Ask anybody in the street what the first rule of Fight Club is and they’ll tell you, “The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.”
Now how many times in the last 3 months have you walked into a meeting with 6 other people, sat down, and someone asked, “What exactly are we all doing here?!” If only society would take meetings with as much seriousness as it takes Fight Club!
The first rule for any meetings should be, “What is on the agenda?”
So many people allow their calendar to mindlessly control their day. What time to get to work in the morning, what time to eat lunch, who they are meeting with, what time is their break etc. And they relinquish their control not just to a calendar, but to yokels who set meetings on their calendars without a specific agenda. In reality, the best practice should be not to accept a meeting without an itemized agenda in the invite. Yes, there are some devious co-workers who have a crafty way of dealing with that. They simply write, “Agenda to follow.” If you see that it’s almost a 100% guarantee you will not receive any agenda before the meeting.
So if you want to increase the efficiency in your office, start a “meeting club” and the first rule of the meeting club is, “No agenda, no meeting!”
And if you want to pulverize someone who sets meetings in your calendar without an agenda, probably best to just let your imagination do the work.
