Meetings of the mind

Insurance professionals probably spend more time in more meetings than just about any other employees. While some thrive on meetings, not everybody does. According to a new study, meetings may be harder on those who are task-oriented than those who are a little more laid back about daily goals.

Entitled “Not Another Meeting: Are Meeting Time Demands Related to Employee Well-Being?” the report was written by researchers led by organizational psychologist Steven G. Rogelberg from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, along with Desmond J. Leach from the University of Sheffield and Jennifer L. Burnfield from Bowling Green State University.

The report, which appears in the March issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, found that more people view meetings as a positive part of a workday than they will admit publicly.

The study also finds that for some individuals meetings function as interruptions while for others they are welcome events. The effects of meetings on worker well-being is “moderated” by three different factors — by whether jobs specifically require group work, by whether the meetings were efficiently run, and, perhaps critically, by where the worker falls on the personality scale of her/his “accomplishment striving.”

The first two factors are not surprising. Even the most task-oriented robots probably recognize the value of meetings where group work is required. At the same time, even those who are oblivious to daily objectives must get annoyed at meetings that are poorly run and a complete waste of time.

But this study also suggests personality may color one’s attitude about meetings. People who are high in “accomplishment striving” are very task-focused, very goal-focused, and tend to have daily objectives that they want to get accomplished, according to the authors. Those with low accomplishment striving are not slackers; they just have a more “flexible orientation” and prefer for the day’s agenda to emerge more naturally.

“People who are high in accomplishment striving look at meetings more from the perspective of seeing them as barriers to getting real work done,” Rogelberg explains. “But the others may view meetings as a way to structure their day or a way to network and socialize. As a result, these people see meetings as a good thing.”

The hunch here is that anti-meeting feelings are a bit less intense if the participants are not in the same room physically but instead meeting long distance by videoconferencing or teleconferencing. Remember the television ad where the employee props a photo of himself at work in front of the videocam to make it appear he’s present when he’s otherwise occupied sipping a cool beverage? I wonder where he might rate on the accomplishment striving scale.

Even the most rabid anti-meeting maniacs probably don’t mind meetings that involve teleconferencing with audio but no video. They can continue writing, e-mailing or even eating lunch in their pajamas while the meeting is on and nobody is the wiser. They get to be at the meeting and they get some work done, too, which is, after all is said and done, what they get paid for.