By | Wayne Turme | www.management-issues.com
Can (or should) webmeetings be fun? This isn’t an idle question, and the answer seems to be a lot more controversial than I thought it was. I’m throwing the virtual doors open for your input here.
When you write a book, you never know what people are going to like, and what they’re going to react negatively to. That’s the case with Meet Like You Mean It. I have gotten a lot of positive reviews, but one person took me to task for the notion that one of the reasons for having a meeting – not even a main one, just one of many – was so that a team can have fun together.
His attitude is (to paraphrase): Fun isn’t the point. Meetings take too much time as it is. Our job is to do what needs to be done and get back to work. I hate meaningless chatter and fluff.
I get this a lot, although not everyone feels obliged to offer feedback (which, presumably and ironically, takes time) and I do appreciate it. Because this gives me a chance to make an important distinction between fun (making something enjoyable) and fluff (activities designed to make people feel better but don’t add any value to the process).
Project teams or other groups build trust and their collaboration culture based on their interactions. Can someone be counted on? Would I feel comfortable relying on their wisdom or knowledge? Do I enjoy working with these people?
