Meeting Etiquette

I am taking you back to a ten year old incident.

I was part of a five member delegation team who visited a college in Bangalore. A team of six people headed by a Professor from this sparkling college campus gave us a warm welcome and seated us in a lavish meeting room. The chairs were very comfortable and over-sized, something like saloon chairs!

The hospitality offered by the campus was something unmatchable. Even as a bridegroom, I was not given such royal treatment! First came a crystal clear glass of water. It was around 11 am, I was very thirsty, I had half a cup of water.

As we were exchanging pleasantries, the attender who served us water appeared again. The Professor asked us ‘what would you like to have?’ we said anything is okay.I think the attender understood the meaning.

As the discussion was in progress,(and definitely the discussion was not on any topic in the agenda!)the attender appeared with nice cup-saucers, filled with coffee and served it to all of us.  Before the introduction was over, the attender appeared with 4 plates of Good Day biscuits! He placed them between 2 or 3 of us. As a loyal attender he placed one plate in front of the Professor.

By then (we had wasted around 45 minutes) couple of us in the delegation team were becoming restless and eagerly wanted to start and conclude the discussion! That is when the Professor (who had Good Day buscuits in front of him) asked us to take coffee.

One of our team members said “Sir, Shall we start?” (he meant the discussion), but the Professor took a sip of coffee and started dipping Goodday biscuits into the coffee cup. I am not exaggerating, he simply focused on the coffee cup, dipping biscuits into it and started eating them (and continuously nodding his head to the points mentioned by my teammate)

I must tell you, it was a very disappointing and unprofessional behavior.

What can we learn from the above?

• If there is no meaningful discussion, the add-ons such as fancy chairs, tasty coffee or lovely treatment has no value. On the other hand, if there is a quality deliberation, then wooden chairs or coffee in paper cups will do. 
• The pleasantries and introductions should be short; and move to the topic quickly
• Discussion on general topics such as politics, weather, food price, extended hours of opening bars and restaurants in the city etc. should not dilute the agenda. Ideally, immediately after the brief introduction, the points in the agenda should be discussed.
• The biscuits served in a meeting are as a meeting decorum; normally one should avoid eating them.
• At the most if you wish to eat, take one biscuit and chew gently (without dipping into coffee cup; as if you have not seen biscuits in the past!) 
• If you are diabetic and the meeting extends beyond lunch time, maybe take 2 biscuits.
• I have observed some people will always stare at the biscuit plate. These people will alternately see the biscuit plate and then the face of the person talking, as if this is the first time they have seen such an expensive biscuit on earth!
• If you are so fond of biscuits, eat one full pack before entering the meeting room. Remember you are in a meeting room and not in an eating room!

Meetings should complement work and not be the alternative to work 

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