Nowadays businesses are beset by a meeting mania.
Getting together with colleagues seems to be a contemporary ritual, consuming an enormous part of a working day. Conferences, reviews, and many individual comments litter the daily routine.
It has been estimated that chief executives spend (waste?) one third of their time at meetings.
Regarding meetings in general, it has been said that effectiveness around a conference table will make or break a career. Yet it seems that most really important decisions are made outside of meetings, rather by a select committee of well-regarded colleagues of the corporation’s confidantes.
Are big meetings helpful? More people around a conference table imply that more information is presented, and that in theory should entail better decisions. Maybe.
Some time ago this columnist chaired a meeting of all the heads of departments of the federal government, in effect the Privy Council Office, the apex of the bureaucracy, the office of the prime minister.
Some 25 conferees spent an entire day trying to determine what constitutes poverty. Every suggestion was analyzed in great detail, but no consensus was reached.
Probably it would be better if each individual wrote a brief summary of views to be presented, and a presiding chairperson made a prompt decision of what was feasible. Each panelist should concentrate on one topic. Human nature probably will muzzle many comments, so that if anything goes wrong, blame will fall to others, and meetings, therefore should be brief.
Too, if every conference member submitted a memorandum ahead of time, they could be considered prior to a conference.
It has become clear to everyone that nothing noteworthy should be decided after 5pm. Some then may refrain from any comments in order to go home, and also can avoid any blame if something goes wrong.
In this technological age, meetings could be replaced by teleconferencing, thus saving time and money. Perhaps meeting face to face will expedite proceedings, but that is questionable.
Then too it should be obvious that too many meetings are a waste of time and should not take place.
Probably that explains why nowadays cabinet meetings in government have been largely abandoned.