154 Consulting

I sat in on a client's meeting yesterday at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center. It's a nice facility with both "ballroom" style setups auditorium-like classrooms. But it's the facility's motto, not the facility itself, that really caught my attention.

Plastered across the front of the podium during the session, and on many many other surfaces in the facility, was the motto: "When meeting outcomes matter."

Leaving aside my discomfort with the use of "outcomes" instead of "results," the motto made me uneasy. If the outcomes of a meeting *don't* matter, then why hold the meeting at all?

This motto either suggests that all meetings should be held at Georgia Tech (a novel pitch), or that meetings with no reason to take place should nonetheless be held - and are indeed the standard. We've all had to sit through meetings with no clear purpose, but it's a sad thing that we've reached a point at which a conference center can stake it's claim for clients on the fact that most meetings aren't meaningful.