Rx for the Meeting Moth

Years ago, the great comic strip Dilbert introduced a character called “Meeting Moth.”

Meeting Moth was part-human, part moth, who would flap his wings incessantly each time he passed a meeting – large or small – in progress.

I’m sure many of us have worked for a company or firm at one time or another that included their own version of Meeting Moth.

How about a company or firm that held far too many meetings?

I know a little something about that. A former employer of mine used to hold meetings in order to determine what time we should have future meetings. One time, we were required to sit in on what turned out to be a one-hour discussion on the choices of entrees for our annual awards dinner.

Trust me I can’t make this stuff up.

When revenues were predictably plunging like the current national opinion of Obama Care, they called in a consultant to help define the causes and hopefully, right the ship. So for $10,000 a month, they learned from a third party that one reason for the profit decline stemmed from potential productivity being mired in a meeting culture, a finding that any entry-level employee could have told them for free.

That, coupled with the fact that their New York office was incredibly, found to have more vice presidents than salespeople (this in an advertiser-driven revenue model) sort of encapsulated the management IQ of the C-suite and accounts for the reason the company had to sell many of its assets some years later just to stay afloat.

Since my last few missives have sort of focused on resolutions for New Year, here’s a suggestion: if your firm is decidedly meeting-centric, try paring that down in 2014. One CPA firm that found itself in that situation instituted a hard and fast rule – a 30-minute maximum on all meetings. The managing partner rightly declared that it’s rather difficult to service clients or chase new business opportunities when both staff and management are sequestered in a conference room.

A meeting culture is for lack of better terms unproductive and unsustainable. And ask yourself how many meetings did you attend over the past year and of that number how many actually resulted in an eye-opening new concept or a way to drive more business?

I suspect the ratio is rather underwhelming.

Perhaps nothing is more precious than a CPA’s time and a meeting culture is a rather poor return on that investment.

The Meeting Moth belongs in a comic strip, not in your firm.