Good Decisions Are Not Made in Meetings.

Step 1: Step Back. In a meeting, there is nowhere to step back. Meetings are the workplace equivalent of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Performance spaces. Most often occupied by one person – the ‘leader’ – reciting a soliloquy. The rest of us sink back into our chairs - assuming we’re not at a Standup - (did Standups survive Covid?) behind our poker faces. There’s nowhere to wallow and scream ‘Why me?!’

Step 2: Define the Issue. It should be in the UN Convention on Human Rights that to call a meeting without defining the issue to attendees beforehand is a Crime Against Humanity. Forget Agendas. They’re overrated. Think about the Widget. What do we need to do to make our Widget? Begin the email with: ‘You are invited to meet to help me to decide whether…’. Sounds clunky? Yes. Three reasons: One, we don’t get invitations like that. Two: meeting convenors are uncomfortable about being open that they are decision makers because people in organisations are not used to being decision makers and to say as such sounds pompous. Three (and most importantly): Meetings are not held to make decisions. They are most often a power flex.

Step 3: Assess the Information. Information can be collected at meetings by the decision maker convenor. It can be assessed through discussion. Combining the two is not ideal. Information is being collected via the attendees and assessment has already begun in everyone’s minds. Usually Jack will say something and Jill will respond, often before Jack has finished. Or at the very least, Jill will be rehearsing her response in her mind, slowly disembowelling Jack’s speech while it’s still alive. Jack will often produce new information (otherwise, why is he here?) that may trigger a response in Jill where she needs to Step 1 – Step Back. She can’t. She needs to perform. She responds with her thinly veiled emotion. The rest of us are being entertained. Or bored.

 Step 4: Check for Bias. Meetings could be like filtration plants where biases, conflicts of interest, prejudices and prejudgements are exposed and named and acknowledged and purged. People have to feel very safe in meetings for this to happen. As meetings are where we get to see each other stride along the catwalk while we size each other up, we’ve all got our best makeup on our serious faces and stomachs pulled in and we’re not going to show our blemishes. Finally, meetings are the breeding places of Groupthink.

Step 5: Give a Hearing. Meetings could be an opportunity for a person likely to be affected by a decision to be heard on why it shouldn’t be made. But this smacks of ganging up. ‘Hey, Fred! What are your thoughts on the office restructure that will result in you losing half your staff?’ Poor Fred just wants to Step Back and do a job search on LinkedIn. He’s in no fit state to contribute to his survival.

A meeting might be part of Step 2 or Step 3.

But only with an exceptional list of attendees should a decision be made in a meeting.