Management Stress and Meetingitis

Via Newmark's Door, Secretgeek on "The Deadly Cycle of Meetingitis." Here’s an excerpt:

1. Q:What do managers do when they're stressed?
   • A:They call a meeting.
2. Q:What gets managers stressed out?
   • A:When projects are not making progress.
3. Q:When do projects fail to make progress?
   • A:When people spend too much time in meetings.

Secretgeek is talking about programming code crises, but the cycle applies to any situation which creates manager stress. The important part of this cycle is the root cause – it’s not the status of the project, it’s the manager’s stress.

Secretgeek’s solution:

Communicate more, in order to meet less. Be proactive in your communication. Don't wait for them to call a meeting. Tell them what's going on. Produce regular reports. Don't "promise" to produce regular reports -- just produce them. Let them listen in on some of your day to day chatter. If you have daily standups, bring the manager in. Stop baffling them with technical mumbo jumbo. Feed them edible slices of information. Walk them through it in bite-sized chunks. Give them documentation tasks to keep them feeling important. Give them communication tasks. Draw pictures for them to stick on the wall of their office.

Keeping manager’s in the loop obviously helps, but in my experience managers only calm down when they develop confidence their people are on top of the issues and elevate them when necessary. It takes time and positive experience for people to develop that kind of credibility with their management (more on that here). Unfortunately, that level of confidence may never develop if the manager believes progress is a result of their involvement and not their staff’s work.