As many of my regular readers will know, I still have a day job. Thus, I must still deal with the rigors of the corporate world. I just had a somewhat unpleasant experience (quite ridiculous, actually), and I wanted to steer any managers out there from this type of behavior.

Last Friday, at the end of the day, the whole team had a meeting to discuss the gameplan for the following week (this week). We set specific goals for fixes, improvements, and innovations. Despite the fact that I have a natural aversion to meetings, I found this all rather reasonable.

However, that reason flew right out the front door this morning when my boss called another meeting, first thing Monday morning. The last thing we did on the very last day of work was discuss our plans. Then, the first thing we did on the very next day of work was discuss our plans. We had to repeat what we had said, despite the fact that it was still written up on the whiteboard, a mere three feet away.

Managers, please don’t subject your staff to such ridiculous behavior. If something had changed over the weekend, another meeting would have been justified, but nothing happened. It was as if my boss had simply forgotten what we talked about, and was too lazy to look up at the board and read it. The meeting was ridiculous, and half of the staff left shaking their heads and muttering amongst themselves how stupid our boss is. If you take this type of approach with your direct reports, that may be what they say about you behind your back. As a manager, can you really afford to have a staff that doesn’t respect you?

Trust your people, give them a task and let them do it, refrain from holding redundant meetings, and let your actions command respect. In other words, be a good manager.