A meeting needs a reason

A meeting is an expensive instrument that presents itself as free. An hour with six people is six hours of work, plus the time it takes to get there and, afterwards, to remember what one was doing. Nobody would sign off six hours of expenditure without asking what it was for. Of a meeting, the question is seldom asked.

A meeting needs a reason, and the reason can be recognised by four things that belong in the invitation before they belong on the agenda.

The first is the objective, in one sentence. Not ‘alignment on the project’, which describes a mood, but ‘choose between the two delivery dates’. If the objective will not fit in a sentence, the meeting is not ready, and it is unlikely to become ready once everyone is seated in the meeting room.

The second is the people needed: whoever must decide, whoever holds the information the decision depends on, whoever will carry it out. Everyone else can read the minutes, which cost less and can be consulted twice. Inviting someone ‘for information’ is a courtesy that costs them an hour; copying them into an email costs them thirty seconds.

The third is the decision expected. A well-called meeting knows in advance what ought to leave the room: a yes, a no, a choice between options already set out. If at the end nobody can say what was decided, there has been no meeting. There has been a conversation, with better chairs.

The fourth is the minutes, brief and sent the same day: what was decided, who does what, by when. An action without a name and a date is a wish, and wishes are not known for completing themselves. Minutes do not retell the discussion; they record its consequences.

Apply these tests and a good many meetings turn out to be emails in fancy dress. If the purpose is to inform, a well-written message is quicker to read than to sit through, and it stays. If an opinion is wanted, it can be asked for in writing, with a deadline. A meeting earns its place when people must decide something on which they disagree, or probably will, and the disagreement is best aired once, aloud.

One species deserves separate mention: the meeting to decide whether to hold the meeting. I have seen one convened with an agenda, a list of attendees and minutes. Its decision was to reconvene. Procedurally, it was faultless.

I am not against meetings. A meeting with a reason can settle in an hour what has been open for weeks. I am against the ones that exist because there has always been a meeting at ten on Tuesdays, and everyone assumes somebody else wanted it.

Before calling one, therefore, I write the subject line of the invitation as though it were the first line of the minutes. If I cannot, I send an email.