed to send a meeting invite without including a summary, a meeting agenda, the objectives for the meeting to accomplish, and any prework required. He also strongly pushed to use the required/optional parts of the invite very intentionally so if you were listed as optional or required it was truly meant. It was great, our meetings were infrequent and very productive when they happened. Then the org got shuffled and I went back to getting 10 hrs of meeting invites a week with no description, no clear objective, and just the most basic of a description. So back to wasting my time. At least now they are all MS Teams meetings so I can just be logged in on one screen while doing real work on the other.

Some unproductive employees use meetings as a ploy to show their worth to the company and increase "visibility". 4 years ago, I was in a very famous machinery company in their tech division. When I joined, I got down to work studying the systems and documents. Bad mistake. I had a friend there who was perfectly suited for companies like that, he did no work, he just made sure he spoke up at least twice in the large meetings so everyone thought he did something. He also scheduled meetings with 20-30 people just to discuss and get ideas and opinions on some bs. Totally a waste of time. But he is doing well and I got fed up and left.

infinity ag said:

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Some unproductive employees use meetings as a ploy to show their worth to the company and increase "visibility". 4 years ago, I was in a very famous machinery company in their tech division. When I joined, I got down to work studying the systems and documents. Bad mistake. I had a friend there who was perfectly suited for companies like that, he did no work, he just made sure he spoke up at least twice in the large meetings so everyone thought he did something. He also scheduled meetings with 20-30 people just to discuss and get ideas and opinions on some bs. Totally a waste of time. But he is doing well and I got fed up and left.

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Further up you go, the less technical documents and systems matter and the more it is about influencing and moving lots of people in one direction… and more responsibility doesn't come with less big meetings.

I manage a decent sized team located around the world. In January my boss told me I needed to come back the next month with some thoughts on who might be able to be my successor so I can move on to something better this year. There's 2 obvious candidates but at the end of the meeting he told me always remember: Everybody who works for you wants your paycheck. Of those probably half are capable of doing your job. Of that half maybe half is ready to do your job and of that you probably get down to 1 or 2 who are doing their jobs at YOUR level. Those 1 or 2 are who we go after because they are the ones who don't just want your paycheck… but they actually are the ones who want your job.

Your friend is doing well because he clearly wanted to be influential rather than only wanting to be paid like one. And if he carried the clout to get 20-30 people in ideas meetings then it probably wasn't bs to a lot of people nor was it actually a waste of time.

I did contract work for idiotic company that eventually filed for bankruptcy.

The mid level folks had fifteen meetings each week. They had ten meetings that were scheduled every week. Then they had 20 other monthly meetings that cycled.

I might tear up to how many I have a week. It's unreal honestly.

ATM9000 said:

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infinity ag said:

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Some unproductive employees use meetings as a ploy to show their worth to the company and increase "visibility". 4 years ago, I was in a very famous machinery company in their tech division. When I joined, I got down to work studying the systems and documents. Bad mistake. I had a friend there who was perfectly suited for companies like that, he did no work, he just made sure he spoke up at least twice in the large meetings so everyone thought he did something. He also scheduled meetings with 20-30 people just to discuss and get ideas and opinions on some bs. Totally a waste of time. But he is doing well and I got fed up and left.

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Further up you go, the less technical documents and systems matter and the more it is about influencing and moving lots of people in one direction… and more responsibility doesn't come with less big meetings.

I manage a decent sized team located around the world. In January my boss told me I needed to come back the next month with some thoughts on who might be able to be my successor so I can move on to something better this year. There's 2 obvious candidates but at the end of the meeting he told me always remember: Everybody who works for you wants your paycheck. Of those probably half are capable of doing your job. Of that half maybe half is ready to do your job and of that you probably get down to 1 or 2 who are doing their jobs at YOUR level. Those 1 or 2 are who we go after because they are the ones who don't just want your paycheck… but they actually are the ones who want your job.

Your friend is doing well because he clearly wanted to be influential rather than only wanting to be paid like one. And if he carried the clout to get 20-30 people in ideas meetings then it probably wasn't bs to a lot of people nor was it actually a waste of time.

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You make a good point but my friend does well because it is his kind of company. He won't survive in a startup or a fast paced place. I disagree that people were sitting in his meeting because they thought it was valuable. They just did not want to be seen as non-team players. No one wants to rock the boat in such companies because they get labeled very quickly.

I just looked at my outlook calendar from last week…35 meetings/calls on my calendar. Many of which were double booked. I probably attended a little over half of them.

infinity ag said:

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ATM9000 said:

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infinity ag said:

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Some unproductive employees use meetings as a ploy to show their worth to the company and increase "visibility". 4 years ago, I was in a very famous machinery company in their tech division. When I joined, I got down to work studying the systems and documents. Bad mistake. I had a friend there who was perfectly suited for companies like that, he did no work, he just made sure he spoke up at least twice in the large meetings so everyone thought he did something. He also scheduled meetings with 20-30 people just to discuss and get ideas and opinions on some bs. Totally a waste of time. But he is doing well and I got fed up and left.

---

Further up you go, the less technical documents and systems matter and the more it is about influencing and moving lots of people in one direction… and more responsibility doesn't come with less big meetings.

I manage a decent sized team located around the world. In January my boss told me I needed to come back the next month with some thoughts on who might be able to be my successor so I can move on to something better this year. There's 2 obvious candidates but at the end of the meeting he told me always remember: Everybody who works for you wants your paycheck. Of those probably half are capable of doing your job. Of that half maybe half is ready to do your job and of that you probably get down to 1 or 2 who are doing their jobs at YOUR level. Those 1 or 2 are who we go after because they are the ones who don't just want your paycheck… but they actually are the ones who want your job.

Your friend is doing well because he clearly wanted to be influential rather than only wanting to be paid like one. And if he carried the clout to get 20-30 people in ideas meetings then it probably wasn't bs to a lot of people nor was it actually a waste of time.

---

You make a good point but my friend does well because it is his kind of company. He won't survive in a startup or a fast paced place. I disagree that people were sitting in his meeting because they thought it was valuable. They just did not want to be seen as non-team players. No one wants to rock the boat in such companies because they get labeled very quickly.

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Even in those kinds of companies… if you call meetings of no value, 20-30 people either don't show up or eventually stop showing up because time is precious. You see evidence of it in this thread in how people pick and choose what they decide is important. I always think it is a massive misconception that the movers and shakers in big corps wouldn't survive in fast paced environments… ultimately, the vast majority of those people are the ones who actually do adapt and roll the best with change.

ATM9000 said:

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infinity ag said:

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ATM9000 said:

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infinity ag said:

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Some unproductive employees use meetings as a ploy to show their worth to the company and increase "visibility". 4 years ago, I was in a very famous machinery company in their tech division. When I joined, I got down to work studying the systems and documents. Bad mistake. I had a friend there who was perfectly suited for companies like that, he did no work, he just made sure he spoke up at least twice in the large meetings so everyone thought he did something. He also scheduled meetings with 20-30 people just to discuss and get ideas and opinions on some bs. Totally a waste of time. But he is doing well and I got fed up and left.

---

Further up you go, the less technical documents and systems matter and the more it is about influencing and moving lots of people in one direction… and more responsibility doesn't come with less big meetings.

I manage a decent sized team located around the world. In January my boss told me I needed to come back the next month with some thoughts on who might be able to be my successor so I can move on to something better this year. There's 2 obvious candidates but at the end of the meeting he told me always remember: Everybody who works for you wants your paycheck. Of those probably half are capable of doing your job. Of that half maybe half is ready to do your job and of that you probably get down to 1 or 2 who are doing their jobs at YOUR level. Those 1 or 2 are who we go after because they are the ones who don't just want your paycheck… but they actually are the ones who want your job.

Your friend is doing well because he clearly wanted to be influential rather than only wanting to be paid like one. And if he carried the clout to get 20-30 people in ideas meetings then it probably wasn't bs to a lot of people nor was it actually a waste of time.

---

You make a good point but my friend does well because it is his kind of company. He won't survive in a startup or a fast paced place. I disagree that people were sitting in his meeting because they thought it was valuable. They just did not want to be seen as non-team players. No one wants to rock the boat in such companies because they get labeled very quickly.

---

Even in those kinds of companies… if you call meetings of no value, 20-30 people either don't show up or eventually stop showing up because time is precious. You see evidence of it in this thread in how people pick and choose what they decide is important. I always think it is a massive misconception that the movers and shakers in big corps wouldn't survive in fast paced environments… ultimately, the vast majority of those people are the ones who actually do adapt and roll the best with change.

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The same behavior will not work he would have to change it and become productive. He actually told me that he spent 6 hours at work socializing and did a few hours work at home in the evening. Maybe that is the way work is done today.I did admire how he managed to fool everyone and make everything think that he was some kind of expert. I will give him credit for that.

does your friend know you secretly despise him?

infinity ag said:

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ATM9000 said:

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infinity ag said:

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ATM9000 said:

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infinity ag said:

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Some unproductive employees use meetings as a ploy to show their worth to the company and increase "visibility". 4 years ago, I was in a very famous machinery company in their tech division. When I joined, I got down to work studying the systems and documents. Bad mistake. I had a friend there who was perfectly suited for companies like that, he did no work, he just made sure he spoke up at least twice in the large meetings so everyone thought he did something. He also scheduled meetings with 20-30 people just to discuss and get ideas and opinions on some bs. Totally a waste of time. But he is doing well and I got fed up and left.

---

Further up you go, the less technical documents and systems matter and the more it is about influencing and moving lots of people in one direction… and more responsibility doesn't come with less big meetings.

I manage a decent sized team located around the world. In January my boss told me I needed to come back the next month with some thoughts on who might be able to be my successor so I can move on to something better this year. There's 2 obvious candidates but at the end of the meeting he told me always remember: Everybody who works for you wants your paycheck. Of those probably half are capable of doing your job. Of that half maybe half is ready to do your job and of that you probably get down to 1 or 2 who are doing their jobs at YOUR level. Those 1 or 2 are who we go after because they are the ones who don't just want your paycheck… but they actually are the ones who want your job.

Your friend is doing well because he clearly wanted to be influential rather than only wanting to be paid like one. And if he carried the clout to get 20-30 people in ideas meetings then it probably wasn't bs to a lot of people nor was it actually a waste of time.

---

You make a good point but my friend does well because it is his kind of company. He won't survive in a startup or a fast paced place. I disagree that people were sitting in his meeting because they thought it was valuable. They just did not want to be seen as non-team players. No one wants to rock the boat in such companies because they get labeled very quickly.

---

Even in those kinds of companies… if you call meetings of no value, 20-30 people either don't show up or eventually stop showing up because time is precious. You see evidence of it in this thread in how people pick and choose what they decide is important. I always think it is a massive misconception that the movers and shakers in big corps wouldn't survive in fast paced environments… ultimately, the vast majority of those people are the ones who actually do adapt and roll the best with change.

---

The same behavior will not work he would have to change it and become productive. He actually told me that he spent 6 hours at work socializing and did a few hours work at home in the evening. Maybe that is the way work is done today.I did admire how he managed to fool everyone and make everything think that he was some kind of expert. I will give him credit for that.

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Nah… he'd be the one lapping up all the equity at the top of a startup.

Know what happens probably more for management at places without established processes, products and limited funding? Loads of socializing, politicking, persuading and gathering consensus to keep the product on the right path and the startup funded. Usually, the people who influence absolutely thrive in startups.

Spaceship said:

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I just looked at my outlook calendar from last week…35 meetings/calls on my calendar. Many of which were double booked. I probably attended a little over half of them.

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Double/triple booked for me and it's 61 this week.

Many people don't feel empowered to make decisions so they forward to their whole teams. Then we have so many meetings, you have to have multiple to get the right people involved.

One thing I'm trying to do with the off shore support is have one meeting Monday to go through approvals, if it isn't ready Monday, you wait. Trying to reduce emails and needs for stupid 30 min meetings.

Definitely one of the most frustrating things in the corporate world.

Yep on your first paragraph. When I was in corporate, on the low end I was doing 40 meetings per week. Average was probably 60 and I was double and triple booked most days. The number was determined by meeting length and made no difference on total time in meetings for day.

So, my career was literally going to meetings. Nonstop meetings from 8:30 to 6, five days per week. Most days I ate lunch in a meeting because we got to point where we just had lunch catered every day.

Only time I wasn't in a meeting was walking to a meeting or taking a piss. I used to joke that I did not know how to use my desk phone because I was never in my office. And that wasn't a joke because I really didn't it.

I also got to the point where we turned my office into the team collaboration office (because I had a whiteboard) and the 1:1 room for rest of my team so if my managers needed to have a 1:1 or rough talk with an employee they did it in my office because I was never there anyway.