Often it’s useful to get yourself very clear about things - both for yourself and for your audience(s). What is it that we’re really saying?

When it comes to meetings, we’re saying the traditional meeting process is broken. We’re not saying meetings are broken - just the process that is mostly used.

Can you use this broken process? Yes - just like you can use any broken tool - you just have to be much more careful (manage its limitations) and you might injure yourself (and others) or produce an inferior result.

When the only tool you’ve ever had or used or seen is broken, you don’t even know it’s broken, it’s just the way it is. It’s what everyone uses - and has been using for the last couple of hundred years if not longer - surely everybody can’t be using a broken process?

Take a look around. Google the exact phrase “meetings are a waste of time”.

How many pages on the web contain that exact phrase?

• 16
• 160
• 1,600
• 16,000

No prizes for guessing 16,000. Google the words “meetings waste time” and you’ll turn up a tad less than 20 million pages. That’s quite a lot of complaining.

But remember, the problem isn’t the meetings - it’s the meeting process.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 7:22 am and is filed under Meetings, WOMBATS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.