Why Your Meetings Suck. And How to Fix Them.
5 Common Problems with 5 Simple Solutions.
“One either meets or one works,” wrote Peter Drucker. “One cannot do both at the same time.” And yet we continue to fill our days at work with meetings, leaving people less time to actually do the work they’re paid to do.
Meetings have become that aspect of work we all complain about, yet no one ever does anything to fix. Partly because we tend to think that our meetings aren’t the problem. It’s all those other people.
Our meetings are useful and effective. That’s obvious. It’s just the ones that everyone else runs that suck.
Except everyone else seems to feel the same way about their own meetings. Like those 98% of college professors who feel they’re better than average, it seems that meetings provide yet another example of the Dunning-Kruger effect at work.
The Dunning-Kruger effect explains our tendency to be overconfident in our skills, especially in situations where we have limited abilities. When we struggle in an area, we can’t accurately assess our own capabilities. So our inexperience casts an illusion of expertise.
It’s easy to see how this becomes a vicious circle. Our meetings are ineffective, but we don’t recognize it. So we don’t solicit feedback or look to make improvements. And we…
