Transforming Meetings: From Doodles to Meaningful Dialogue

Picture it:
A long table.
Tepid coffee.
Someone is fiddling with the projector like it’s a cursed artefact.
The agenda is printed on A4, but the real agenda is survival.

You glance at the clock, wondering how this meeting has already eaten forty minutes of your life and produced nothing but a doodle in your notebook that looks suspiciously like a potato.

And yet, we keep doing it.
Meetings.
The ritual of gathering.
The theatre of nodding.
The choreography of “any other business.”

Meetings stir a familiar emotional cocktail:

• Hope: Maybe this time it’ll be productive.
• Frustration: Why are we circling the same point for the third time?
• Resignation: This is just how things are done. Please pass the biscuits.

The truth is, meetings are rarely neutral.
They’re either energising or draining, connective or alienating.
And too often, they lean toward the latter like a soggy sandwich at a catered lunch.

The cultural story of meetings is that they equal seriousness.
If something matters, it must be discussed in a meeting.
If you’re not in the meeting, you’re not important.
If you’re in the meeting but silent, you’re still technically “engaged.”

But this is a cultural hangover.
Meetings are performative spaces.
They signal legitimacy.
They say: We are doing governance properly.

The irony?
Much of the real work happens outside the meeting over emails, in corridors, in quiet one-to-ones, or while hiding in the loo with a snack.

Let’s be honest: many meetings are theatre.

• The grand speeches
• The ritual objections
• The carefully staged “debates” where everyone already knows the outcome
• The PowerPoint that could’ve been a poem, but instead is a spreadsheet with commitment issues

It’s like amateur dramatics, but with worse lighting and more acronyms.

And sometimes, the performance is the point.
Meetings reassure us that the machinery of decision-making is still turning, even if the cogs are rusty and someone spilt tea on the minutes.

Here’s the tension:
Meetings are supposed to be spaces for voice.
But often, they produce silence.

• Some people dominate the floor
• Others shrink back, unsure if their contribution will be welcomed
• The structure itself can exclude formal language, rigid agendas, unspoken hierarchies

The result?
Meetings that claim to be democratic but feel like a polite hostage situation.

If you find yourself in a meeting, here are some quiet reframes:

• What’s the real purpose of this gathering decision, connection, or performance?
• Whose voices are missing, and how might they be invited in?
• What would happen if we halved the time and doubled the honesty?
• Is this meeting a sanctuary for clarity or a swamp of repetition?

Bonus prompt:
Would this be better as a walk, a voice note, or a well-placed meme?

What if we reframed meetings not as default, but as deliberate?

• A meeting should be a sanctuary for clarity, not a swamp of repetition
• A meeting should be a space for connection, not just performance
• A meeting should leave people lighter, not heavier

Imagine if the default was no meeting.
And only when something truly required collective presence would we gather.

That would make meetings rare, precious, and purposeful.
Like a good biscuit. Or a well-timed compliment.

Meetings are not inherently bad.
They are tools.
But like any tool, they can be blunt or sharp, clumsy or elegant.

The point is not to abolish meetings.
It’s to reclaim them.
To make them spaces of meaning, not just minutes.

Because life is too short for potato doodles.
And governance deserves better lighting.