Last night, as I was unsuccessfully attempting to go to bed early, I was having a conversation with one of my friends about the proliferation of meetings. As is often the case in my life, I have ambivalent feelings about meetings. Last night, as I was reflecting on the likelihood of a poor night’s sleep because I had to get up for an early conference call, and this morning, as I was getting up and getting ready for said conference call, I was not particularly pleased at the timing of the call, or the fact that meetings and conference calls and the like can often mean not doing what one would rather be doing, like sleeping or actually doing one’s job. That said, meetings often serve an importance far beyond the task of doing one’s job, and as such I find that they are worthwhile even where they are inconvenient. And so it proved in this case, as this morning’s conference call gave a very clear business purpose for one of the reports that has recently been made my responsibility that will involve a certain amount of money generated for the company I work for as a result of accurate and timely reporting. That will be incentive for me to get the report done, and incentive for others to make sure that I have the resources needed to do so. That alone made the meeting worthwhile, even if it had not provided anything else of interest.
For reasons I do not understand but frequently lament, I have spent my life as a part of institutions that did not communicate well. Whether it has been with regards to my own family, or whether I am talking about congregations I have attended or companies I have worked for, or even the schools I have attended, communication has been a consistent problem with most of these organizations. In such circumstances, meetings serve as a proxy for more regular communications. In such an environment, to be invited to meetings, even meetings that ramble, often lead to more work that is seldom paid attention to, and that often distract one from the job one is supposed to be doing, is to be kept in the loop, to have some idea of the larger picture one’s work is a part of, and is therefore worthwhile despite the inevitable tradeoffs of spending time listening and occasionally talking as opposed to merely doing one’s job in isolation, whether that job is in a business or in any number of the other places where I happen to be involved. In the absence of regular and widespread communication, meetings serve as a way to be reminded of larger purposes of which one is a part, as well as reminding others of one’s contribution to the greater whole. Both reminders are often necessary.
In that sense, meetings often serve as a necessary talking cure in institutions where there is otherwise not as much information flow as ought to be the case. In these situations, there are at least three types of meetings that are important and which facilitate communication. The first is the meeting before the meeting, which involves communication designed to present a common front or a common understanding among peers and colleagues before a larger meeting with a less cohesive group. The second is the meeting itself, with its agenda, its inevitable follow-up and determination to have another meeting to discuss the action steps that are required after the meeting is done. The third is the meeting after the meeting, where requirements are stated and where discussion seeks to complete tasks and prepare oneself for the next meeting, and so on and so forth. Thus the external inducement of meetings and the fact that they are often regularly scheduled and rescheduled with clear marching orders encourages communication that might otherwise not take place, regardless of who is to blame for the general lack of communication that may exist in a given context.
This connection between talk and action, moreover, serves to strengthen the overall health of the institution, making it seemingly inevitable that meetings would be required for an institution to do something if there is little tradition of ordinary and open communication present within that institution. In that context, where the only way to know about something is to be involved in meetings or to be directly informed by those who are in meetings, which may not tend to occur, it is little wonder that those who want to be a part of communications and the flow of information and data will either want to call for meetings where they do not exist or will want very much, as a general rule, to be a part of such meetings that exist. It is indeed possible that a fairly regular pattern of meetings, along with the inevitable work that is required to prepare for them, is one of the reasons why the Bible speaks of commanded assemblies in places like Leviticus 23 and commands believers not to abandon assembling with other brethren [1], given the way that regular meetings encourage regular communication and a sense of social cohesion that are lacked when there is no assembly from which people can engage in the talking cure, one of the most effective cures for isolation that exists wherever two or three, or more, are gathered together.
[1] See, for example:
Edge Induced Cohesion 
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