ASK HR: My boss is fond of calling fruitless meetings

Q. How do you deal with a boss who constantly calls for meetings that never start on time and which take hours to conclude? I ask this because I have such a boss, not only are these meetings too many and unnecessarily long, sometimes we end up repeating agenda that were discussed in a previous meeting.

The fact of life is that you cannot choose your boss, therefore it is your responsibility to understand their work style and adapt to it if you want to have a good working relationship with him or her.

Meetings are important because they give employees a chance to consult and managers the channel to give clear direction for important assignments and projects.

That said, not all decisions must be agreed in meetings. The role of a manager comes with responsibility and accountability, therefore some decisions can be made without involving other team members.

Back to your question, some managers who are unwilling to take responsibility for their decisions hide under many meetings to make collective decisions.

Others are afraid to make decisions especially when it has a big impact on the business, and therefore often seek consensus.

This behaviour is not sustainable especially when urgent and critical decisions need to be made. We live in a fast-paced environment, and employees, as well as customers, expect speedy feedback.

You can imagine the frustration of a customer who has to wait for a long time for a service or product because a meeting has to be convened to give them an answer.

So how do you go about managing this boss because the fact is that you cannot change him? You could offer to take minutes during meetings and suggest that in future, this responsibility rotates amongst the team.

This will give your meetings more focus. Also suggest assigning of specific tasks with clear timelines to individuals in the team, who must report back during the next meeting.

Propose that instead of having frequent meetings, you instead have a briefing session at the beginning of the week, which can be done while standing to ensure that it takes a shorter time.

It is worth noting that there are cases of employees who do not seek guidance or clarity in their daily work, and instead wait for meetings to discuss issues that would otherwise have been resolved without involving the entire team. This of course leads to wastage of time. I wonder whether this is the case with your team?

It is also common for employees to complain that they have not accomplished a certain task because they did not have guiding information, an indicator that such workers have a challenge working and interacting in a team.

Your frustration is warranted, but don’t close your eyes to the advantage that you are constantly communicating as a department, which is a commendable trait that builds a strong and cohesive team.

It also demonstrates involvement of each of the members in the operations of the department.

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