Read This Before Our Next Meeting

by Al Pittampalli

called because it's difficult to capture everything we want to say effectively in writing, quickly. These meetings rarely add any more value than a memo would have. In fact, they're worse because in addition to wasting time, they rely on nonverbal communication that's hard to refer to later on.

Formality meetings: Meetings called by managers who think it's their job to hold them. It doesn't matter whether these meetings are designed to give off the appearance of control and productivity, or whether they're a way for managers to subtly exert their status; in either case, these meetings are wasteful. Even if having convening members get together to share advice or status reports results in some incremental benefit, it pales in comparison to the cost of the interruption.