Blog

Why Most Business Meetings Are Absolute Time Wasters: A Blunt Take on Corporate Theatre

Twenty-six people crammed into a conference room designed for twelve, half checking emails on their phones, the other half wondering why they're even there. Sound familiar?

After seventeen years of running workshops across Australia and sitting through more corporate meetings than I care to count, I've come to one inescapable conclusion: most business meetings are elaborate performance art. They're not about productivity, decision-making, or even communication. They're about covering arses and creating the illusion of progress.

The Great Meeting Delusion

Here's a controversial opinion that'll ruffle some feathers: if your meeting doesn't have a clear decision to make or specific outcome to achieve, you shouldn't be having it. Full stop.

Yet every week, millions of Australian workers shuffle into conference rooms for "catch-ups," "touch bases," and "alignment sessions." These aren't meetings—they're group therapy sessions for managers who lack the confidence to make decisions alone.

I remember working with a Melbourne-based tech company where the marketing team had weekly meetings that lasted two hours. Two bloody hours! When I asked what decisions were made in these sessions, the manager looked confused. "Decisions? Well, we discuss things."

Discussing isn't deciding. And if you're not deciding, you're wasting everyone's time.

The Status Update Epidemic

The worst offender in the meeting world is the dreaded status update meeting. You know the drill: everyone goes around the table sharing what they've been working on, what they're planning to do next, and what roadblocks they're facing.

This is pure corporate theatre. If you need a meeting to know what your team is doing, you've already failed as a manager. There are dozens of project management tools that can give you this information in real-time. Use them.

Status updates should happen asynchronously. Period. Save the face-to-face time for actual problem-solving and decision-making.

I once worked with a Brisbane-based financial services firm where the CEO insisted on weekly status meetings with his direct reports. Forty-five minutes every Monday morning, religiously. When I suggested moving these updates to a shared dashboard, he resisted. "But how will I know they're actually working?"

That's not a meeting problem, mate. That's a trust problem.

The Meeting About the Meeting Problem

Here's where it gets really ridiculous: companies often hold meetings to discuss why their meetings aren't effective. It's like trying to cure alcoholism with whiskey.

The solution isn't more meetings about meetings. It's fewer meetings overall. Much fewer.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos had the right idea with his "two-pizza rule"—if you can't feed the meeting attendees with two pizzas, there are too many people in the room. But I'd go further: if you can't explain the meeting's purpose in one sentence, you shouldn't be having it.

The Sacred Cow of Recurring Meetings

Let me share something that might shock you: just because something is in your calendar doesn't mean it needs to stay there. Those weekly team meetings that started three years ago when the team was half its current size? Cancel them. The monthly stakeholder alignment sessions that everyone attends but no one finds valuable? Gone.

I call these "zombie meetings"—they're dead, but they keep shambling along because no one has the courage to put them out of their misery.

At a Perth mining company I worked with, they had a monthly safety meeting that had been running for eight years. Eight years! The same people, the same agenda, the same predictable outcomes. When the operations manager finally cancelled it and replaced it with targeted safety briefings, accident reports actually decreased. Amazing what happens when you focus on actual work instead of talking about work.

The Real Cost of Meeting Overload

Here's a statistic that should terrify every business owner: the average Australian worker spends 32% of their time in meetings. That's roughly 2.5 days out of every working week sitting around talking instead of doing.

For a company with 50 employees earning an average of $75,000 per year, that's $1.2 million annually spent on meetings. How much of that time actually generates value? Based on my experience, maybe 20%. Maybe.

What Actually Works: The Five-Minute Rule

Want to revolutionise your meetings? Try this: start every meeting by spending five minutes answering these questions:

What specific decision are we making today?
Who has the authority to make that decision?
What information do we need to make that decision?
What happens if we don't make this decision today?

If you can't answer all four questions, you shouldn't be having the meeting.

I've seen this simple exercise eliminate 60% of unnecessary meetings in organisations I've worked with. The remaining 40% become laser-focused and productive.

The Australian Way: Straight Talk, Quick Decisions

There's something beautifully Australian about cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point. We don't need elaborate PowerPoint presentations to make simple decisions. We don't need two-hour workshops to solve problems that could be resolved with a ten-minute conversation.

Some of the most effective meetings I've attended have been standing meetings in factory break rooms, where workers solve complex operational problems in fifteen minutes flat. No fancy conference rooms, no catered lunches, no elaborate agendas. Just practical people focused on practical solutions.

The Technology Excuse

"But we need meetings for collaboration," managers often tell me. "How else will we innovate?"

This is where I usually lose patience. Collaboration doesn't require meetings—it requires clear communication, shared goals, and mutual respect. Some of the most innovative teams I've worked with rarely meet in person. They collaborate through Slack, solve problems through shared documents, and make decisions through structured processes.

Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Notion—these tools have made the traditional meeting largely obsolete. Yet we cling to them like security blankets, afraid that without regular face-to-face contact, our teams will somehow fall apart.

The Meeting Culture Addiction

Here's an uncomfortable truth: many managers are addicted to meetings because meetings make them feel important. They confuse being busy with being productive, attendance with engagement, and talking with leading.

Real leadership is about making difficult decisions with incomplete information. It's about taking responsibility when things go wrong and sharing credit when things go right. None of this requires a conference room.

I once worked with a Adelaide-based logistics company where the general manager scheduled 47 meetings in a single week. Forty-seven! When I asked him when he actually got work done, he looked confused. "This is my work," he said.

No, mate. Your work is driving results, building teams, and solving problems. Meetings are just one tool—and usually not the best one.

The Small Business Advantage

Small businesses have a massive advantage here. They can't afford to waste time on elaborate meeting rituals. When you've got twelve employees and every hour counts, you quickly learn to communicate efficiently.

The best small business owner I know runs a successful Adelaide construction company with 25 employees. He has exactly one regular meeting per week: a 20-minute Monday morning safety briefing. Everything else happens through text messages, phone calls, and quick face-to-face conversations on job sites.

His business consistently outperforms larger competitors who spend hours in planning meetings while he's actually building things.

The Client Meeting Exception

Now, don't get me wrong—some meetings are absolutely essential. Client meetings, sales presentations, and negotiation sessions serve clear purposes. But even these should be ruthlessly planned and tightly controlled.

I once watched a sales director from a Sydney-based software company lose a $200,000 deal because he couldn't stick to his agenda. What should have been a focused product demonstration turned into a rambling two-hour session where the client lost interest and the deal fell apart.

The Path Forward

So what's the solution? It's surprisingly simple: default to "no meeting" and work backwards. For every meeting request, ask yourself: "What's the worst thing that happens if we don't have this meeting?" If the answer is "nothing significant," you have your answer.

Start with a meeting moratorium. For one week, cancel every recurring meeting that doesn't have a specific decision to make. Watch what happens. I guarantee you'll discover that most of the "essential" meetings weren't actually essential at all.

Replace meeting-heavy culture with decision-making culture. Train your teams to make decisions quickly with available information rather than endlessly discussing options. Reward action over analysis paralysis.

The Bottom Line

Meetings should be the exception, not the rule. They should be short, focused, and decisive. Most importantly, they should end with clear actions and accountable owners.

The next time someone sends you a meeting invitation, ask them to explain the decision they're trying to make. If they can't, politely decline. Your actual work is waiting.

After all, no one ever built a successful business by sitting in conference rooms talking about building a successful business. They built it by actually doing the work.

Related Resources: