Instead of taking responsibility for choices within their authority, they schedule "consultation sessions" and "stakeholder input meetings" to spread accountability around. This creates decision paralysis disguised as collaborative leadership.
A construction company in Cairns was losing contracts because their project approval process required five separate meetings over three weeks. Competitors were winning jobs by making decisions in days while this company was still scheduling discussion sessions.
The irony is that most meeting participants would prefer someone just make the bloody decision rather than enduring endless consultation about obvious choices.
After sitting through approximately 2,847 workplace meetings over my career (yes, I kept count for a while), I can categorise them into three types:
Information sharing meetings that could have been emails. These are usually status updates where people report on work everyone already knows they're doing.
Decision-making meetings where no decisions get made because nobody wants to take responsibility for choices that might have consequences.
Alignment meetings that exist solely to make managers feel like they're managing something, regardless of whether alignment was actually needed.
The fourth type—genuine problem-solving sessions where groups tackle complex challenges together—represents maybe 15% of the meetings I've observed.
Every hour spent in meetings is an hour not spent on deliverable work. But the real cost is higher because meetings fragment the day, making deep work impossible.
If you have three 30-minute meetings scattered throughout your day, you haven't lost 90 minutes—you've lost your ability to concentrate on complex tasks for the entire day.
Knowledge work requires uninterrupted blocks of time. Meetings destroy this by creating artificial urgency around communication that could happen asynchronously.
A software development team in Melbourne tracked their productivity before and after implementing "meeting-free mornings." Code quality improved by 28% and project delivery accelerated by 40% simply by protecting four hours of focused work time.
Remote work was supposed to reduce meeting overhead by eliminating travel time and making quick conversations easier. Instead, it's multiplied meeting frequency because digital interaction feels "free."
People schedule video calls for discussions that would have been brief hallway conversations. They create recurring check-ins because they're paranoid about losing visibility with remote teams.
The result is meeting fatigue that's worse than anything we experienced in traditional offices.
I worked with a government agency in Darwin where team leaders were holding daily video check-ins, weekly one-on-ones, fortnightly planning sessions, and monthly strategic reviews. People were spending 45% of their time talking about work instead of doing it.
When we eliminated redundant meetings and moved to asynchronous updates for routine information, workplace anxiety decreased significantly and actual project completion rates doubled.
Most workplace communication doesn't require real-time group discussion. People need:
Clear information about priorities and expectations. This can be documented and shared without meetings.
Quick clarification on specific issues. Phone calls or brief conversations work better than scheduled discussions.
Problem-solving support when they're stuck. This happens organically when managers are accessible, not during formal team meetings.
Regular feedback on performance and development. One-on-one conversations, not group sessions.
The teams with excellent communication habits rarely need formal meetings because they've developed systems for staying connected through actual work collaboration.
Most managers schedule excessive meetings because they don't know other ways to stay informed about team progress or feel connected to work outcomes.
They confuse activity with management and visibility with leadership. This is a skills problem disguised as a communication problem.
Effective managers get information through work systems, brief individual conversations, and observation of actual outcomes. They don't need to gather everyone in a room weekly to understand what's happening.
The best time management training I've seen focuses specifically on helping managers reduce meeting dependency while maintaining team effectiveness.
If you want to reclaim productivity and sanity, here's what actually works:
Cancel recurring meetings that don't serve clear purposes. Most weekly team meetings could be monthly or eliminated entirely.
Default to 15-minute discussions instead of 30-60 minute blocks. Most workplace issues can be resolved quickly if people focus on solutions rather than extended analysis.
Use asynchronous communication for information sharing. Project updates, status reports, and routine announcements don't require live discussion.
Make meeting agendas specific and actionable. "Team catch-up" isn't an agenda. "Resolve client delivery issue and assign responsibilities" is.
Organisations that solve their meeting addiction will dominate their industries within the next few years.
While competitors are stuck in endless discussion cycles, companies with streamlined communication will be delivering results faster, making decisions more quickly, and attracting talent who want to do meaningful work rather than attend workplace theatre.