There’s something magical about productive, inspirational meetings. Jon Petz, a former corporate sales executive who left the world of power lunches and private jets to work as a comedian and magician, would like to think that little bit of magic that produces great meetings is him. But he realizes that great meetings are held every day that he’s not part of.
He also knows that thousands of boring, useless meetings are held daily in offices around the world. He knows because he participated in many just like them. Participated, that is, until he took a stand by refusing to attend them, which led to leading workshops on effective meetings, which led to his new career as a keynote speaker and the author of a book whose title — “Boring Meetings Suck” — sums up the frustration of all of those who are still subjected to the kind of meetings that Petz permanently excused himself from.
At the dawning of the dot-com era, Petz was part of a 15-person company that grew to 1,500 employees.
“I was their golden boy salesperson, flying on investors’ jets to meet with billionaires at Martha Stewart Living, Disney…you name it,” he says. “I was 27 years old and flying with billionaires. I learned all about getting in, getting it done, and getting out. I saw the importance of socialization and building relationships in these business leaders’ world, but when it was time for these guys to talk shop and get things done, it was all about getting it done. It was an eye-opening opportunity.”
It was also a way of doing business that stuck with Petz even when the dot-com era blew up and he found himself managing 250 sales reps for a large, independent insurance company.
“It was the most god-awful meeting environment I’ve ever been to in my life,” he says. “These were salespeople, but I called them donut carriers. We had executive board meetings where there was no agenda, no mission and no desired outcome.”
Petz eventually began demanding a reason he needed to attend before going to any meeting. “It became known as the ‘Jon Petz Rule:’ If you don’t have an agenda, Petz isn’t showing up.”
They asked their smarty-pants meeting snob to put together an effective meetings outline for the rest of the company to follow. Petz led his first effective meetings workshop in 2002. He offered the workbook he developed for sale on Amazon.com and it sold pretty well.
“It was the irrelevant approach that people liked. Too often, the quick response to any issue was, ‘we better have a meeting.’ I was the guy who was sick and tired of being sick and tired of people abusing my time — not having a mission, not having a goal, and doing déjà vu meetings because no one took notes the week before.”
Asked whether sales leaders rank at the top of offenders, Petz says, “I don’t know that I can put anyone on top. Sales managers rank high along with IT people, who you think would be good, but they just don’t shut up. Salespeople lack patience, which adds to the fire of being disgruntled about bad meetings.”
Many sales teams have an annual off-site event — The Big Ones, Petz calls them. He has a chapter in his book called “Big Meetings Suck Even Bigger…Get Some Help or Suffer the Consequences.” The Big Ones aren’t bad in and of themselves, he says, but lack of planning and knowledge of what to plan makes them suck. In other words, a lot of the same mistakes that lead to ineffective office meetings are repeated here on a grander, more expensive stage.
“If you don’t build your objectives into it, now you don’t just have the 10-person meeting. Imagine the budget that has gone into making this happen,” Petz says. “If you don’t walk out of it with some real outcomes and return on investment, who knows what the loss of productivity we could detail is?”
Research and surveys he has conducted reveal a negative attitude toward off-site annual meetings. Some 60 percent of attendees said they are mostly a means for the CEO to prattle on about the direction of the company without ever asking for input.
“People picked on it to no end,” Petz says.
Annual off-site events, when done well, are an opportunity to share a new message, a new focus and get to get employees involved in helping to make those decisions.
“The part that some are missing is that pre-work, what I call the pre-collaboration — the opportunity for salespeople to contribute.” Salespeople should be asked to come to the event with questions, answers and objectives: Here are the challenges I’ve had; Here are the vendors I need to know more about. It should be about opening up so that everyone is a part of the planning and the eventual solution, Petz says.
