How to Waste Time in Virtual Meetings

We've already explored how we waste time in meetings generally (See "How to Waste Time in Meetings," Point Lookout for June 22, 2016). But wasting time in virtual meetings requires special techniques. Here's a little catalog of the most popular methods for wasting time in virtual meetings. It's probably unnecessary to say this, but just to be safe: these are bad ideas. Learn to recognize them, but don't do them.

Let's begin with things Chairs can do to waste everyone's time:

• Choose a meeting access password with characters that have multiple names, or which can be misread easily, like z, #, 0, O, o, 1, l, and |.
• Ten minutes before the meeting, delay the meeting by two hours.
• Schedule multiple-time-zone meetings for times when the people most important to the agenda would otherwise be fast asleep.
• If technical difficulties occur, sort them out while everyone waits, no matter how long, up to the full length of the meeting.

And now some things everyone can do (not):

• Don't do any meeting pre-work. If asked, deny having received the pre-work.
• For Web-based slide presentations, don't install the software. Say, "IT tried, but they'll get it done next week for sure." If IT succeeded, claim, "They didn't get the right plug-in."
• When preparing documents for meetings, send several corrected versions beforehand, none of them dated or numbered. Send the final version 15 minutes before the meeting.
• Speak only when someone else is already speaking. When he or she stops speaking, stop. When he or she restarts, restart. Repeat until one of you surrenders.
• Mumble.
• Speak only when chewing food. It's easier to mumble.
• If you don't understand someone, ask for it to be repeated. Don't use context to make sense of it.
• If someone asks you to repeat yourself, say it completely differently. Don't let people figure it out from repetition.
• Practice saying: "I'm a visual person, I don't understand. Please describe it differently."
• Periodically disconnect yourself from the meeting. Upon rejoining, ask for a recap.All wireless service plans
  include free mid-sentence
  disconnection service
• To avoid disconnecting yourself, use a cellphone. All wireless service plans include free mid-sentence disconnection service.
• Even if you aren't using a cellphone, when you need a break, say, "I'm coming up on a dead spot. If I get disconnected, I'll call back." Then disconnect and relax.
• To convince people that you're on a cellphone, say, "Does <silence> know why HR <silence> tomorrow?"
• Ignore the meeting. Mute yourself while playing Angry Birds. If your name is mentioned twice in close succession, unmute and say, "Sorry, I was muted. What was that again?"
• Call from an airport while standing under a public address speaker. And don't mute your phone.
• If you're presenting using a presentation system you've never used before, don't practice beforehand. There's no software you can't get the hang of in a couple minutes, except maybe Angry Birds.

Finally, take advantage of the miserable communications environment in virtual meetings to manipulate the group into making a truly horrible decision, the folly of which won't become clear until after the point of no return. First in this series   Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Effective Meetings:

Figuring Out What to Do First

Whether we belong to a small project team or to an executive team, we have limited resources and seemingly unlimited problems to deal with. How do we decide which problems are important? How do we decide where to focus our attention first?

Dispersed Teams and Latent Communications

When geography divides a team, conflicts can erupt along the borders. "Us" and "them" becomes a way of seeing the world, and feelings about people at other sites can become hostile. Why does this happen and what can we do about it?

Meta-Debate at Work

Workplace discussions sometimes take the form of informal debate, in which parties who initially have different perspectives try to arrive at a shared perspective. Meta-debate is one way things can go wrong.

Virtual Trips to Abilene

One dysfunction of face-to-face meetings is the Trip to Abilene, which leads groups to make decisions no members actually support. It can afflict virtual meetings, too, even more easily.

Naming Ideas

Participants in group discussions sometimes reference each other's contributions using the contributor's name. This risks offending the contributor or others who believe the idea is theirs. Naming ideas is less risky.

See also Effective Meetings and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

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And on August 29: Please Reassure Them

When things go wildly wrong, someone is usually designated to investigate and assess the probability of further trouble. That role can be risky. Here are three guidelines for protecting yourself if that role falls to you. Available here and by RSS on August 29.

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