By: Jim Taylor

Another @#$%^&* meeting!


I have never liked meetings.

        During my working days, I considered most meetings a waste of time. As a writer, I always had deadlines to meet. Probably everyone else also had tasks to do – but no one would ever know that, because everyone was so conscientious about demonstrating their single-minded commitment to the agenda of the meeting that they never mentioned anything personal that might be distracting them.

        So instead we sat for hours haggling over whether a series of recommendations should be punctuated by commas or semi-colons.

        I still get frustrated when discussion goes around and around the mulberry bush. Everyone has something to say. The issue gets poked and prodded from every possible angle—except the one held by those who are not represented at the meeting, of course. Then at the end, despite an hour or more of debate, the vote is predictable, often unanimous.

        So if we all agreed about this issue already, why did it take so long to labour to a decision?

        When the meeting ends, too often, nothing much happens until the next meeting, when once again the monkey and the weasel chase each other until they all fall down (mixing my nursery rhymes a little).



Another purpose

  If meetings are a means of getting things done, they’re dreadfully inefficient.

        But maybe that’s not their only purpose.

        Some meetings may be, in fact, their own purpose, their own raison d’etre.

        Meetings, I’m beginning to recognize, are also a means of building a community. When a community shares a vision, members will do things on their own, between meetings, because they want to.

        If they don’t want to, the meeting has failed to build a community. Or perhaps it has succeeded only in building a dysfunctional community.

        Meetings are a primitive form of adult education. They’re an exercise in travelling together. The tortoises keep the hares from sprinting too far ahead; the hares keep the tortoises from fossilizing.

        Organizations that don’t have regular meetings demonstrate the alternative. Individuals ride their own hobby horses; personal whims turn into corporate policy. Some members seize power; others shun it. Goals fragment, quarrels foment.

        Some of these organizations do achieve a lot. But one person’s vision drives them, not a collective vision. When that person moves on, the organization flounders.



Why are we meeting?

So the question needs to be asked: “What’s the purpose of this meeting?”

        A management committee that meets behind closed doors may be efficient, but risks becoming an isolated elite. A wider forum (in my church, a presbytery meeting) may involve more people, but bog down in discussions of details, leading to mass frustration.

        For efficiency in decision making, I suggest, you want the smallest feasible group – and ruthless delegation of responsibility between meetings.

        For building a community vision, you need the biggest feasible group, involving a maximum number of people.

        Confusing the purposes of those two kinds of meetings leads to frustration, bickering, even rebellion.

        So tell me again – why are we holding this meeting?

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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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