A Disconnect in Meetings


business cartoon showing in and out bins

My last day job had lots of meetings. Lots and lots and lots of meetings.

Morning meetings, sales meeting, end-of-week meetings, motivational meetings, management meetings, meetings to coordinate all the meetings ….   Of course I got lots of great material, but I think probably my favorite meeting cartoon is the one above because it represents what happened after each meeting I attended.

Everyone in the meeting would agree, nod their heads and clap until whoever was leading the meeting wrapped things up. Then, without fail, everyone would return to their desks, lean over their half-cubicle walls and expound on exactly why nothing in that meeting would actually work.

With a disconnect like that it’s no wonder we spent so much time in meetings.

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Mark Anderson, professional cartoonist

About the Author: Mark Anderson’s cartoons appear in publications including The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. Anderson is the creator of the popular cartoon website, Andertoons.com, where he licenses his cartoons for presentations, newsletters and other projects. He blogs at Andertoons cartoon blog.

10 Comments ▼

Mark Anderson Mark Anderson's cartoons appear in publications including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. His business cartoons are available for licensing at his website, Andertoons.com.

10 Reactions
  1. Anita: Maybe this cartoon could lead to a webinar meeting on the topic meetings?

    Mark: “meetings to coordinate all the meetings” is spot on!

    Now it is time for me to have a meeting with EGO, I, me and myself. 🙂 This evening I will have a after work meeting with a friend who has a question about Facebook. Have a great end of the week and weekend!

  2. Martin, let’s set up a meeting to talk about that… 😉

  3. Martin, Mark,

    OK, I’ll put that meeting on my calendar right now!

    – Anita

  4. Mark: I am open to do that! Do you have Skype or Gmail chat? You could reach me at Lyceum1776 @ Skype and Lyceum@Gmail.com @ Gmail chat.

  5. Anita: Good to hear that! I have to sync it with Google calendar and manually write it in my new Moleskine weekly notebook diary when we have decided on a date and a time! 🙂 Time to go “back to basics”… 😉

  6. I have to agree. . . too funny!

    This cartoon made me laugh out loud, Mark! Had a prior job like that myself and things pretty much went exactly the same way 🙂

  7. That’s why I left my job three months ago.

  8. love it. reminds me of my corporate days.