Behold the ultimate guide for having cringe-worthy meetings! Embrace these surefire techniques to guarantee a meeting so horrible, it’ll leave everyone involved yawning or pulling their hair out in despair.
Step 1: Meeting Preparation
- Come completely unprepared. Let’s just show up and see what happens. After all, that’s the best way to get nothing done!
- Surprise agendas are the best, right? Pop it in the chat a hot second before we start, or better yet, let’s wing it without one!
- Objectives, who needs them? Let’s aim to “discuss stuff” or “get feedback” and leave it at that. Under no circumstances answer any of these questions:
- What is your opinion on the matter at hand?
- What specific actions do you want to happen in the meeting?
- What tangible outcome do you want to be the result of this meeting?
- Why is this valuable?
Step 2: Meeting Content
- Boring is the new exciting. Let’s make our meeting feel like a soul-sucking corporate manual.
- Start strong then…oh look, a squirrel! Keep ‘em guessing with half-baked ideas. Leave a lot of key details out.
- Mix facts, fiction, and nonsense liberally. Nothing succeeds like not knowing what the fuck is going on and pretending you do.
Step 3: Run the Meeting
- Warm-ups are for athletes. Don’t greet your colleagues and don’t give an overview. Dive into the chaos head-first and let’s get lost together. If it feels rushed and frantic, even better.
- Punctuality is overrated. Let’s start late, end later, and leave everyone wondering if time is a social construct.
- Do not conclude anything from the meeting. Decisions? Actions? Due dates? We’ll figure it out…eventually. Or not.
- Cool-downs are for yogis. “Hey, we’ve got 5 minutes left, let’s start wrapping up”? Skip it. Let’s end in a hurried frenzy.
And finally, you know when meetings can be a way for smart people to come together and have a great impact, collaborate, learn, have fun…?
Fuck that.
Let’s have meetings about meetings.