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The Silent Productivity Killer: Why Most Meetings Are Just Expensive Therapy Sessions
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If I had a dollar for every time someone told me they "need to schedule a meeting to discuss the meeting," I'd own half of Collins Street by now. After nearly two decades in corporate Australia—from the mining boom madness to the current remote work chaos—I've witnessed more meeting disasters than a Virgin Blue flight schedule circa 2008.
Here's what nobody wants to admit: 73% of meetings are just adult daycare disguised as productivity.
The Great Australian Meeting Obsession
We've become a nation obsessed with meetings. It's like we collectively decided that talking about work is more important than actually doing it. I remember when BHP was riding high, and we'd have meetings about mining efficiency that lasted longer than an actual mining shift. The irony was lost on everyone except the miners.
But here's where I'll probably ruffle some feathers: most meeting problems aren't about time management or technology—they're about ego management.
Think about it. How many times have you sat through a two-hour "brainstorming session" where Janet from Marketing spent forty-five minutes explaining why her idea for team-building exercises involving trust falls would revolutionise workplace culture? Meanwhile, Dave from IT is quietly fixing the actual problems that could save the company six figures annually.
The real issue? We've confused being busy with being productive.
The Four Horsemen of Meeting Apocalypse
The Agenda Anarchist: Shows up without preparation, treats the meeting like an episode of Q&A, and somehow always steers the conversation towards their pet project from 2019.
The Technology Terrorist: Spends the first fifteen minutes trying to unmute themselves, share their screen, or figure out why their camera is showing them upside down. These are the same people who complain about "digital transformation" but can't work out how to update their Zoom background.
The Rambling Philosopher: Turns every decision into a deep existential discussion about company values. "But what does this say about who we are as an organisation?" It says we need to order more coffee pods, Margaret.
The Meeting Vampire: Sucks the life out of every discussion by insisting we need another meeting to discuss the outcomes of this meeting. They multiply faster than rabbits in spring.
What Actually Works (And Why You'll Hate It)
After years of trial and error—mostly error—I've discovered that effective meetings require one thing most Australian businesses despise: discipline.
Here's my controversial take: the best meetings are the ones that don't happen.
I learned this the hard way during a particularly brutal project in Perth where we were burning through $50,000 monthly on "coordination meetings." The breakthrough came when we started using what I call the "Bus Test": if you wouldn't delay a bus for this conversation, don't call a meeting.
The 15-Minute Rule Most meetings can be solved in fifteen minutes if you follow three simple steps:
- State the problem
- Present the options
- Make the decision
Everything else is just corporate theatre.
The Silent Start This one drives people crazy, but it works. Start every meeting with two minutes of silence where everyone writes down their main point. No talking. No shuffling papers. Just thinking.
Watch what happens. Suddenly, people become concise. The rambling philosophers can't philosophise when they have to distill their thoughts to bullet points.
The Standing Ovation Stand-up meetings aren't just for software developers. When people are standing, they get to the point faster. It's amazing how quickly "strategic alignment discussions" become "let's just fix this and move on" when everyone's calves are burning.
The Psychology Behind the Madness
Here's something that might shock you: most meeting addicts aren't trying to be difficult. They're scared.
Scared of making decisions alone. Scared of being blamed. Scared of missing out on important information. So they gather everyone together, hoping that collective responsibility means individual immunity.
But here's what I've learned from companies like Atlassian and Canva—successful Australian businesses that actually get meetings right: courage beats consensus every time.
Sometimes the best leadership decision is cancelling the meeting altogether. I once saved a Melbourne startup $200,000 annually just by eliminating their weekly "all-hands" meetings and replacing them with a five-minute company-wide email update.
The pushback was immediate. "But how will we maintain company culture?" they asked. Turns out, company culture improved when people had time to actually do their jobs instead of talking about doing their jobs.
The Technology Trap
Let me be blunt about meeting technology: it's making us lazier, not smarter.
Teams, Zoom, Slack—they're tools, not solutions. But we've started treating them like magic productivity wands. "Let's jump on a quick Teams call" has become the new "let's grab a coffee," except coffee meetings sometimes actually solve problems.
The pandemic taught us that remote meetings could work, but it also taught us that remote meetings could multiply like a virus. Suddenly, every conversation needed to be a "quick sync," every decision required a "brief check-in," and every update demanded a "short stand-up."
Here's a radical idea: try the phone. Remember phones? Those devices that let you have real-time conversations without staring at screens or worrying about whether your background is professional enough?
Some of my most productive business discussions happen during phone calls while walking around the block. No screens, no distractions, just two human beings solving problems like we've been doing for thousands of years.
The Meeting Detox Method
If your organisation is addicted to meetings, you need detox. Cold turkey doesn't work—trust me, I've tried. Instead, try the gradual reduction method:
Week 1: Cut all meetings by 15 minutes. Every single one. A 30-minute meeting becomes 25 minutes. A 60-minute meeting becomes 45 minutes. Watch productivity soar.
Week 2: Implement the "Decision Required" rule. Every meeting must end with a specific decision or action item. No decision needed? No meeting required.
Week 3: Introduce meeting-free Fridays. Protect one day per week from all internal meetings. Use it for deep work, client calls, or actual productivity.
Week 4: Audit your recurring meetings. That weekly status update that's been running for eighteen months? Kill it. The monthly strategic planning session where nothing ever gets planned? Eliminate it.
The resistance will be fierce. People will claim you're destroying communication and collaboration. Ignore them. These are the same people who schedule meetings to discuss what to put on the agenda for other meetings.
The Bottom Line
Effective meeting management isn't about finding the perfect technology or crafting the ideal agenda template. It's about respecting people's time and accepting that most problems can be solved without gathering eight people in a room to discuss them.
The uncomfortable truth: if your business can't function without constant meetings, you have deeper organisational problems than time management.
Start small. Cancel one unnecessary meeting this week. Replace one status update meeting with an email. Turn one discussion meeting into a decision meeting.
Your team will thank you. Your productivity will improve. And you might just rediscover what it feels like to actually accomplish something meaningful during work hours.
Because at the end of the day, the best meeting is often the one that never happened.
What's your biggest meeting horror story? I'd love to hear it—but let's discuss it over coffee, not in a conference room.