Why Do Meetings Suck?

During my undergrad, I’ve gone to a lot of club meetings and executive board meetings. I’ve led a few myself. And meetings suck. Some meetings sucked more than others. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had a good meeting, but they aren’t as frequent as they should be.

So, why do meetings suck?

I started doing reflection and note-taking on meetings I’ve gone to. And I realized that most meetings are a list of announcements. Sometimes it’s one person announcing a long list of news and updates. Other times, it’s a mix of officer reports and other random announcements. Regardless, when you spend half an hour (or an hour) updating people on what’s going on, then of course they’re going to be bored. Most of this information could be condensed to the essentials and take up less time. Most of this information should be sent in an e-mail.

The counterpoint is that the reason you (the meeting leader) need to spend precious time updating members is because they don’t read your e-mails. Before you place the blame on your members for not reading your e-mails, maybe your e-mails suck! Also, consider that your members have an inbox full of (important and unimportant) information, so if your e-mail doesn’t stand out (i.e., if you have a boring subject line and boring content), then why would they open and read your e-mail?

Back to meetings. Other than announcements, meetings are loaded with action items. Signing up to table. Signing up for events and conference trips. Signing up to bring food and drinks. Which also sucks, because you are volunteering your time and money, without sufficient time to think about your decision. Every time a signup sheet goes around, it demands instant action often based on incomplete information. Especially when vital information is announced in a long string of announcements and updates. It doesn’t stand out in the flood of information that we encounter everyday.

So what do you do if your meeting sucks?

Be realistic

When you only have one hour a week to meet with the members of your organization, this time should be used productively. If your agenda is full of announcements and action items, then you can’t expect to do everything on your agenda without sacrificing quality and engagement. So, keep your agenda short and make sure your meetings and discussions remain focused and engaging.

Have an achievable goal for each of your meetings

Every meeting, you should bring people together for a reason. If you don’t have any reason to meet and it’s based solely on the tradition of regular meetings, then you won’t have a good meeting. So, be sure to have regular meeting goals that you can achieve with the participation of your members.

Always be open to change

Making change doesn’t happen after one meeting (or two meetings). To
maintain a culture of productivity, you need to make time to refine and polish your meetings. So, be sure to be open to different ways to run a meeting and experiment with ways to make your time (and your members’ time) more productive.

Now, go forth and make your meetings not suck.