About three years ago, my father said this to me in an e-mail:
"Meetings are the most useless form of human endeavor (especially large ones). If you want to be absolutely sure that nothing happens, have a big meeting. Occasionally, something good happens at meetings of four or fewer; two is the optimal size."
Even after all this time, the "useless form of human endeavor" phrase comes to the forefront of my mind pretty much every time I have to attend a big meeting. Something about sitting there listening to someone drone on and on brings the word "useless" to mind. The rest just follows.
Meetings are one of the many reasons I don’t miss life in Big Corporate America (BCA). Generally with the type of work I do now, I communicate one-on-one, whether it’s via e-mail, phone, or in person. Even when we work with large companies, we generally have just one point of contact.
In BCA, big meetings are generally required for interdepartmental discussion. Here at LEI, we don’t have many departments. Okay, sometimes the canine division will make a request. ("Hey, take us out for a walk!") Or the programming division will ask for editorial assistance ("Hey, could you read this?") It’s pretty simple. Things get accomplished and life moves forward.
That’s the thing about big company meetings. Often nothing moves forward. You get 5 or 6 people in a room discussing the current, "big problem." Everyone agrees, "wow, it’s a really big problem and we need to do something about it." There is much head nodding. The meeting adjourns with no resolution and the big problem continues to live large out there somewhere. Until the next meeting when it will be brought up again and generate some more head nodding.
Quality of life is a big part of the reason we started our business. Many people seem to think that you aren’t successful if your business isn’t huge. I tend to disagree. Everyone makes choices in life and work every day. So given the choice of sitting in a conference room with a group of head nodders or taking the canine division out for a walk, I choose the latter.