Too many meetings
March 15, 2005I came across a funny definition today that seemed so appropos — a committee is a group that keeps minutes but wastes hours. I know the communication that happens in a meeting is important but I have to wonder if there aren’t more efficient ways to do it. Especially in this modern age.
Do we really need so many committees and working groups and cross-functional-whatevers in order to get work done? I just seem to burn up a lot of time in a meeting where I really only needed the 2 minute snippet from person X but now I have to listen thru presentations by persons A thru W.
It made me think of that Wisdom of Crowds book. How a crowd where each person has imperfect knowledge can still arrive at the best solution. There’s got to be some way to make this work so to reduce the required meetings–some way I can still operate effectively even without the total knowledge you get by sitting thru the whole meeting.
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