Working With Fools

A Brief Post On Straff Meetings

Just came back from my nightly walk with my dog, a time when a I do a lot of thinking about many things.  It's a Friday night and I took the day off to do some inside painting in the house but, for some odd reason, the subject of staff meetings crossed my mind.  I guess it's because my boss, Ms. gruff had one this week.
They're scheduled to occur every other Wednesday morning, however, nine times out of ten Gruff cancels the afternoon before or the morning of the meeting.

The point on staff meetings I was thinking about tonight while walking the dog is that, out of the roughly few hundred staff meetings I've attended over the course of my illustrious 27 year career, I think probably 10% were worthwhile.  This begs the question, "Why do bosses have staff meetings then?"  I can think of two possible explanations:  a) bosses are supposed to have staff meetings, it's become part of what bosses are supposed to do, and b) bosses have staff meetings to remind their underlings who's in charge.

I have to wonder how many man and woman-hours are wasted each and every year on staff meetings!

All Hands On Deck!

Happy February 1st!

Yesterday, the Director's whom organization I work in had one of his bi-annual "all-hands" meetings; basically an event that all 130 people in his Customer Solutions are required to attend.  They tend to be off-site meetings; yesterday's taking place in a hotel conference hall.

Based on experiences from recent past all-hands meetings, I dreaded going to this one.  I went in with very low expectations, which I think is a big part of the reason why I can today say that the meeting wasn't too painful.  For the most part, it was actually a fairly good meeting.

So, I see this as an opportunity to express a few my thoughts on what makes an all-hands meeting "good" or "bad" based on my experiences from meetings which fit both categories.

The primary attribute of yesterday's "good" meeting was that it had a high meat/fluff ratio.  What I mean by that is the content of information shared at the event was, for the most part, useful and of interest to me and the rest of the underling schmucks in the audience.  Useful information is "meaty".  The meeting yesterday had an agenda of several speakers who shared information on the company and industry people are generally interested in.  The only criticism I have in this area is that the various speakers' talks contained some overalap in what they said, which is an indication there was not enough planning and coordination beforehand.

Fluff is more commononly known as useless information and/or bullshit (BS).  Most all-hands meetings I've attended have alot of BS, such as when the organization's Big Kahuna gets up his soap box and does a "yeah ra-ra / go team" speech.  Another example of fluff or BS can be silly team building games or similar dumb crap.  Yesterday's all-hands event was the first one this particular director conducted which did not include games or group skits.