Mind numbing.

• Author: Bundles, Jeff
• Position: Rundles wrap up

Over the years I have been in many business meetings. Many long, boring and completely useless business meetings. My research into the topic said studies indicate the average professional is in meetings four work days a month, which over 40 years is about 5.3 years. That same person--me--apparently spent only slightly less than a year in 40 years commuting, so it raises the question: Why do people kvetch more about wasting time in traffic than wasting time at work? Disparities like this drive me crazy.

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I'd rather drive than meet. I mean, after all when I am driving I can think, while the typical business meeting I attended over the years was mind numbing. Also, I have to fess up: As a manager over the years I called some of these meetings, because I assumed by observation that was what managers do, so I have numbed a few minds myself. Sorry. I should have known better--and businesses everywhere should have known better and should know better now.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. If anything, research suggests, the number and duration of superfluous business meetings--already way too much 40 years ago--has gone up and continues to rise.

For several years I worked for a company that regularly flew me and 100 other company people from all over the country to headquarters for a few days of "team building" that was, to the minute, unproductive, and took me away from my regular job. The highlight of these meetings was the many highly paid consultants and business coaches who presented and read verbatim PowerPoint presentations. I could have done the whole two-three days in less than half a day at my desk and retained more--or any!--information. But it gives corporate executives the opportunity to preen and strut and basically glorify themselves while always sapping productivity in the name of boosting productivity. Yes, it's one of the many conundrums of typical business management.

In some ways, I guess I figured that the rise in the number and length of business meetings in recent years is a direct response to the millennial generation's penchant for working in teams; I assumed these young people are used to working in collaborative groups, even from their school days, and like to meet often to maintain the group dynamic in productivity. But just lately I have heard from a number of 20- and 30-somethings the same lament my age group experienced way back then and even today...