Coworkers, meetings and your calendar

“Let's grab a quick sync... to prep for the sync”

I sit through meetings that could have been a two-line email.

What's really going on

• Not every meeting is wasted. Writing is easy to misread (tone, sarcasm and intent get lost), so anything that needs real back-and-forth, a decision, or a sensitive conversation usually works better live. The problem is meetings used for pure information transfer or status updates that a message would have covered just as well.
• Meetings often serve a purpose that has nothing to do with the agenda: they make the organizer look on top of things, they turn a decision into a shared one nobody can be blamed for alone, or they're just someone senior using the ability to claim your time.
• Recurring status meetings are the worst offenders, because nobody re-checks them once they're on the calendar. "We've always had this meeting" isn't a reason to keep it.
• The numbers back up the frustration: a large share of senior managers admit most meetings are unproductive, a third of employees say they sit in meetings that should have been emails, and HBR estimates professionals now spend 20+ hours a week in meetings.

What to say

"Happy to join. What are we hoping to decide or come out with? Just want to show up prepared."

Change the words so they sound like you, but keep the tone.