On a perfect-weather Friday, at 9 in the morning, I joined a Teams call to discuss the week’s updates, the path forward, and reevaluate KPIs and actionable items. Instead, I found out that one supervisor had just had a nephew. Another one showed her new dog, someone else mentioned their upcoming wedding, and another, their vacation.
After 20 minutes of that and other small talks, including that the weather that morning was near-perfect, we spent 3 minutes wrapping up updates and another 2 minutes discussing the work for the upcoming week. A meeting that should have been brief ended up consuming 30 minutes of a beautiful day.
I’m not annoyed that I missed out on the perfect day. I’m salty about the fact none of this counts towards anything. Some organizations like to pass this off as networking or a mixer. Unfortunately, most information that passes in these channels doesn’t present much scope for future discussion.
What would you ask the person who had gone on a vacation? The most you’d say is, “How was your vacation?”, to which they would reply, “It was good” or other monotonous variations of that. Setting aside the overzealous single-minded professionals, most people prefer not to share personal experiences, especially those prioritized over work, at the workplace.
This isn’t paranoia either. Small occasions like this can come back to hit someone just because they prioritized personal life over working like a cog in a machine.
The Social Professional Pacification
Effectively, nothing gets done in meetings unless there’s considerable social bonding. From my research, I call this “The social-professional pacification”. Ted Bauer writes about something similar in an amazing way on how much of knowledge work is meaningless.
People want to establish a sense of camaraderie before they get on with the meeting agenda. The more people relate to each other, the better meetings end up being. While some people hate socializing at workplaces, this effect is why others do it enthusiastically. In fact, those avid people love actively initiating or pursuing such socializing in meetings.
This phenomenon involves fostering a positive mood before discussing potentially contentious professional matters. Even if your work is perfect, establishing personal connections is a great way to make your peers and supervisors see you as a human. This absolves you of any casual human errors but also creates the possibility for future interaction with those stakeholders.
Additionally, considering that socializing may enhance your superiors’ perception of you, it serves as a strategic means for professional advancement. In the end, everyone is looking for a tiny crack to weasel through growth at workplaces. For the highly ambitious, even critical meetings can be leveraged as significant opportunities.
In larger meetings, the social-professional pacification approach can effectively foster group cohesion. This way, when you ask people for help later or request extensions, leaves, or modifications, the chances it would get approved are higher.
It isn’t a cunning strategy either when you think about it. Would you rather ask a friend if you can borrow their pen or a stranger when both of them are standing beside you? The answer wouldn’t change even when you know that both of them have equal chances of helping you, and will do so if their resources allow.
Getting More at Meetings
Complete Minor Updates with Other Stakeholders
Meetings with major updates require considerable time. However, many of those meetings also include side discussions with individuals who you need to get parts of your work done. Completing these updates effectively reduces the overall time dedicated to meetings.
Additionally, that’s also a great time to get small and meaningless talk done with people you’re most likely to interact. This way, the overall meeting gets done with pretty quickly when the small banter is limited.
Take Charge of the Debate
Professionals hate nothing more than being called out for wasting time. If you’re a particularly outgoing person, you can always interject with some aspect of the work. Alternatively, at the first sign of a lull in the discussion, you can pivot it towards reporting and work. This method might not always work, but guarantees results when it does work.
Idle Banter in Bursts
A useful strategy, especially for those leading the meeting, is to segment serious discussions to maintain engagement. This way, your task gets done quickly. You can always claim an excuse and drop off from the meeting if the banter seems to last long.
Obviously, this method won’t work if the meeting is discussing something critical that requires focused attention. Once people get into the groove, you can’t interject with, “Have you folks seen the match yesterday?”. Planning the meeting appropriately is great.
Work
This strategy is more applicable when you are an attendee in a meeting rather than the host. Meetings, especially lengthy ones, often interrupt your workflow, which can be frustrating. Fortunately, in an era where remote working is increasingly prevalent, it’s feasible to balance your participation in a meeting with your ongoing work.
This method involves selectively focusing on the meeting while also continuing to work on your tasks. For example, during portions of the meeting that are not directly relevant to your role, you could switch your attention to your work, while still keeping an ear out for any critical points that may arise in the meeting.
Delegate
When you run the entire meeting, the chances that you’d get caught up in the banter increase. However, when you split it up so that multiple people own parts of the meeting, you can pursue any of the previously mentioned tasks while having completed your share of the meeting.
Idle Banter is Inevitable
It is vital to realize that idle banter during meetings is inevitable. In fact, over 70% of the managers we surveyed said that they just let the meeting take its course. Those managers expressed that it’s often easier to let long meetings run their course rather than trying to steer them towards a specific end. Inevitably, employees can feel forced, pressured, or feel put under undue spotlight.
Staying Focused in the Meeting
Although most approaches mentioned above may not be as feasible during in-person meetings, possible alternatives might include identifying tasks that require less cognitive load and can be handled concurrently while you are following the meeting’s main points.
Always remember, while this strategy can increase your productivity, it should be used carefully to ensure you are not missing out on important information from the meeting. Be sure to stay engaged and contribute meaningfully to the meeting when necessary.
Conclusion
It is nearly impossible to get everyone in the team to do more work in lieu of meetings. Idle banter and conversations are an inalienable part of those meetings. Identifying how to get more work done at meetings is an individual task – one that brings personal progress. Sometimes, it’s best to lean into that and consider these meetings a welcome respite from the tedious work you would need to complete within the deadline. At least this is a valid excuse.