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Scheduling A Meeting When You Have Nothing To Say

The desire to set a cadence means, I fear, that people frequently set meetings for no reason at all.

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“First there was his self-pity — everything was someone else’s fault — and then there was his self-will — no one must oppose him on anything at any time ever.”

I just finished reading Antonia Fraser’s 1994 book, The Wives of Henry VIII, and I found that description of King Henry VIII — he of the six wives, two beheaded, and the English Reformation) on page 336. I just had to share it with you.

But that’s an aside showing how our zeitgeist infects even my recreational reading. (It may also show more than you care to know about my idea of recreational reading, but I suppose that’s another story, too.)

The substance of this post is about the cadence of meetings.

Cadence is a communications concept. If a group is working on a project, the group should meet frequently to make sure the group maintains its momentum. If a group does general oversight — the board of directors — then the group should meet less frequently.

The desire to set a cadence means, I fear, that people frequently set meetings for no reason at all.

“The appropriate cadence for this team to meet is once per month. That’s about enough for the nature of the work that the group performs.”

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What happens?

“Oh, my God! The next meeting in the cycle is set for this Wednesday! We had forgotten about that. We don’t have an agenda. Can anybody gin up a few speakers to talk about something that’s arguably relevant to the group so that we fill the time?”

That conversation is routine. You hear it before many, many meetings.  And it’s an admission of defeat: “We don’t really have anything to talk about, but we have to gin up irrelevant crap to fill the time.”

At the end of the meeting, of course, everyone will praise the meeting: “Great meeting! Good speakers! Glad we did it!” Praising the meeting is no skin off the attendees’ teeth, and it’s better for your career to praise meetings than to criticize them (or to say that the meetings were entirely unnecessary). But don’t ignore the truth, despite what people say: People (or at least the people you’d like to retain) couldn’t have helped noticing that there was no reason at all to hold the meeting, no one learned anything of importance, and everyone just lost an hour out of their day.

I’m not opposed to all meetings.

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Sometimes you meet because a project demands that people discuss what’s happening. That’s an extraordinarily good reason for a meeting.

I don’t mind quarterly oversight meetings. If all the group is doing is oversight, then surely some things that require oversight have occurred in the prior three months.

Sometimes scheduling meetings regularly serves a purpose, even when the participants really have nothing to discuss: “We have 1,000 illegal contracts!  We’d better get them corrected pronto. We must assign someone to be responsible for this task, and we must then schedule weekly meetings between (1) the person responsible for the task and (2) a very important person in the firm, at which we’ll discuss the progress being made on the task.” Those meetings serve a purpose: The person doing the task understands that he’s under the gun and, more importantly, he understands that God is watching him. “God is watching” meetings serve a purpose, even if the job could be accomplished without them.

In a world when we’re allowed to meet in person, meetings can improve collegiality, even if the agenda is light.

But please consider canceling meetings when you realize that you have a meeting scheduled for next week and nothing to communicate. Canceling the meeting is an entirely legitimate alternative to burdening your audience with drivel because you have nothing to say.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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