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The Real Reason Your Meetings Are Terrible (And It's Not What You Think)

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I was sitting in yet another "quick sync" that had stretched into its second hour when Sarah from accounting started explaining her weekend pottery class adventures. That's when it hit me like a brick through a window: we've been diagnosing meeting problems completely wrong for decades.

Everyone blames technology. Everyone blames personalities. Everyone blames "meeting fatigue" or poor agendas or that one person who always derails everything. But after 18 years of running teams across Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, I've figured out the real culprit.

Your meetings are terrible because you're treating symptoms, not the disease.

The Meeting Autopsy Nobody Wants to Perform

Here's what actually happens in most Australian workplaces. Someone schedules a meeting. People show up (physically or digitally). Words get exchanged. Everyone leaves feeling like they've accomplished something. Nothing actually changes.

Sound familiar?

The problem isn't that meetings are inherently broken. The problem is that 73% of meetings are scheduled to avoid having difficult conversations, not to facilitate them. We've turned meetings into elaborate procrastination rituals.

Think about your last five meetings. How many were called because someone didn't want to make a decision on their own? How many were insurance policies against future blame? "Well, we discussed it in the meeting..." becomes the corporate equivalent of "I'm just saying."

This is where most workplace training gets it backwards. They teach you how to run better meetings. How to write clearer agendas. How to manage time more effectively. All useful skills, sure, but you're essentially learning to polish a turd.

The Three Types of Meeting Cancer

Let me break down the three meeting cancers I see metastasising through Australian businesses:

Type 1: The Accountability Avoidance Meeting These are meetings where decisions that should've been made by one person get distributed across a group. Classic symptoms include phrases like "I think we should all weigh in on this" and "Let's get everyone's thoughts." Nine times out of ten, the meeting organiser already knows what needs to happen but wants to spread the responsibility around like butter on toast.

Type 2: The Status Theatre Meeting Everyone sits around reporting what they did this week. Nobody listens because they're mentally rehearsing their own update. Zero actual coordination happens. These meetings exist purely so managers can feel like they're "staying across things." I've seen companies spend thousands on emotional intelligence training when the real issue is that half their meetings are just elaborate check-ins that could've been handled in Slack.

Type 3: The Decision Simulation Meeting This is where groups gather to create the appearance of collaborative decision-making while one person (usually the highest-paid person) has already decided the outcome. Everyone goes through the motions of discussion, but the fix is in. It's corporate theatre at its finest.

The worst part? Most people can sense these dynamics but feel powerless to call them out. So they sit there, checking emails under the table, slowly losing the will to live.

Why Australian Business Culture Makes This Worse

We've got this particularly Australian thing where we're conflict-avoidant but also suspicious of authority. It's a deadly combination for meeting effectiveness.

In my experience working with teams from Darwin to Hobart, I've noticed we're brilliant at having robust debates over beers after work, but put us in a conference room and suddenly everyone's walking on eggshells. We'll spend 45 minutes dancing around an issue that could be resolved in five minutes of honest conversation.

Then there's our obsession with "consensus." Don't get me wrong, collaboration is important. But somewhere along the line, we've confused collaboration with universal agreement. I've watched talented teams paralysed because they thought everyone needed to be happy with every decision.

Here's an uncomfortable truth: good decisions often make some people unhappy in the short term. If every meeting ends with everyone feeling warm and fuzzy, you're probably not making hard choices.

The Meeting Test That Will Change Everything

Want to know if your next meeting is worth having? Apply the "Would I Pay For This?" test.

If you had to personally pay $50 for every person in the room for every hour they're there, would you still call the meeting? If you're bringing eight people together for an hour, that's $400 of imaginary money. What outcome would justify that expense?

This simple thought experiment has revolutionised how my clients approach meetings. Suddenly, those "quick touches base" with twelve people start looking pretty expensive.

The other test I love is the "Emergency Rule." If your building was on fire and you only had five minutes to get the same outcome, what would you do? Usually, it involves one person making a decision and telling everyone else what's happening. Funny how emergencies clarify priorities.

What Actually Works (The Stuff They Don't Teach You)

After years of experimenting with different approaches, here's what I've found actually moves the needle:

Kill the weekly standing meeting. Just delete it. If something important comes up, people will find a way to communicate. Amazing how many "urgent" items sort themselves out when you remove the artificial deadline of the weekly catch-up.

Implement the "Two Pizza Rule" ruthlessly. If you can't feed everyone in the meeting with two pizzas, you've got too many people. This isn't just about efficiency—it's about accountability. With twelve people in a room, nobody feels responsible for outcomes. With four people, everyone does.

Start meetings at weird times. 2:17 PM. 10:23 AM. When people have to actively choose to attend rather than just accepting the default calendar invite, you get much more engaged participants.

Ban status updates from group meetings. If the primary purpose is information sharing, use email or a shared document. Meetings should be for decisions, problem-solving, or genuine collaboration. Not performance art.

The time management training industry has spent decades teaching people how to be more efficient in meetings. But efficiency isn't the problem. Purpose is the problem.

The Conversation Nobody Wants to Have

Here's what most productivity experts won't tell you: fixing your meeting culture requires admitting that a lot of your current meetings exist to make people feel important rather than to get things done.

That weekly executive briefing where the CEO nods knowingly while department heads present slides? It's often just an elaborate status symbol. The all-hands meeting where the same information gets repeated to increasingly junior audiences? It's usually about creating the appearance of transparency rather than actual communication.

I learned this the hard way during my time with a mining company in WA. We were spending 40% of our time in meetings and wondering why projects kept getting delayed. Turns out, we were using meetings as a substitute for clear decision-making processes.

The breakthrough came when we implemented a simple rule: every meeting had to have a clearly identified decision-maker, and that person's decision was final. Suddenly, meetings became much shorter and infinitely more productive.

The Plot Twist

But here's where it gets interesting. The companies that have eliminated meeting waste don't necessarily have fewer meetings. They have different meetings.

Instead of broad, unfocused discussions, they have targeted problem-solving sessions. Instead of status updates, they have strategic planning workshops. Instead of information dumps, they have genuine brainstorming.

The difference is intention. Every gathering has a specific purpose that couldn't be achieved any other way.

I've watched teams transform their entire culture by simply getting ruthless about meeting quality. When people experience what a truly productive meeting feels like, they become allergic to the time-wasting variety.

The Implementation Reality Check

None of this is particularly complicated to understand. The challenge is implementation, especially in established organisations where bad meeting habits are entrenched.

You can't just announce that meetings are now going to be different. Culture change requires patience, persistence, and often a few strategic casualties along the way. Some people have built their entire professional identity around running meetings that could've been emails.

But the payoff is enormous. Companies that crack this nut don't just improve productivity—they improve morale, decision-making speed, and ultimately, results.

Start small. Pick one recurring meeting and apply these principles. Measure the difference. Then expand from there.

Your future self will thank you for every pointless meeting you eliminate today.

The most successful leaders I know aren't the ones who run the most meetings. They're the ones who know when not to call them.