I am working on several projects to help in-house marketing departments shift into a higher-functioning gear.

• In one case, it’s a matter of thinking up strategies and tactics together.
• In another, it’s all to do with providing a business rationale for each activity.
• In another it’s a rather serious business of assessing the team’s strengths and weaknesses, with a view to filling skills gaps.

So long as everyone on each of these exercises enters the project with openness, willingness to co-operate, absence of protectionism or obfuscation… then none of these client organisations have any thought of getting rid of anyone. None. They all want to foster and develop the people they have.

Do I agree with this approach?

Pretty much… yes.

I can think of one instance where a team member appears willing and open to change and develop. But the words, in this instance, speak louder than actions. One of those instances where – time after time – they have nodded sagely at the criticism, said they completely agree, agreed to knuckle down… but it never really happens for more than a metaphorical five minutes… and then at the next review, it’s the same stuff all over again.

Yet – in the vast majority of cases – I have had the pleasure of meeting (and positively assessing!) a whole raft of really very talented, and committed, people.

At the same time, I am hearing from everyone how they need outside assistance to get their work done on time, to plan, on target.

Part of our job is then to source the forces they need from our network of trusted supply-side firms. Sometimes it’s us direct. Sometimes it’s other skill sets than ours.

Why, though, should these in-house professionals need additional help?

Especially when you consider that – in my very humble opinion – they’re all rather good at actually doing the task in hand – analytics, press relations, content creation, paid and organic social, campaign management, yada yada.

When quizzed, the answer is simple – the paralysis of meetings.

They are pulled into meetings right, left and Chelsea.

Of course, their voice should be participatory and heard in those meetings. That’s not the issue.

The issue is that there are simply FAR TOO MANY MEETINGS.

A deeper dive reveals that much time is taken up/wasted by:

• People who aren’t much good at execution, so constantly have more meetings
• People (bosses) who just love the sound of their own voices
• Opinions and suggestions from colleagues who simply have no idea what they’re talking about or qualifications/experience to make a judgement (you know… the people who say “Surely it’s just common sense that blah blah blah”. Blithering idiots!)
• ‘Pure’ managers who have never been at the coal face
• People who should have listened to the conversation at the beginning and then raise objections far too far down the line
• Bullies and trouble-makers who are either just nasty pieces of work, or are trying to deflect attention from their own inadequacies

All that leaves the mainly excellent people I deal with, with no time to do their job. So they have to hire externals… like us.

Now, there is much to be said for a hybrid workforce – combining in-house & agency. But only if in-house is given the room to do what they do best without masses of wasted, pointless meeting time.

I can think of a good number of our clients who have got this balance just right.

Yet all the consulting jobs I’m doing at the moment have this one thing in common holding back the productivity of in-house excellence – the paralysis of meetings.

The UK is well-known for its poor productivity.

Maybe a radical reform of meeting-itis would shift the dial.