When I first started working as an intern back in 1999, I looked
forward to office life. Going into the office felt like I had a purpose and I
actually looked forward to meetings. As an intern, still learning the ways of the
world, being in a meeting felt like I was important enough to be look
important.
Now that I’ve been around the corporate scene for over two
decades, I’ve come to realise that what I once felt about corporate was utterly
correct. Things like offices and meetings are, more often than not, all about
the look and feeling important. Its not that looking good and feeling good aren’t
important. Now that I’m focused on fitness, I realise that when you feel and
look good, you tend to perform better.
I also recognise that gatherings are important. There is a
reason why “solitary” is the worst punishment in prison. So, yes things like
gatherings and dare I say, meetings have their uses in the economic system that
we function in.
Yet, there’s also a point where we have to ask ourselves
whether allot of the meetings we attend are about social connection for the
sake of looking good or are they actually necessary. I think of the phrase “mental
masturbation” when it comes to allot of corporate meetings and conventions. Let’s
ask ourselves why are certain things meetings and not, say, emails. More often
than not, allot of gatherings are more about the show and the feelings of
certain individuals in the given organisation than they are about anything that’s
actually productive.
Case in point, the recent meeting between the Secretary of War
and his generals, which took place on Tuesday, 30 September 2025 to every four-star
officer in the US military. The very act of summoning every four-star officer
and their advisors to a single location was a major talking point. Everyone was
asking why was this done. What was the importance of this meeting that the
officers had to drop everything?
This meeting turned out to be a session of what can only be
called “mental masturbation” where the Secretary of War and the President got
to ramble on about their favourite topics.
I’ll leave the deep heavy analysis of what was said to
intelligent people. The point here is that we have to ask ourselves if anything
was actually achieved. Could this “meeting” actually have to be a meeting at
all? Neither Trump or Hegseth said anything that they hadn’t said before. The
point was not so much what was said but the fact that everyone was gathered in
one place to listen. The emphasis was on fact that the gathering was made
rather than why.
Much was being made of the silence in room. There was on
applause and every picture of the audience that we’ve been shown, shows a group
of men looking exceedingly p***** off. Even Trump couldn’t help but notice the
silence and tried to get people to react:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqJ1ChZnTI
For Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth, this was a grand moment. Two men
who had never fought anything tougher than a Marshmallow had the chance to
lecture a group of people who had fought a number of wars each. Given that the
military is one of the more respected institutions in the USA, this was
undoubtedly a great opportunity.
Once again, let’s leave the speeches aside and focus on the event.
It was at its core, a meeting designed for the boss to feel good. Did costs
money? Undoubtedly did. Generals and Admirals had to be flown in from various parts
of the world and accommodated for at least a day. Did it do anything productive?
That is highly debateable (only if you redefine the term productive).
Everything that was said could have been said in a memo or an email.
Here in lies the truism of the modern work place. People are
increasingly busy yet productivity remains dreadfully low. A good part of the
problem comes from dealing with people in positions of power who are focused on
ego rather than on actually doing anything useful.
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