Thursday, July 11, 2019

Breaking News: Meetings Make Us Miserable



In recent headlines, a large global tech company used data analytics to discover that people who get pulled into too many crowded meetings are miserable at work. 

My reaction to this can be summed up in a single word:

Duh!

I mean, the only surprising thing about this discovery is that it required analytics to figure it out.  Am I right?

Seriously, if there’s a bigger bummer than sitting in crowded meetings for 50-75% of your work week, it’s working for people who can’t figure that out for themselves without technology.

On the other hand, at least they took the problem seriously.  Too many companies either ignore the problem or fix the wrong thing.

They also used real data to correlate people's feelings (biased) with what was actually hapening in the business (unbiased), thus avoiding the tricky problem of getting people to tell the truth.  

Let's face it, even assuming there would be no repercussions for saying, 'You morons call way too many meetings!' people don't always know why they're miserable and can be quite expert at misdiagnosing their feelings.

So, I guess it’s a win, but I can't help thinking...

WHY DO PEOPLE NEED ANALYTICS TO TELL THEM STUFF LIKE THAT???

If you'd like to read more about why meetings are expensive and make people unahppy, check out htis article: Collaboration: $199/lb

And if you're interested in how to run happier and more collaborative meetings, read Games People Play: A Guide to Gamification for HR.

3 comments:

  1. Hi there! Do you use Twitter? I'd like to follow you if that would be okay.
    I'm definitely enjoying your blog and look forward to new updates.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Touche. Sound arguments. Keep up the great work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Its like you learn my thoughts! You appear to understand a lot about
    this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
    I believe that you simply could do with a few percent
    to drive the message house a bit, but instead of that, that is wonderful blog.
    A great read. I will definitely be back.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...