I'll provide the sin. Who'll provide the energy?

The
Scottish
Reviewers I
Walter Humes

Have you ever attended a meeting where the experience was so mind-numbingly boring that you were tempted to give up the will to live? I have always held the view that homicide is a much better option than suicide, but even I have been reduced to a catatonic stupor by meetings which seemed designed to extinguish the human spirit. Sometimes this is quite deliberate, of course, as in the case of local authority meetings supposedly intended to 'consult' members of the public, when in fact everyone knows that the decision (to close a school, demolish an attractive historic building, erect another concrete eyesore) has already been taken. Councillors and officials stonewall endlessly in the face of evidence and argument, until even the most hardened activist gives up in disgust.
     In professional contexts, meetings are often poor for a variety of reasons. The person in the chair may be inept and have failed to do the necessary preparation. Chairing a meeting successfully is an art: it involves being in authority but not authoritarian. This entails giving everyone who wants to speak an opportunity to do so and preventing those with mad hobby-horses from dominating the proceedings.
     The semi-deranged display a number of symptoms: a pathological obsession with the accuracy of the minutes of the previous meeting; a desire to set up working groups rather than take decisions; a severely critical view of the quality of the catering (they only come for the tea and biscuits); and an unhealthy knowledge of rules and standing orders, not for the purpose of facilitating due process, but to show off and prevent open discussion. I must confess that I have often got myself into trouble because of a deplorable tendency to make flippant and irreverent remarks. I was once involved in merger discussions between two institutions, and it was proposed to set up a body called the Strategic Alliance Group. I helpfully pointed out that this had the rather unfortunate acronym SAG which perhaps was not an encouraging metaphor for the impending marriage. The name was changed but my contribution was not appreciated.
     A former colleague had a well-developed method of beating everyone into submission at meetings. She spoke loudly and often, beginning most of her contributions with the phrase 'There's an issue here'. This immediately provoked raised eyebrows and drooping heads as everyone anticipated another negative diatribe against whatever was being proposed. I never quite had the nerve to say: 'Yes there is an issue here – it's your psychological need to use meetings for attention-seeking behaviour and as a form of therapy'.
     There is a version of the game Bingo specially designed to prevent insanity at tedious meetings. It can be downloaded from the internet. Instead of numbers on the squares there are numerous examples of vacuous management-speak, such as 'bottom line', 'out of the box', 'networking', 'empowerment', 'brainstorm', 'user friendly', 'proactive', 'mission', and 'synergy'. When a player gets a complete line he or she does not shout 'Bingo' but the much more appropriate 'Bullshit'. The word 'synergy' is forever etched on my mind because, during the merger talks I mentioned, it was invoked with tiresome frequency. Eventually I was driven to say; 'I can provide the sin if someone else can provide the energy'. This led to a temporary lull in the usage of the word but another black mark for Humes.
     I have a final suggestion to make dull meetings slightly more bearable. It involves taking a book along and displaying it prominently. Not any old book, but one with a significant title. Every year the book-trade magazine, The Bookseller, offers a prize for the oddest title of the year. A past winner was 'Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers'. Affecting extreme fascination with this at a meeting might just convey the message that proceedings could be livelier. A more pointed message would be to flourish 'Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research and Treatment'. Given my opening remark about preferring homicide to suicide, I would be inclined to go for the crime novel, 'A Passion for Killing'. The person in the chair, observing the maniacal gleam in my eye and my frequent glances at the clock, might just be encouraged to stick to the agenda, get through the business promptly and keep the nutters under control. As for the possibility that I myself might be one of the nutters, let's not drift into complete fantasy.