My Thoughts

The Real Reason Your Meetings Are Terrible

Look, I'm going to tell you something that'll probably ruffle some feathers in your next leadership huddle. After seventeen years of sitting through more corporate meetings than I care to count - from cramped boardrooms in Sydney to those glass-walled monstrosities in Melbourne's CBD - I've come to one inescapable conclusion: 98% of your meetings are absolute disasters, and it's not for the reasons you think.

Everyone blames technology. "The video keeps cutting out." "Someone's microphone is echoing." "We can't see the presentation properly." Complete rubbish.

Others point fingers at preparation. "We need better agendas." "People should read the pre-work." "We need clearer objectives." Getting warmer, but still missing the mark.

The brutal truth? Your meetings are terrible because you've forgotten they're supposed to be conversations between human beings, not performance reviews disguised as collaboration sessions.

The Great Meeting Delusion

Here's where I might lose some of you old-school managers. I actually think shorter meetings are worse than longer ones. Controversial? Absolutely. But hear me out.

The thirty-minute meeting has become the corporate equivalent of fast food - quick, convenient, and completely unsatisfying. You rush through agenda items like you're reading the evening news, tick boxes, assign actions to people who weren't really listening, and call it productivity. Meanwhile, the real issues - the messy, complicated, human stuff that actually drives business results - gets pushed to "offline conversations" that never happen.

I learned this the hard way three years ago when I was consulting for a mid-sized logistics company in Perth. Beautiful office, state-of-the-art meeting rooms, all the bells and whistles. But their weekly operations meetings were soul-crushing affairs that somehow managed to be both rushed and endless at the same time.

The breakthrough came when their operations manager, Sarah, had what she called her "screw it moment." Instead of the usual rapid-fire agenda, she opened one meeting with a simple question: "What's really keeping you awake at night about this business?"

That meeting ran for two hours. Two hours! And it was the most productive conversation that team had ever had.

The Personality Parade Problem

Now, let me address the elephant in the room - and this is where some HR professionals might want to cover their ears. Your meetings aren't failing because of logistics or process. They're failing because you've turned them into personality contests.

We've all seen it. There's always that one person who treats every meeting like their personal TED Talk audition. They've got opinions on everything, statistics for every argument, and somehow manage to make every discussion about their latest project or achievement. You know who I'm talking about.

Then there's the opposite extreme - the silent majority who've basically checked out mentally. They're physically present, occasionally nodding, but mentally composing shopping lists or planning weekend activities. Can you blame them? When was the last time someone actually asked for their input on something that mattered?

But here's the thing that really gets my goat: we've created this culture where the loudest voice wins, and then we wonder why our best ideas come from random hallway conversations or coffee catch-ups.

The Australian Factor

This might sound parochial, but I genuinely believe Australian businesses have a unique opportunity to fix this mess, and it's rooted in something we're actually pretty good at - straight talking.

Think about it. When you're having a beer with your mates after work, do you dance around difficult topics? Do you need three slides and a project timeline to explain what's bothering you? Of course not. You just say it.

Yet somehow, the moment we walk into a meeting room, we transform into these diplomatic, jargon-spouting corporate robots. "I'd like to circle back on that." "Let's take this offline." "We need to socialise this concept." What happened to "I think that's a terrible idea and here's why"?

I've worked with companies across Australia - from mining operations in the Pilbara to tech startups in Melbourne's laneways - and the ones that get meetings right are the ones that maintain that authentic Australian directness inside the boardroom.

The Solution Nobody Wants to Hear

Right, here's where I'm going to suggest something that'll make your efficiency-obsessed CFO break out in hives: you need fewer meetings, but the ones you have need to be longer and messier.

I know, I know. "But Sam, we're already drowning in meetings!" That's exactly my point. You're having too many meetings because you're not having proper meetings.

When you compress real discussions into twenty-minute time slots, nothing gets resolved. Issues get punted to future meetings, which create more meetings, which require follow-up meetings. It's like trying to have a meaningful conversation with someone while they're running for a bus.

The most successful client I've worked with - a family-owned construction business in Brisbane - completely revolutionised their approach. Instead of daily fifteen-minute standups and weekly hour-long progress reviews, they moved to bi-weekly deep dives that could run anywhere from ninety minutes to half a day.

Sounds excessive? Their project delivery times improved by 34%, and staff satisfaction scores went through the roof. Because when you actually resolve issues properly the first time, you don't need seventeen follow-up meetings to address the things you should have discussed originally.

The Meeting Management Training Revolution

Here's something that'll surprise you: the best meeting facilitators I know aren't naturally charismatic people. They're the ones who've learned that their job isn't to be entertaining - it's to create space for other people to think out loud.

This is where proper communication training becomes absolutely crucial. Not the theoretical stuff about "active listening techniques" and "non-verbal communication principles." The practical, hands-on skills that help you navigate the uncomfortable silences and awkward moments where real breakthroughs happen.

I'm talking about learning how to sit with tension instead of immediately trying to resolve it. How to ask follow-up questions that make people think rather than just confirm what they already believe. How to redirect conversations without making people feel shut down.

These aren't innate talents. They're learnable skills. But most organisations treat meeting facilitation like it's something people should just naturally know how to do, like making coffee or sending emails.

The Technology Trap

Oh, and while we're being brutally honest, let's talk about the role technology plays in this disaster. Not the technical glitches - those are just convenient scapegoats. I'm talking about how we've used technology as an excuse to avoid being present.

How many meetings have you been in where someone's clearly checking emails, scrolling through their phone, or multitasking on other projects? We've normalised this behaviour because "everyone's so busy," but what we've really done is trained ourselves to be perpetually distracted.

The irony is that virtual meetings could actually be better than in-person ones for focused discussion, because there are fewer visual distractions and side conversations. But instead, we've turned them into opportunities for even more multitasking.

Some of the best virtual meetings I've been part of have had ground rules that would make traditional managers cringe: cameras must be on, phones in another room, laptops closed unless you're the designated note-taker. Radical concepts, I know.

The Hidden Cost of Bad Meetings

Here's a statistic that should keep every executive awake at night: the average knowledge worker spends 67% of their time in meetings or preparing for meetings. That's not productivity - that's meeting theatre.

But the real cost isn't just time. It's the psychological impact of repeatedly experiencing frustration, boredom, and the sense that your input doesn't matter. When meetings consistently fail to produce meaningful outcomes, people start to disengage from the broader organisation.

I've seen talented people leave good companies because they couldn't stand another meeting where important decisions got deferred, critical issues got glossed over, and everyone pretended everything was fine.

The tragedy is that fixing this isn't particularly complicated. It just requires admitting that most of what we call "meeting best practices" are actually making things worse.

What Actually Works

Alright, enough complaining. Here's what I've seen work consistently across different industries and company sizes:

Start with the assumption that most meetings shouldn't happen. Seriously. Before scheduling anything, ask yourself: "What specific decision needs to be made, or what particular problem needs to be solved?" If you can't answer that clearly, you don't need a meeting.

When you do meet, begin with context, not agenda items. Spend the first ten minutes making sure everyone understands not just what you're discussing, but why it matters and what success looks like.

Create explicit permission for people to disagree. This sounds obvious, but most meetings operate under an unspoken assumption that conflict is bad and consensus is good. The result? Surface-level discussions where real issues never get addressed.

End with commitments, not action items. Action items are things people might do if they remember and have time. Commitments are things people will definitely do by specific dates, with clear accountability.

The Future of Workplace Conversations

Look, I'm not suggesting we throw out all structure and turn every meeting into an unmoderated free-for-all. But we need to recognise that the current approach - treating meetings like manufacturing processes that can be optimised for efficiency - is fundamentally flawed.

The most valuable business conversations are usually the messiest ones. They involve admitting what isn't working, exploring ideas that might be wrong, and having the kind of frank discussions that make everyone slightly uncomfortable.

These conversations can't be scheduled into neat thirty-minute blocks or managed through project management software. They require patience, skill, and the willingness to prioritise understanding over efficiency.

The companies that figure this out first will have an enormous competitive advantage. While everyone else is stuck in meeting hell, they'll be having the kinds of conversations that actually move their business forward.

And honestly? It's not that hard to get started. Pick one regular meeting and completely change the format. Instead of rushing through updates, spend the entire time on one important question. See what happens.

Just don't expect it to be comfortable. The best meetings never are.