Turtles at Work

I was sitting in yet another mindless meeting humming in my head 'jimmy crack corn and I don't care", when suddenly one of the geniuses I work with uttered "I think we have a communication issue." Whoa! In usual fashion one of the big shot bosses agreed that there IS a communication issue at my company. Whoa! I almost couldn't believe it. "We actually may be getting somewhere!" I thought.

My hopes were immediately dashed as yet another committee was formed to solve the "communication issues". I have seen committee after committee formed at my company with zero results. Usually the people assigned to the committee realize that our leaders are incompetent and have a few meeting to make it look good. The committee never really solve any problems and our big shot leaders never ask for summaries or solutions to hold the committees accountable.

The communication committee began fittingly with a communication problem. The committee lead determined that he and his team needed to understand what causes communication issues. He asked everyone to provide him with ways in which they communicate. As usual, no one asked any questions to fully understand the request (communication issue #1). People started to submit the ways they communicate, while others just tried to ignore it rather than ask questions. When the leader of the committee began to receive responses the information he was receiving was not want he wanted. Since he hadn't really clarified his request with the folks he was asking (communication issue #2), the people submitted whatever they thought was right, rather than what the leader wanted. In addition, less than half the people responded, which made the communications committee leader irritated. The problem is that he should be irritated at himself for not setting a deadline for response and making it clear with reminders to folks that their responses were necessary (communication issue #3).

So in summary, the committee to solve communication issue at my company failed as the committee couldn't communicate the project clearly enough for people to understand what was expected. They failed at the issue they were trying to solve. As usual the committee fizzled into the void with zero results or follow through. Communication takes time, effort, and hard work. These concepts are just far to complicated for the peanut brains at my company. We'll just continue to suffer communication breakdown after communication breakdown. YIPEE!!

Posted by The Turtle King at Saturday, May 26, 2007 2 comments    

Labels: Meetings

I came across this article recently on MSNBC.com that confirms what I have known for years. I've been through more than enough meetings in my life to know that bad meetings actually do in fact make us dumber (article link posted below)!

A poorly run and executed meeting is perfect for any Turtle. My company, for example, recently decided to conduct a meeting amongst all departments to help "improve the company" and "provide better service to our customers". This sounds like a very promising concept as most companies don't focus enough on improving. The problem though is that very few people in my company actually understand how to run a meeting effectively. More importantly most of the people invited to the meeting, who have more tenure than I, know that our superiors don't know how to run a meeting effectively. The result: Turtle meeting!

So what is a Turtle meeting you ask? A Turtle meeting occurs when the following conditions exist:

1. A meeting agenda, complete with meeting purpose, items for discussion and follow-up is not created and sent out to the meeting invitees in advance. This really encourages Turtle behavior and wasted time as none of the meeting attendees actually understand why they are at the meeting. The non-Turtles at the meeting try to figure our what the meeting is about by asking questions for the first 20 minutes.
2. The meeting facilitator decides to invite more people than needed. For example, the meeting on "improving our company" has over 20 people in it, which helps in creating confusion and indecision.
3. The meeting room is too small and does not contain the equipment needed for the meeting. There is nothing like a group of people jammed into a room. This really helps to promote thinking!
4. Meeting duties are not assigned. This means no timekeeper to keep the meeting on schedule and no documenter to notate the meeting and distribute the notes. There is nothing better than a meeting that just keeps going and going and going. Even better when you meet again you have no idea of what transpired the previous meetings due to the lack of meeting notes.
5. There are no meeting ground rules agreed to during the first meeting. This allows people to have side discussions, dose off, or show up late as people have no expectation of how to act in the meeting. As a Turtle this means you can "blend in" as you can easily not participate.
6. Assignments are handed out and no follow-up is ever done to ensure the assignments are completed or completely correctly. Again, since there are no notes from the meeting you can easily Turtle if assigned something. Simply claim that you weren't given an assignment and have a fellow Turtle confirm this with a statement like "yes, I don't believe Joe was given that assignment."

We have been meeting bi-weekly for almost 3 months and haven't accomplished a thing. Better yet, each meeting was talk about an issue and assign a "committee" to research the problem and come up with a solution. There are so many committees and not one has come up with a solved problem yet. In addition, the same non-Turtles (poor bastards) keep getting volunteered to be on these committees. One of my co-workers for example is now in his 7th committee. Remember, as a Turtle, "lay low", the Wolves will get picked for these kinds of assignments as long as you don't volunteer or make eye contact when assignments are being handed out.

Meetings make us dumber, study shows
Brainstorming sessions backfire when group thinking clouds decisions
By Abigail W. Leonard
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17279961/from/ET/

Posted by The Turtle King at Sunday, March 18, 2007 0 comments    

Labels: Meetings