Meetings are very often a total waste of time. I don’t remember the last time a meeting was convened because of something concrete, useful and meaningful. Most often it is a story that repeats itself over and over again and that not only consumes my time, but tires me so much that after that I can do nothing more. I don’t know if I’m right, but I’d like the number of meetings to be reduced at least a little bit.
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Oh but we are suppose to be disruptive, challenge the status quo, and improve our processes!
All the senior level Rah Rah meetings are a joke as Ford middle managers have no intention of changing a thing.
We have a daily two hour meeting to generate disruptive ideas and discuss how to improve processes. Well that is what our LL6 and LL5 report upwards. Yes, we are all required to attend this daily two hour meeting. It is a social hour filled with gossip and sharing photos. We are all required to share photos of our pets, house, and family to be a team player. The very first meeting one person suggested an actual improvement and the rest of the team fell on him like a pack of hyenas, after that there has been no mention of disruption or improvements.
Yet another Ford exercise in futility. Long live the Ford bureaucracy and endless waste.
Absolutely correct. My father said the same thing. Learn to sleep with your eyes open. His parking spot had his name on it too.
Be wise and learn the ancient Chinese art of sleeping while appearing to still be awake. You can go very far with this technique. My parking spot had my name on it. Choose wisely.
@1suq+19VUiudi "Well, enjoy your easy jobs while they last"
Well Sir, if there is something I learned during the SRD, is that it does not matter how much you work, or how good is your work. You can still be let go while the deadwood stays or get promoted.
Let's be clear about something: If I don't attend meetings I'd lose my job. If my manager demands that I go to all meetings instead of doing engineering work, how can I refuse? FYI, I already had that "conversation" (more like we had an argument).
If I go to all meetings and work very hard on my own time, there is no guarantee that I'll keep my job. Why would I work my @ss off then, when Ford does not appreciate it? Why would I give unpaid hours of my life to the company? I work because I need the money, not because it "feels good".
I understand your frustration because I was too. That's why I though of leaving the company. Then I started thinking ... Why should I suffer or leave FMC? I am not the one doing things wrong. Even with less time to do things, I still produce more than other people.
Easy job? Maybe. Sometimes it takes greater mental energy dealing with id–ts in those useless meetings than actually working. I still do engineering work (just less hours a week), I still keep my skills honed, I still want to work. Just as I said before, I am ready to leave (preferably when it is the most convenient time for me), and no longer believe I'll retire at Ford.
I was tired of being afraid, upset, overworked. It was taking a toll on my health because I cared about the company, I cared about improving things, I cared about my job, I was too invested. Why? No one ever said on their deathbed ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’
Not being afraid of losing my job, because I consider it already lost, has lifted a heavy weight from my shoulders. Like when you give the 2 weeks notice to the company, you stop worrying, don't care much of what happens next (no more emotional involvement), that's how I feel now. I am looking now at the future (my future), planning what I am going to next.
Thanks
@1bmf I am going to add to your statement.
Get woke, become a joke, go broke
My supplier experience was management was pretty competent and you pretty much knew what to expect from them, you followed a pretty stable process to present them info, and they did not do a lot of emotional gotcha bs to show off or make you look bad.
My Ford experience was the management weren't very competent and there was too much emotional/political posturing to try to make themselves look good instead of rational discussion and questioning of issues.
As I stated in another post we live in a post reality world where we are forced to confess to lies so it does not surprise me there is a lot of politics and lying instead of rationally discussing issues in the mode of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Deming, Churchill, etc.
Get woke, go broke.
Absolutely correct. I have had a lot of meetings presenting to upper management. Just going over the balance of not putting in too much info on a PowerPoint (to avoid hard questions) to make sure there is not to little information, can take hours. What needs to be done, is have the metric inversely proportional to the hours of meetings per group/department. Management would be reviewed on how many hours of meetings (AND NUMBERS OF EMPLOYEES IN MEETINGS) it took to meet there metric. Right now, meetings are see as a way to be "seen" by the lower management to the upper management. The more the better.. but this comes as an expense (increased work load) to the employees, and ultimately lower productivity for the company as a whole. Just like cars were once seen as the bigger and heavier the better, and fuel efficiency didn't matter.
@1ybm+19VUiudi, @1wsf+19VUiudi
Well, enjoy your easy jobs while they last. Not everyone can delegate their work off , or not everyone is working and doesn't really need the job. No financial investment? Delegate work off? There are people on this board stating that up to 50% of engineers could be laid off and Ford productivity would continue just fine. It look like they are right. Just wait until you have to find another job.. so what are your skill sets? Uhm... going to meetings and managing emails. LOL. Hopefully you guys can retire.
@OP and @1wsf+19VUiudi
I understand both of you because I was/am in your shoes. I used to decline meetings, specially if the meeting was not related to me. BTW, a lot of meetings are created by people with no idea of the technical requirements or the support teams involved, and they , as I was told in one of those meetings, "cast a wide net to make sure all the proper teams are in the meeting".
Anyway, after declining meetings and dropping of others (I'd ask at the beginning of the meeting if I was really needed), it seems someone complained to my manager. My manager told me I had to accept and assist to all the meetings as part of my job. Since then, I do it.
At the time, I was thinking of leaving the company. However, I changed my mind. Why would I leave a comfortable well paid position, and throw a wrench in my personal plans? just because now I have to spend more time in meetings? I still get paid the same. I still do engineering work. I still work the same amount of hours. If Ford decides that I should spend time in useless meetings instead of engineering work, well that's on them and I don't own any Ford shares.
Sometimes I do waste my time in useless meetings (like right now I writing a post in the middle of one). Sometimes I do engineering work while in the useless meeting, if I want to. Some days when I have 5-6 hours of meetings, I tell my manager that I could not do anything because of the meetings. And above all, I don't commit to any deadlines, because of the unknown meetings and other cr@p like that.
Since I decided to stay in the company, I adapted accordingly: I prepared myself to be always ready for layoff, my finances are in order, I have some savings and I detached myself from FMC (no financial or emotional investment). Something I learned when I was trying to leave the company, managers would not provide a recommendation letter due to HR policies. So it does not matter how good or bad your job would be, your only proof of having worked at Ford is your paycheck. This last item makes it easier for me.
So I keep living my life, and I don't daydream anymore about retiring at Ford. Actually I moved to Florida last year, without knowing for sure if I had to comeback to the office on July 1st. Worst case scenario, I would quit my job (I was already in "layoff mode" anyways) and besides, for all I know, I could loose my job any moment. So why not enjoy life a little, while I can?
Thanks
The issue too many meetings has always been a problem. For my over 20yrs, people complain, the CEO of the moment tells people to cut them down. Never happens because we have too many in the management ranks and each believe THEIR MEETINGS are critical and others are not. So Wash, Rinse, Repeat. Also, the execs are delusional if they do not understand the simple fact that every meeting they have drives sometimes 100s of pre & supporting working meetings. How? Simple math. They have a single meeting with let's say 10 people. Those 10 each have sets of meetings to prep for that meeting. Each of those 10 attendee's staff then have a series of support meetings to prep and feed the work up to the original attendee. Wait, still not done......as that original attendee also has peripheral peer/ cross-functional meetings to socialize what they intend to present to the exec to make sure it is politically correct. These peripheral people then also have their own sets within their ecosystems for general communications as FYI &/or CYA that something is coming. All this just for each exec meeting. This doesn't even include how this behavior is replicated at every level of management and how then each of their forum distribution list contains at least 50-100 invites. Summing it all up, IF Farley REALLY wanted to stop the meeting madness is to start with themselves. Then apply strict limitations on each following level. Example, you are allowed to have no more than "X" number recurring meetings because of the workload it drives. Otherwise we continue with the mess we've always been in.
I have a lot of deadlines to meet. But I can’t meet them because I spend too much time in useless meetings. So my manager redistributes my workload to those who think skipping meetings justifies their work. So the task gets done, the deadline is met, and all I had to do was snooze through more meetings and ppt presentations. I get paid as well, or better, as my teammates because I am “a team player” by fooling management their meetings are important. And I’ll be the last to be laid off. So get on board the gravy train and enjoy the ride.
You must not have very many deadlines to meet. Getting though a days meetings is like going though an obstacle course.
Your are correct SIR! Even former CEO's who authored books state that there are too many meetings are a waste of time. More focus on objectives that is what is needed.
You'll have to leave Ford and go to a supplier. Suppliers have their share of wasteful meetings, but not nearly as much as the OEMs. Suppliers also tend to be more on the Tech side of things, where as the OEMs are more focused on program management type roles. The OEMs are nice if you're near retirement , but if you're younger get out, and into a more tech role at a supplier. The tech skills are in higher demand in case if you have to look for a new job. Avoid wiring, quality, warranty roles, as these roles tend to have more meetings then other roles.
Look at it as free time. You sit and do nothing while still being paid. I actually would enjoy MORE meetings.