Meetings

Ben Hiant, Ardnamurchan

I have a near-pathological hatred for meetings. After 30+ years of wall-to-wall meetings at work, 5 or more days per week, often more than 10 per day, I simply had enough. Enough of grandstanding, of pretending to be interested, of pretending to be able to process all the information, of pretending to have all the answers at my fingertips, and of pretending to be effortlessly comfortable in other people’s company. Sure, there’s a leadership angle, but why does it always have to be meetings? Can’t people absorb information in writing any more? Can’t we just have a walk and a chat? Perhaps a little Management By Walking About (MBWA)? Meetings always felt like dead, wasted time, eating into the few precious hours I had late in the day to actually do some work.

The most liberating comment I ever heard during a meeting was from a marketing exec in our the US office, who simply said “I don’t have an opinion on that”, and that for me marked a turning point. I always have opinions, but like dreams, I’m not sure that people are genuinely interested in them. If I’m being brutally honest, I’m not always interested in theirs. I’d rather hear the perspective of a true expert, or a child, or a grandma, a farmer from a different culture perhaps, or a housewife from a different country. I don’t want to be in an echo chamber of similarly-minded, similarly stressed individuals, who just want their slice of validation and for it all to end peacefully. No matter how creative you get with your post-it notes, your slideshows, your story telling, your metaphors; I’m still stuck in a room with you, having a meeting, when we could be doing better things elsewhere.

Attending meetings has therefore become something of red line for me in my semi-retirement. Getting stuff done should be enjoyable. If it’s not, I ain’t doing it. I’ll also choose when and where to do it. I’ve always worked weird hours. I often process, and am at my most creative in the wee small hours, not while I’m staring at a face across a desk or on a screen. Please don’t confuse this with team-working; some of the most effective teams I’ve worked with have been remote, straddling multiple time-zones, and working their way diligently towards a common goal.

So if you want to talk with me (not to, or at me), let’s chat while we’re digging a hole or something. If we’re discussing ideas or maybe just bitching about someone, let’s do it while we have a paddle on the loch, a pint in the pub, or a cycle in the hills. If it’s something more complex that demands thoughtful consideration, have the decency to send me a mail and give me the time to form an opinion, if indeed I have one. And please don’t phone me to say that you’ve just sent me a mail and want to talk about it over the phone. That’s just a meeting, and I don’t do those any more.