Often people don't know that there are different tools that make it possible to collaborate. The tool that everyone knows are meetings.

A toolbox with one tool

It feels to me that when it comes to collaboration in the workplace we have a big toolbox that has only one tool. Imagine if you had to build a chair only with a hammer. Sure it's possible, but that would be a painful experience and the chair might look funny in the end.

It's not that meetings are bad per se. It's just that when it's the only tool you have for collaboration then it starts to become a bad tool.

And then meeting suck

What happens when meetings are our only tool? Let me share a few studies findings with you:

According to Doodle's 2019 State of Meetings report, the cost of poorly organized meetings in 2019 will reach $399 billion in the U.S. and $58 billion in the U.K — Source

Half of meetings are considered meetings wasted time — Source

We will see in the end of this chapter that meetings are a great tool for certain types of collaborations. And workshop are better for other types of collaborations and challenges. 

But before that, let's discover a few other problems with collaboration in the workplace today.