Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity states that the closer you get to a black hole the more time slows until you reach the Event Horizon, the point at which there’s no turning back. At that point time would appear to be frozen, an object as seen from Earth would never change.

Einstein coined the term black holes because the gravitational pull of these objects are so powerful not even light can escape. Hence, they are black.

I think a lot of meetings resemble black holes -- they have power, time seems to stop, and light (the bright future we all hope for) can’t escape.

The metaphor may be a little dark (haha) so we'll put it aside, but it's a complaint I often hear: "We attend meetings all day. One idea after another gets shot down and, in the end, nothing happens..."

If your meetings are not producing a list of tasks, assignments, and then the results are (1) measured and (2) produce a better company,  you might want to read Seth Godin’s March 26, blog, which I’ve cut-n-pasted below, along with a few comments. Some of his ideas may be a little “out-there” for your company’s culture but some may be worth trying. Enjoy.

Getting serious about your meeting problem, by Seth Godin

Do you have one [meeting problem]? Some folks are going to eight hours of meeting a day. At Ford, they used to have meetings to prepare for meetings, just to be sure everyone had their story straight.

If you're serious about solving your meeting problem, getting things done and saving time, try this for one week. If it doesn't work, I'll be happy to give you a full refund.

• Understand that all problems are not the same. So why are your meetings? Does every issue deserve an hour? Why is there a default length? [Change it]
• Schedule meetings in increments of five minutes. Require that the meeting organizer have a truly great reason to need more than four increments of realtime (sic) face time.
• Require preparation. Give people things to read or do before the meeting, and if they don't, kick them out. [My favorite]
• Remove all the chairs from the conference room. I'm serious.
• If someone is more than two minutes later than the last person to the meeting, they have to pay a fine of $10 to the coffee fund.
• Bring an egg timer to the meeting. When it goes off, you're done. Not your fault, it's the timer's.
• The organizer of the meeting is required to send a short email summary, with action items, to every attendee within ten minutes of the end of the meeting.
• Create a public space (either a big piece of poster board or a simple online page) that allows attendees to rate meetings and their organizers on a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of usefulness. Just a simple box where everyone can write a number. Watch what happens. [Great idea]
• If you're not adding value to a meeting, leave. You can always read the summary later. [Easier said than done, but I like it]

Steve