"I can't, I have a meeting." In 2020, employees, especially managers, spend an abysmal amount of time in meetings. According to more or less reliable scientific studies, the time spent gathering certain profiles can reach several decades over an entire career. Each meeting space has its meeting professionals. Take the time to try to estimate the number of meetings that take place in your mailbox every day. Except if you are in a large group: exercise could cause you to pass out! And of these hundreds of thousands of meetings, how many, exactly, are they of real use? Are meaningful and useful decisions made at each meeting? How many of them aim only to reassure its organizers and its participants, by creating an illusion of exchanges, discussions, and work? In the vast majority of cases, one meeting is really only used to plan the next!
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It would be foolish to proclaim that the meeting is useless and that it must be removed from the companies! Yes, there are dynamic, useful meetings, with the right people around the table, which do not last forever, and from which you come out stimulated. On the other hand, the “competition” side that prevails in companies also exists. And this absurd feeling that the more you participate in meetings, the more important you are! According to an intuitive Franco-French study based on "humans" and carried out by me with friends, professional relationships, and your own testimonials by email, there is still, within organizations, this tendency to think that "The people who count" are also those who participate in thirteen meetings a day ... In an ideal world, we should stop considering that going to a meeting is a job.
This is true, to a certain extent: members of top management participate in meetings insofar as they are decision-makers. Their presence makes sense because they are directly concerned with strategic choices. On the other hand, it would be fashionable if the "Gentlemen and Madam Reunion" who are only present to show themselves - without really knowing why - and who never intervene reflect on more useful and fulfilling activities. The number of people present at a meeting would thus be reduced like a panic. And perhaps, by “corporate” leverage, the number of meetings would drop to keep only the most useful ...
For the benefit of this column, do not hesitate to share your own experience of important people at: qperinel@lefigaro.fr.