18th Nov 2005
Ms. Theologian remarks on the culture of meeting
Dear Ms. Theologian:I have a great job. I swear. Here’s the only problem—we love meetings. We meet in the morning to discuss our goals and then teams meet off and on throughout the day. I rarely have enough actual work time between meetings. What to do?
–Alienated, yet in Community
Dear Alienated–
Ms. Theologian apologizes for the delay in responding. While you were in meetings, she was on vacation. She regrets that you were not on vacation too.
Changing workplace culture is difficult and some workplaces benefit from a great deal of collaborative work. Ms. Theologian thinks that fundamentally an all-meeting all-the-time workplace must be run by fear–fear that if we are left alone to do work, we’ll fail at it. (Ms. Theologian has entertained herself at these meetings by kicking her coworkers during a modified coffee drinking game (Ha! The boss said “synergy” again. Chug!) and making obscene stick figure drawings. Neither of these made her a deeper human being.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ms. Theologian has two ideas for you, Alienated.
1. First, she suggests finding a way to address the underlying fear. Build a product, design a package, solve a problem, do something in off-meeting time to demonstrate to those in power that time outside of meetings is productive. Then do it again. And again. In sort of a public way so that people know that non-meeting time is still productive time.
2. Second, print out your schedule in Outlook (or make a table of your schedule) to demonstrate to your boss how much of your time is spent in meetings. Present some solutions (to meet biweekly for some meetings, to combine other meetings, to opt out of some meetings that require your presence less).
How are these theological solutions? They both address the underlying issue of the workplace, fear, as well as your own spiritual needs for community and independence.
–Ms. Theologian
