Many of us attend meetings. Bad meetings. We all have had toxic, unproductive meetings that interrupted our day.
Toxic meetings are invasive and expensive. There is nothing more frustrating than getting called into a meeting where you have minimal contribution and yet you have to be in there for the whole day. Organisers may feel beneficial from calling a meeting, but in reality, there is only a few of us actually benefited from attending.
Signs of Toxic Meetings
1) Lack of Agenda: If you don’t know what to expect from the meeting, then it’s hard to plan for it. A lack of agenda means that the meeting is open-ended and can go on forever.
2) Too many people: If you have too many people in a room, it’s likely that everyone will be talked over and their voice will not be heard. Including everyone in a meeting does not necessarily mean that they all need to attend or contribute to it at the same time. It is much better to give a quick summary of the meeting to those who didn’t need to be there.
3) Poorly planned times: How do you feel when someone called for a “quick” meeting 15 minutes before the end of the workday?😃
4) No follow-up: The topics that were discussed in a meeting but never brought up again because…
