The Irony of Meetings
Recently I was asked to give a talk to a group of mostly accounting professionals on how they/we can make meetings more enjoyable. I could have simply gone over the information in chapter five of my book, but I’m a giver, so I went and found some other, more accounting related ideas to help them get into the groove. Of course my focus was on how they could use humor and levity to make meetings more enjoyable. But today’s post does something a little different. It focuses more on a wonderful historical irony I found about meetings. So yes, there’s humor today, but more of a “Hey. Isn’t that funny,” sort of way.
“What’s the humor/irony that you found?” I’m so glad you asked. But before I give you the joke right off, let me explain how I found it.
The initial hook of my talk was to find a way to get them laughing early on—a really important goal if your talk is on humor. So I told them I didn’t know much about accounting in any real sense and then told them that my research consisted mainly of going to “reputable web-sources” like reddit and meme sites to learn as much as I could. I have to say, they enjoyed the memes. I then segued into going through some more appropriately thought through research on why meetings are viewed with such disdain. There were far too many enthusiastic nods to that statement. Meetings, as we all seem to know, are the enemy of getting stuff done. We gripe about them, we complain, we do everything we can to avoid them including not going to them. But they persist. It’s like a bad running gag in our work lives, but not the funny, endearing one. I thought maybe to compare it to one of those routine and unpleasant medical check-ups where we’re poked and prodded. But then that wasn’t a good one because at least with a colonoscopy mammogram, there’s a health benefit. Mostly it seems that we really don’t see a benefit to meetings, and that can’t be good.
So here’s the little historical nugget on meetings that literally stopped me in my tracks.
There’s an archangel/patron saint of meetings—Raphael. Not a regular old, lower-level angel, but one of the top lieutenants of the angelic host, the Archangel Raphael. That alone had me gob smacked. But there’s more. It turns out that Raphael is also the Archangel of healing—his name translates to “God has healed.” Somewhere in the history of the world, some people, folks in the Catholic church, thought that meetings were so important in our lives that they gave the job of overseeing them to an archangel. Not only that, the archangel of healing. People actually thought that meetings were somehow related to healing. Meetings and healing were close enough that one angel got them. I still shake my head as I type those words.
This, of course, begs the question, what were meetings like and how rewarding were they, that they were seen as part of the healing!? We pretty much hold the opposite view—meetings aren’t healing. They’re soul-sucking abysses where productivity, engagement, and achievement go to die.
So that’s it, that’s the irony. Somewhere in our history meetings were seen as healing, important, and highly useful. Our experience is quite the opposite, so what gives? On a side note, it’s wonderful when you find little historical trinkets like this. This is clearly one of the awesome benefits of having so much information at your fingertips.
I think that’s good for this post. For the next one, I want to explore some ways in which we can make meetings better and turn them maybe not into a healing fun-fest, but at least bring them away from the abyss they seem to inhabit. Not only do we have to meet for a long list of reasons, meetings should actually be seen with some anticipation. Like, “Hey. I get to got to a meeting today!” Not, as we too often express, “Really, another meeting!” <grumble>