It’s not the agenda, it’s your attitude

When did we decide that meetings were the most wasteful and dreadful use of our time?

At what point in human history did we reach the consensus that gathering with our colleagues was the bane of our existence?

Harvard’s research showed this fascinating historical analysis that meetings have increased in length and frequency over the past fifty years. To the point where executives spend an average of over twenty hours a week in them, up from less than ten hours in the sixties.

Doodle, the meeting scheduling platform, also interviewed more than six thousand customers worldwide and examined nineteen million meetings arranged in one year. The numbers show a third of workers consider unnecessary meetings to be the biggest costs to their companies.

Okay folks, we get it. Meeting hatred is a cathartic pastime that almost everyone can relate to.

I’m not taking that away from anybody.

Now, call me crazy. And call this an unpopular opinion.

But I like meetings. I look forward to them. I find the overall experience to be useful and interesting.

Now, I agree that people having their entire schedules monopolized by back to back conference calls isn’t the best way to get meaningful work done. However, in a world where most people are spending insane amounts of time and energy complaining about their meeting schedules, I’m taking a stand.

People who view meetings as the bane of their existence don’t have a problem with their agenda, they have a problem with their attitude.

Let’s extrapolate.

First of all, meetings are an opportunity to connect.

The best part of a job isn’t the work itself, it’s the people. Employees don’t quit jobs, they quit managers, as the quotation goes. And in my experience, most people can suffer through even the most mundane and overwhelming work experiences if they have colleagues with whom they can bond.

Meetings are where many of those bonds are formed and deepened. Social connectedness, either face to face or virtually, fortifies us. Naturally, group dynamics and social pressure can create tension, but that’s a good thing.

I’ve worked jobs where I had maybe two meetings a month, and they felt isolating as hell. We live in this world where loneliness is the most common ailment in modern culture. Buber called connection the eternal thou, the involuntary nervous system of human beings, the electricity that surges amid physical bodies, the pulsing field of energy and the humming electrical current between people and the mystery of reciprocity and the healing through meeting.

Good luck staying sane without some kind of regular dose of that social medicine.

The second reason I like meetings is, they are an opportunity to learn.

Not that I don’t love reading, writing, watching and listening to media for multiple hours at a time. But our best learnings come from each other. Meetings enable a holistic, intersubjective process that uses our physical, emotional, social and spiritual resources to uncover insight, perspective and inspiration.

Not only do our meetings help us deepen our cognition, but also our compassion. Many of the most meaningful lessons that fundamentally shifted my worldview came from things other people said or did at meetings.

I cherish those moments. The human brain simply doesn’t activate in the same way through an email, instant message or shared document. It’s when we’re interacting live in real time that we tap into this sacred fuel source.

If you aren’t learning from that, you’re not paying attention.

Another key benefit of meetings is the opportunity to practice.

What a priceless venue to improve skills as communicators, creators, leaders and collaborators. Back when I worked as a freelancer, I would only have a few meetings a month. Some of those were for volunteer organizations for whom I served as a board member, others were presentations I was giving to my corporate training clients.

But while the few gatherings I attended were invaluable for my personal and professional development, they weren’t enough. Do you know how hard it is to be a leader when eighty percent of your working hours are spent sitting at a desk putting words on paper?

Honestly, I don’t think my leadership skills truly found their sweet spot until I started working full time at agencies and startups and other companies. Only then did I have multiple daily opportunities to hone my skills in real time.

Without meetings, I wouldn’t be where I am in my career today. I wouldn’t be as confident in my own value, and I wouldn’t have learned how to use it to create value for others.

The final piece about meetings relates to my original thesis.

Before I noted that people who view meetings as the bane of their existence don’t have a problem with their agenda, they have a problem with their attitude.

One reason meetings are so beneficial and positive for me is because I expect them to be. I take responsibility for my own learning. My curiosity and optimism doesn’t allow me to attend meetings without asking questions, taking notes, learning lessons, making connections and stimulating growth.

This is what being prolific is about. It’s an awareness plan. You transform even the smallest events or situations into breakthroughs in thinking and action. You approach life as a project to learn things rather than a quest to fix things. And you squeeze the essence from things, taking out what you need without dwelling on the rest.

That kind of curiosity is a skill. It’s a weapon. It’s the great anesthetic for the mundanity and absurdity that is human existence.

I don’t know about you, but I’m addicted to it, and it has yet to produce negative outcomes in my life. Invite me to any meeting of any department at any organization, and I can guarantee you I will walk away with tons of notes, ideas and perspectives.

Now, part of that is simply how I’m wired. I’m someone who indexes high on openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and empathy. Not everyone is the same, nor do I expect them to be.

But in addition to my natural proclivities, I’ve also worked hard to improve my curiosity. Much of which comes from practice. And while there’s no right or wrong way to be curious, deploying it interpersonally has been transformative for me.

Next time you find yourself complaining about meetings, consider that it might be your attitude as much as your agenda.

Perhaps some reframing of the value of meetings is in order.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have seven back to back conference calls today, and I need to run to the supermarket to buy a box of wine.

What if you spent less time hating meetings and more time being curious?