Posted by Steve Lettau on Sep 14, 2017

By Frank Bures from The Rotarian Magazine

Imagine, if you will, the worst meeting of your life: The clock moves more slowly than the laws of physics should allow. Garbled strands of jargon fall from the mouths of those around you. Whatever vague goals had been uttered before the meeting are forgotten, left far behind, like roadkill on a long ride to nowhere.

That trapped feeling is probably as old as the first tribal gathering. And judging by some books for sale today ("Meetings Suck," "Death by Meeting"), not much has changed in the intervening millennia.

Meetings may be one of the most maligned and dreaded of humanity’s rituals, but they are not going away. Nor should they: Every week, some 1.2 million Rotarians meet around the world in an effort to make it a little better. Every year, meetings, conferences, and conventions across the United States inject around $280 billion into the economy. And every day, millions of people meet at their workplace to try to move their company toward some goal.