Why nothing ever happens in meetings

I just got out of a meeting. See if you can tell how it went.

The failure of meetings

Most meetings follow one or more of the following scenarios:

Too much talking

Many people have ideas. Many people want to speak. Everybody spends so much time waiting to talk that they don't listen to the words that are coming out of anyone else's mouth but their own. I have had meetings where I have made checkmarks whenever one particular person kept talking and they had nothing to say. One meeting had 27 separate checkmarks.

Not enough talking

Remember when you were in class and nobody did the reading, so everybody waits for the one person to jump in and say something? It's like that. This sometimes happens with money discussions.

An axe to grind

Somebody at the meeting is mad. So mad that nothing, and I mean nothing will get them to consider anything else. Any and all points are reinterpreted into the framework of the thing they are pissed about. This can go on for hours.

Personal vendettas

Often appears in conjunction with the former scenario. Two or more people who have long-standing grudges are unable to set aside their personal differences, and everybody gets both barrels of their own personal problems, funneled through the filter of whatever the meeting is supposed to be about. For more fun, sides are chosen and then proxies battle over whatever the original suppoint is supposed to be, long since a trampled, deceased equine.

No agenda

We have to have a meeting about this! Now! OK, now we're meeting. WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL QUESTION?

Too much agenda

You will find that we are to discuss that in point XIX.a, which will be in approximately three and one-half hours, assuming our spinal cords haven't reached through our neck to choke us to death.

The hobgoblin of tiny minds

People are so concerned about the small, meaningless details that they totally miss the forest, the trees, and the enclosing state parks. If you're so smart, tough guy, you tell me what color this insignificant link should be! I have lost entire months to this factor.

Meeting fatigue

This is the fourth meeting today, so I am burned out and I want to go home and drink until the pain goes away. This happens far more often than it should. (Note: if you have to have a Committee on Committees in your organization, you've probably seen this before, and yes, you are doing something wrong.

The real work is done in the post-meeting meeting

Talking is great and all, but like the Secret Masters of Fandom, a few people actually do all the work. The post-meeting meeting is hopefully shorter than the two-hour meeting that proceeded it.

Meeting coping strategies

Doodling

This is probably the most common. I tend to draw giant robots. Big surprise, huh? Though recently I've been on a Kingdom of Loathing kick.

Checking your e-mail

This is sometimes helpful, particularly if somebody else is talking and you have a computer in front of you. I've also seen people look at cartoons all meeting.

Secret eating

Not like Marshie, but I tend to play little drinking games with myself and my coffee. Whenever I hear a technical term being used incorrectly, a buzzword, or a term in use that I know the definition of is not known by the person using said term, I take a drink.

I have run out of coffee with the last one. Be warned it is for those with Bladders of Steel. More on this subject later.