Years ago, I was sitting in a hotel hot tub with a management consultant to fortune 500 firms. I said that, in my opinion, managers spent way too much time in useless meetings, while they left the operations of their department to their administrative assistants. I said that my solution to greater corporate profitability would be to simply double the salaries of al the "secretaries" and fire their bosses. He answered "Yes, but I would be out of a job as well".

Jeff

(Who, while running my businesses, rarely had more than three people in a meeting and meetings rarely lasted more than a few minutes. I figured that, if they lasted longer, it meant that the participants were unprepared and time was being wasted by the others in the meeting. If others needed to know, then a second meeting of just those necessary was called. Most meetings took place with all participants standing up, again in the promotion of a speedy resolution. While my managers had a tremendous amount of autonomy, their compensation was generally tied to net profit for the company. The meetings were very democratic in nature. The other participants would lay out the data and then their opinions of what should be done. I would then decide on a course of action which they would follow. OK, so maybe not that democratic after all :-)