"The Meeting"

Ever think about how economics work? No? At the roots of economics is this: You make or do something that you sell to someone else to get money that you can then use to buy what they make or do. Barter works the same way. You grow pigs and trade them for veggies or pots or fripperies that were produced by people who wanted pigs.
I have come to believe that the same system exists within many if not all organizations. This system is organized around “The Meeting”. In Educational Institutions meetings are the currency. Meetings occur on a daily basis, and the outcome of many is to set a time to meet again, and to refer issues to groups that must have meetings that in turn report back to the first group in, you guessed it, a meeting.
Periodically there are meetings to bring the results of other meetings together for review. These meetings usually result in the distribution or redistribution of tasks back to the groups that reported, thus safely generating more meetings to keep everyone employed.
In fairness, sometimes something emerges from a meeting that is not immediately sent to another group to meet about. These things are called “Decisions”. After all is said and done, Decisions are usually the product of one or two people who actually run the highest meetings, and ideally, but not always, are reached using the consultations derived from all the other meetings. Naturally, after a Decision is reached, the impact must be thoroughly reviewed and evaluated in a whole series of? You got it: MEETINGS!

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