New boss absolutely loves team meetings. Minimum 2 hours length.

LegacyUser · 24-09-2015 06:36PM #1

As the title says, we have a new manager and he really loves to drag out team meetings. If a one hour meeting is scheduled, he will keep talking for two hours.

This week a 1.5 hour meeting was scheduled, which went on for 2.5 hours. He talked non stop for one hour straight, I couldn't believe it. Meanwhile my work was sitting on my desk collecting dust. I know he is my boss and he can drag me to whatever meeting he wants, but he is not respecting my time.

I am having a hard time concentrating during these meetings and feel very drained after them. Perhaps it will take some getting used to.

They are not interactive meetings, not for me at least, as they mostly concern other colleagues and areas of the business unrelated to my position. (I have a very autonomous position, the only person in my "team".) While I would like to contribute and interact, the topics are not my area of expertise therefore I usually don't have anything of value to add. However I am asked to attend the meetings anyway. I get back to my desk, drained from the boredom, at 4.30pm, with 30 minutes to pick up what I was doing. And I end up not doing it. It's like putting a spanner in the works.

While it's not a massive problem, I'm just wondering if anybody has any tips on how to deal with regular and extremely boring meetings.

I am thinking of asking my manager if I can attend every second meeting. Even my colleagues are puzzled as to why I need to attend.

Thanks!

Nody · 25-09-2015 10:30AM

Ask for the agenda before hand and the assigned time slots for each topic then offer to take the meeting notes and enforce the assigned time for each topic. When your manager will start to protest when you interrupt him you simply point out this were the agreed time slot to ensure the meeting is completed on time.

seamus · 25-09-2015 11:08AM

Good suggestion there by Nody. This is something you might just have to grab by the horns OP. My last boss self-admittedly had the same problem, absolute motor mouth. And we also had a team member the same, so meetings practically always ran over.

In the end we decided as a group that we would set an agenda and assign a meeting co-ordinator every week, who was not the boss. This person owned the agenda*, took (and sent out) the minutes and most crucially was the guy who said, "Paul, shut up, we need to move onto the next thing".

What this did show was the amount of time spent on largely irrelevant stuff. When you've gotten through the main points of the agenda in 30 minutes and someone is sh1teing on for 15 minutes when you're onto the "AOB", it becomes clear to everyone (including the sh1te talker) that this is not productive time. And they learn to pull it back.

We already had a rota set up for on-call, so we set it up that the on-call person was the team meeting co-ordinator each week.

But you need to suggest this by way of telling your boss that team meetings are going on too long and interrupting your work. When you come to him with a problem like this (especially one of his own making), you need to have a solution ready to propose.

Maybe also suggest to him that meetings should be moved to the start of the day, so that once it's done, you have the day ahead of you. Go take a crap, get a coffee, and you'll be good to go.
Having a meeting just after lunch means everyone is half asleep, motivation levels collapse, and as you've found, it means nobody gets any work done after. I wouldn't suggest moving the meeting to the end of the day. Sh1te talkers will still talk sh1te even when the work day ended 20 minutes ago.

*Owning the agenda means that you control what's on it. People have to go through you to get stuff added to the agenda, and if they want to discuss something not on the agenda, they have to wait till the very end of the meeting.

LegacyUser · 25-09-2015 08:17PM

Been there. 2.5 hour meetings where I wouldn't open my mouth once. I tried a number of varying methods, with varying success....

Ask can you come in only for the agenda items that are relevant to you because you have something very important that needs doing.Or ask could your items be discussed first so then you could leave.

See can the meetings be scheduled right before lunch. People get hungry, their patience for rubbish talking gets less and less.

Turn the air con in the room down so it's quite cool....again, shortens people's tolerance for sitting around (that's a bit of a last resort)

Suggest team members take turns chairing the meeting. The chair moves the meeting on, and has complete control over it.

Try and insert the phrase "we can discuss that outside this meeting" or "that's a conversation for another forum/day" where possible.

Failing all that, start practising your doodles.Nothing worse than timewasters.

bonyn · 26-09-2015 03:57AM

I was in a similar position with my idiot boss and her hour long meetings of a rag tag team of 20. I stopped going.

moneymad · 02-10-2015 11:30PM

fallingasleep wrote: »

As the title says, we have a new manager and he really loves to drag out team meetings. If a one hour meeting is scheduled, he will keep talking for two hours.

This week a 1.5 hour meeting was scheduled, which went on for 2.5 hours. He talked non stop for one hour straight, I couldn't believe it. Meanwhile my work was sitting on my desk collecting dust. I know he is my boss and he can drag me to whatever meeting he wants, but he is not respecting my time.

I am having a hard time concentrating during these meetings and feel very drained after them. Perhaps it will take some getting used to.

They are not interactive meetings, not for me at least, as they mostly concern other colleagues and areas of the business unrelated to my position. (I have a very autonomous position, the only person in my "team".) While I would like to contribute and interact, the topics are not my area of expertise therefore I usually don't have anything of value to add. However I am asked to attend the meetings anyway. I get back to my desk, drained from the boredom, at 4.30pm, with 30 minutes to pick up what I was doing. And I end up not doing it. It's like putting a spanner in the works.

While it's not a massive problem, I'm just wondering if anybody has any tips on how to deal with regular and extremely boring meetings.

I am thinking of asking my manager if I can attend every second meeting. Even my colleagues are puzzled as to why I need to attend.

Thanks!

Tell him. Your time is better spent working. And explain why. You won't get anywhere in life otherwise. Trust me, he'll respect you.

TheDoc · 12-10-2015 03:30PM

Hi OP,

Similar position myself here, although it's not my boss that is the root cause. I'm in a "big name" company that has gone through massive growth spurts and still operates some small business mentality and process in big business.

I'm similar to yourself in that I am a department of one (and then my boss) so I typically have a packed day in my role( support a number of systems, technical consultancy for implementations and projects etc etc).
The issues I have are normally when I'm invited to meetings discussing projects or implementations with colleagues outside of my department.

Although I don't do anything fancy. If meetings are going off tangent I just pipe up and ask to get back on topic. Sometimes if its a meeting I know will have a lot of idle chatter, I ask for an agenda beforehand before attending. And as above if it starts to stray just ask for focus back on the agenda.

there have been numerous meetings that have turned unproductive or into bitching session etc where I've stood up and just said I don't have time for this conversation, re-invite to a meeting that has relevance for my expertise. (Thats normally the ones where people try play the blame game, rather then try resolve an issue).

I'd maybe try not to get too fancy with it. The fact it happens a lot, indicates to me your not comfortable in that type of setting requesting things to wrap up promptly or whatever. A decent one I use where someone invites me to a meeting I know will probably drag over time is to outline beforehand "Yeah listen I'm a bit packed up today, so can really only stay the hour" or whatever time has been allocated.

I think a lot is down to personality as well. In a lot of meetings I won't open my mouth, I'm kinda there just to react to a suggestion or someones plan, and advise from a technical viewpoint. I don't feel the need to get my point in all the time if its not immediately productive or warranted. So many people in my company feel the need to say something constantly.

Also be conscious that your boss is new. Considering you say you are a department of one, it might very well be you get invited to these meetings to pipe up when there is something being suggested that you know is incorrect or needs addressing. Maybe you arn't required there at all, but your boss wants to include you. Trust me that is a better place to be in then say the flipside. I had to properly dress down some people about my exclusion from so many projects that were done tits up from a technical standpoint, as there was no technical eyes on the plans.

New boss absolutely loves team meetings. Minimum 2 hours length.

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