Too Many Meetings Is Not Your Problem

Recently Shopify decided to kill all its meetings, and somehow it was <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/01/03/shopify-cutting-meetings-worker-productivity/amp/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">newsworthy</a>. I’ve personally been a part of multiple efforts to combat meetings. A few years back Airbnb declared a “calendar amnesty.” With new guidance, everyone’s calendars were summarily wiped clean. It was well intentioned, and it was beautiful — for a hot minute. But in the least surprising plot twist since <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">The Sixth Sense</a>, it did not work. At all. Administrative assistants prepared for the calmaggedon, poised at 12:01am to reschedule all their meetings. No one’s calendar was empty for long, and after a short respite everyone was back in meeting hell. We haven’t seen an update on how things are going for Shopify, and I wish them luck! But I’m not optimistic. They, along with so many other companies out there, have clearly not yet realized the fundamental truth about meetings: <blockquote> Meetings are a symptom, not the disease. </blockquote> <h1>Why we meet</h1> Why do we meet? Seems like an obvious question but it’s worth asking. I would say that we meet to get work done. It doesn’t always (usually?) turn out that way, but the ostensible purpose of meetings is to advance a goal. To do work. To share information. To make decisions or at least make progress in a way that wouldn’t be possible without a synchronous conversation. <a href="https://medium.com/onebigthought/too-many-meetings-is-not-your-problem-7eafa7ae477c">Read More</a>