Advice

The Real Reason Your Meetings Are Terrible

Three weeks ago, I sat through a two-hour "strategic alignment session" where absolutely nothing got aligned except my spine with the back of an uncomfortable chair. The meeting had seventeen people, six different agendas that nobody had seen beforehand, and one bloke who spent forty minutes explaining why we needed another meeting to discuss what we'd just discussed.

Sound familiar? Of course it does.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: your meetings aren't terrible because of poor planning or lack of structure. They're terrible because most of us have forgotten that meetings are supposed to solve problems, not create them. We've turned them into performance art where everyone gets to demonstrate how important they are by talking the longest.

I've been running businesses and consulting for Australian companies for the better part of two decades now. Started in manufacturing in Newcastle, moved through corporate consulting in Sydney, and now help everyone from tiny Geelong startups to major Melbourne firms figure out why their teams spend more time talking about work than actually doing it.

The Amateur Hour Problem

Walk into any meeting room in Australia and you'll witness something extraordinary: highly intelligent people suddenly forgetting how to communicate effectively.

Take Sarah from accounting. Brilliant with spreadsheets, can spot a discrepancy from three departments away. Put her in a meeting about quarterly projections and she'll spend twelve minutes explaining background context that everyone already knows before getting to her actual point. Why? Because we've created this bizarre culture where being thorough in meetings means being exhausting.

Or Dave from operations. Absolute weapon when it comes to logistics. In meetings, he interrupts every third sentence because he's convinced everyone else is about to make the same mistake some supplier made in 2019. Dave thinks he's being helpful. Dave is wrong.

The truth is, most people have never learned how to participate in a meeting properly. We assume it's intuitive. It's not. Effective communication skills training exists for a reason, but somehow we think meetings are different. They're not a special category where normal communication rules don't apply.

The Preparation Paradox

Here's where it gets interesting. Everyone complains about meetings that lack preparation, but nobody wants to be the person who "over-prepares." I've watched executives spend three hours preparing for a thirty-minute client presentation, then rock up to internal strategic planning sessions with nothing but good intentions and yesterday's coffee.

The best meetings I've ever been part of had one thing in common: someone had done the heavy lifting beforehand. Not just an agenda - though that helps - but actual thinking. Real preparation means having answers to obvious questions, bringing relevant data, and knowing what you want to achieve before you sit down.

But here's the paradox: in most Australian workplaces, being overprepared makes you look keener than a Year 7 student on their first day. God forbid you should actually care about outcomes.

I learned this the hard way running a consulting project for a major retailer in 2018. Turned up to their monthly review meetings with detailed analyses, clear recommendations, and specific next steps. The feedback? "Maybe tone it down a bit, mate. These sessions are more about touching base."

Touching base. Right.

The Democracy Delusion

Somewhere along the way, we decided that every meeting should be democratic. Everyone gets a say. Everyone's opinion matters equally. This sounds lovely and progressive until you realise that in most organisations, opinions aren't equally informed.

Marketing Mary's thoughts on supply chain logistics are probably less valuable than Logistics Larry's thoughts on supply chain logistics. This isn't controversial - it's obvious. But suggest that maybe we shouldn't poll the entire room about highly technical decisions and you'll get accused of being "exclusionary."

The best meeting facilitators I know - and I'm thinking specifically of a project manager at Telstra who could run a session like a Swiss watch - understand that democracy and efficiency are often mutually exclusive. Sometimes you need input from everyone. Sometimes you need decisions from people who actually know what they're talking about.

The Technology Trap

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: video calls.

2020 changed everything. Suddenly everyone became a remote meeting expert despite having no idea what they were doing. We learned about mute buttons and camera angles, but we never learned how to run effective virtual meetings.

The problem isn't the technology - Teams and Zoom work fine. The problem is that we tried to replicate in-person meeting behaviours in a completely different environment. You can't read body language through a webcam. You can't have side conversations during virtual presentations. The dynamics are completely different.

Smart organisations adapted. They shortened meeting durations, increased frequency, and got much more specific about outcomes. Everyone else just made their existing bad habits digital.

I've got a client in Perth - property development firm - who completely restructured their meeting culture after lockdown. Went from hour-long weekly catch-ups to fifteen-minute daily standups. Productivity increased, stress decreased, and they actually started enjoying their conversations again.

The Real Solutions (That Nobody Wants to Hear)

Alright, here's where I probably lose half my audience. The solutions to terrible meetings aren't complicated, but they require admitting that most of what we've been doing is counterproductive.

First: Stop inviting people who don't need to be there.

This sounds harsh, but your feelings aren't worth everyone's time. If you're not contributing to the decision and you're not implementing the outcome, you probably don't need to attend. Yes, this might hurt some egos. Good management sometimes involves making tough choices about people's feelings versus organisational efficiency.

Second: Start timing everything.

I carry a stopwatch to meetings. Not to be a pain, but because awareness changes behaviour. When people know they've been talking for four minutes about something that could've been covered in thirty seconds, they start self-regulating. It's like having a gym buddy for productivity.

Third: End early when you're done.

If you've achieved your objectives in twenty minutes of a scheduled hour, finish the meeting. Don't fill time just because it's available. This feels wrong to people who grew up thinking that busy equals important, but it's actually the most respectful thing you can do for everyone's calendar.

Mind you, this advice assumes you actually know what your objectives are, which brings us to the biggest problem of all.

The Purpose Problem

Most meetings happen because someone thought it would be good to "get everyone together" rather than because there's a specific problem that requires group input to solve.

I've been in quarterly business reviews where nobody could articulate what we were reviewing or why it mattered. I've sat through "brainstorming sessions" where the decision had already been made but nobody wanted to admit it. I've endured team building exercises that did nothing except remind everyone why they prefer working alone.

The question every meeting should answer is simple: what happens if we don't have this conversation? If the answer is "nothing changes," you probably don't need the meeting.

Getting It Right

Here's what good meetings actually look like:

They start with a clear statement of purpose that everyone understands. They involve the minimum number of people required to achieve that purpose. They have time limits that get respected. Decisions get made and recorded. Next steps get assigned to specific people with specific deadlines.

Boring? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.

The most productive teams I work with treat meetings like expensive consultants - they prepare carefully, use them sparingly, and expect concrete outcomes. They don't see meetings as social events or opportunities to demonstrate involvement. They see them as tools.

Managing difficult conversations training can be incredibly valuable here because let's face it - calling out meeting inefficiency requires some diplomatic skill. But avoiding difficult conversations about meeting culture just perpetuates the problem.

The Australian Factor

There's something specifically Australian about our approach to meetings that makes this whole situation worse. We're culturally programmed to be inclusive and collaborative, which are generally good things. But they become problematic when applied universally to every business interaction.

Our tall poppy syndrome means nobody wants to be the person who suggests that maybe we don't need to hear from everyone on every topic. Our laid-back attitude means we tolerate inefficiency that would drive other cultures absolutely mental.

I've worked with German clients who schedule fifteen-minute meetings and finish in twelve minutes. I've seen American teams make three major decisions in the time it takes most Australian groups to agree on lunch orders.

This isn't about being less friendly or collaborative. It's about recognising that respect for people's time is actually a form of respect for people.

The Bottom Line

Your meetings are terrible because you've accepted that meetings are supposed to be terrible. You've normalised dysfunction and called it culture.

But here's the thing: fixing meeting culture is actually one of the highest-leverage improvements any organisation can make. Better meetings mean faster decisions, clearer communication, and less time wasted on things that don't matter.

Start small. Pick one recurring meeting and apply these principles for a month. Time everything. Question every agenda item. End early when you're finished. See what happens.

Or don't. Keep doing what you've always done and keep getting what you've always gotten: two-hour strategic alignment sessions where nothing gets aligned except everyone's frustration levels.

The choice, as they say, is yours.

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