Making Meetings Meaningful

Munich (GER), February 2018 - There can be few people – except, perhaps the genuinely work-shy – who delight in attending meetings and would choose to be in one rather than being allowed to do anything else, including getting on with their work. Yet meetings continue to litter our diaries. So, who wants them? Do we secretly like them more than we’d be prepared to acknowledge publicly? Importantly, how could they be improved?

Maybe meetings aren’t all bad. Maybe we, instinctively, recognise them as necessary – but also acknowledge that we’ve experienced some meetings we’d prefer not to have experienced.

According to David Bolchover, an award-winning business journalist and author of three books on management and the workplace, statistics on the frequency and usefulness of workplace meetings are almost always published by companies selling virtual conference technology.

As such, he says, their surveys can’t be treated as objective. After all, they have an interest in showing that physical meetings are a waste of time – and, of course, that’s always their conclusion.

Writing for Financial Times | IE Business School Corporate Learning Alliance, Bolchover adds that, while meetings aren’t popular in the world of work, neither are virtual meetings. So, the application of technology brings no benefit to meetings.