At work, I'm one of two people heading up an initiative to improve a web-based tool used day in and day out by our department. I don't know why, but they're some of the rowdiest meetings I've ever attended at work.
I've been in a lot of meetings (who hasn't?) and most of them are very cordial, mostly serious, very business-like. Then you attend my meeting, and it just gets inappropriate. At some point, someone turns into a 12-year-old boy and reads something into the phrase such as "getting her carpet cleaned." Today's meeting went 39 minutes before someone mentioned a pharmaceutical popular among the spamming sect.
A number of people in the meeting have been at the company for a long time, and trips down Amnesia Lane are not uncommon. Most of the time, these excursions are triggered when we explore the interface of this particular web-based tool and run across names of long-gone employees.
The attendance of the meetings has been pretty good, mostly because it really doesn't feel like a meeting. And I'm the person who schedules them, so ultimately, they're my meetings.
It makes me curious what factor makes this particular group so relaxed. I was talking to one of the other people who attend, and he says no one acts that way in the other meetings they share. I don't even act that way at other meetings. So what's happening here that's not happening elsewhere?
It's probably because I never lead any meetings, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. It's not like I've never led meetings before. I held them all the time when I was an editor at the college paper, and I took that role way too seriously. I haven't really taken up any leadership positions ever since because, well, they make me cranky.
It's part of the reason I was reluctant to be a point person for this initiative. I know my tendency to be … particular about how things should be done, and my coworkers have so far been spared from that. Thankfully, I have an experienced manager in the group who is far better at this kind of stuff, and I'm often more than glad to step back and let her run the ship. If anything, she's probably setting the tone for the meetings more than I am.
(Yeah. That's it. It's her fault.)
I can't rule out the mix of right personalities in the group either. Get some like-minded people in a room, and things get done without losing a sense of humor.
But I still wonder how the rambunctious tenor of these meetings reflects on my leadership ability. Does it portend good things or bad things? It might make me look charismatic, or it might make me look unable to take control.
Well, I'm not particularly fired up to find out.