My Thoughts

The Real Reason Your Meetings Are Terrible

I walked into a boardroom in Sydney last month where twelve grown adults were arguing about whether the quarterly sales figures should be in Arial or Times New Roman font. Twelve. Adults. For twenty-three minutes.

That's when it hit me: we've completely lost the plot when it comes to meetings in Australian businesses.

After running workplace training sessions for over eighteen years, I've sat through approximately 4,847 meetings (yes, I started counting after the fifth year of my sanity slowly deteriorating). And here's what nobody wants to admit – 89% of your meetings are terrible not because of the agenda, not because of the technology, and definitely not because Margaret from accounts keeps interrupting everyone.

Your meetings are terrible because you're all scared to death of actual decisions.

The Great Australian Meeting Paradox

Let me paint you a picture that'll make your skin crawl. You know that feeling when you're in a meeting and someone says "Let's circle back on this" for the fourth time in an hour? That's not collaboration. That's corporate cowardice dressed up in business speak.

We've created this bizarre culture where appearing busy is more important than being productive. I've watched teams spend three hours planning how to plan their next planning session. It's like watching a dog chase its own tail, except the dog is wearing a suit and earning $80K a year.

The worst part? We all know it's happening. We all sit there thinking "this could've been an email" but nobody – and I mean NOBODY – has the guts to actually say it.

Why Aussie Meetings Hit Different (And Not in a Good Way)

Here's where I'll probably ruffle some feathers. Australian meeting culture has this weird obsession with consensus that's actually killing our productivity. We're so bloody polite that we'd rather waste everyone's time than hurt someone's feelings by cutting to the chase.

I was working with a mining company in Perth last year where they spent forty-five minutes discussing the "optics" of changing their lunch meeting from Thursday to Friday. Forty-five minutes! For a lunch meeting! Meanwhile, their competitors were out there actually mining things and making money.

And don't get me started on the "ideation sessions."

Every second meeting these days is some sort of brainstorming extravaganza where everyone's supposed to throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks. Except nobody's allowed to say an idea is rubbish because that might "stifle creativity." So we end up with flip chart paper covered in gems like "synergise our customer touchpoints" and "leverage our core competencies for maximum stakeholder engagement."

It's like watching a corporate word salad being prepared by people who've never actually run a business.

The Real Problem Nobody Talks About

Here's what I learned the hard way after years of running meeting management training sessions: most people genuinely don't know what a decision looks like.

I'm serious. We've trained an entire generation of workers to mistake discussion for progress. They think if everyone gets to have their say, somehow a magical solution will emerge from the ether. But that's not how business works. That's not how anything works.

A proper meeting should feel slightly uncomfortable. Someone should walk away slightly disappointed. If everyone's happy with the outcome, you probably just spent an hour agreeing to do nothing while feeling good about it.

The best meeting I ever attended lasted exactly seventeen minutes. The CEO of a Brisbane logistics company walked in, said "We're losing money on the Melbourne route. Option A: fix it in thirty days. Option B: shut it down. Tom, you're in charge of Option A. If it's not profitable by month-end, we're going with Option B. Any questions? No? Good. Meeting over."

That's leadership. That's what decisive action looks like.

The Technology Trap

Now, before you think I'm some sort of Luddite, I'm not anti-technology. Zoom saved our bacon during COVID, and Microsoft Teams keeps remote teams connected. But somehow we've convinced ourselves that having better meeting software will fix our meeting problems.

It won't.

I've watched teams spend more time troubleshooting their screen-sharing issues than actually discussing the problem they're supposed to solve. We've got all this amazing technology, and we're using it to make our terrible meetings slightly more terrible in high definition.

The real issue isn't technical – it's cultural. We've forgotten that meetings are meant to be tools, not events. You wouldn't use a hammer to paint a fence, so why are you using a meeting to do what should be a quick phone call?

What Actually Works (From Someone Who's Been There)

Right, here's where I get practical. After nearly two decades of watching Australian businesses shoot themselves in the foot with pointless meetings, I've identified exactly three types of meetings that actually work:

The Decision Meeting: Someone presents options, a decision gets made, everyone leaves knowing exactly what happens next. Duration: 15-30 minutes maximum.

The Information Meeting: Critical updates that can't wait for email, delivered quickly with time for clarification questions only. Duration: 10-20 minutes.

The Problem-Solving Meeting: A specific issue with a clear outcome required. Three options maximum, decision made before anyone leaves the room. Duration: 45 minutes maximum.

Everything else? That's just elaborate procrastination with catering.

And here's the controversial bit – most "team building" meetings are complete waste of time. I know, I know, everyone loves their monthly check-ins and quarterly off-sites. But if your team needs a meeting to function as a team, you've hired the wrong people.

The Sacred Cows Nobody Wants to Kill

Let's talk about the meetings that everyone knows are useless but nobody dares to cancel. You know the ones I mean.

The "All Hands" meeting where senior management spends forty minutes telling everyone things they could've read in an email. The weekly status updates where nobody actually has any status to update. The monthly "strategic planning" sessions that somehow never result in any actual strategy.

I worked with a Melbourne consulting firm that had been running the same monthly "alignment meeting" for seven years. Seven years! Nobody could remember why it started, what it was supposed to achieve, or who originally requested it. But by God, they were going to keep having it because "it's always been on the calendar."

This is meeting culture at its most ridiculous.

Breaking the Cycle

Here's what I tell every organisation I work with: your meeting problem isn't a meeting problem. It's a leadership problem disguised as a meeting problem.

Good leaders don't need meetings to make decisions – they use meetings to communicate decisions. There's a massive difference, and once you understand it, everything changes.

I remember working with a tech startup in Adelaide where the founder was having daily stand-ups, weekly planning meetings, monthly reviews, and quarterly strategy sessions. Plus ad-hoc "quick chats" whenever anyone had a question.

His team was spending more time talking about work than actually doing work. Revenue was flat, staff were frustrated, and everyone was constantly busy but nothing was getting accomplished.

We cut his meeting schedule by 78%. Kept one weekly planning session and one monthly review. Everything else became either a five-minute conversation or a focused email.

Result? Revenue up 34% in six months. Team satisfaction through the roof. Suddenly everyone had time to actually do their jobs instead of just talking about doing their jobs.

The Hard Truth About Meeting Culture

I'll probably get some pushback for this, but Australian businesses have become addicted to the illusion of productivity that meetings provide. We feel important when we're in meetings. We feel busy. We feel like we're contributing.

But feeling productive and being productive are two entirely different things.

The companies that are absolutely crushing it right now – the ones growing while their competitors struggle – they've figured this out. They've cut the meeting fat and focused on actual work.

Take Atlassian, for example. They've built a billion-dollar company by actually solving problems instead of just talking about solving problems. Their leadership training programs focus on decision-making, not consensus-building.

And that's the key difference right there.

What Happens Next

Look, I'm not saying all meetings are evil. I'm saying most meetings are pointless, and until we admit that, nothing's going to change.

Start with this: for the next month, before you book any meeting, ask yourself this question: "What specific decision will be made or what specific action will be taken as a direct result of this meeting?"

If you can't answer that question in one sentence, cancel the meeting.

If you can answer it, but the answer could be achieved with a phone call or email, cancel the meeting.

Only if you genuinely need multiple people in the same room (physical or virtual) to achieve something that cannot be achieved any other way should you proceed with the meeting.

Try it. I guarantee you'll cancel at least half your meetings in the first week.

Your productivity will skyrocket. Your team will love you for giving them their time back. And you might actually start accomplishing things instead of just talking about accomplishing things.

Because at the end of the day, that's what business is supposed to be about – getting stuff done, not talking about getting stuff done.

If your organisation is serious about fixing its meeting culture and improving workplace productivity, consider investing in proper training that focuses on decision-making skills rather than more meeting techniques. Sometimes the best meeting training is learning when not to have meetings at all.