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We have a monthly meeting in our practice.
It’s awful.
An ego trip for the practice manager.
It’s boring and pointless. I get frustrated and so am not my best self when the few subjects that I do care about come up on the agenda.
Everyone else seems to manage to zone out. I find that impossible without making it obvious by fiddling on my phone.
The partners hate it too, but they’re too chicken to do anything about it.
WWSTD?
Next time, in the meeting, be brave and say out loud 'this isnt working for me, and i dont think its working for other team members either, its not a productive use of our time'.......
Watch the sighs of relief come over other peoples faces.
Then sit back and enjoy 😀
Thatll get you out of this meeting, but the question will come up as to whats the new meeting/forum/tool to discuss open points....
How long does the meeting last? Someone finds it useful.
I rarely go to meetings but when I do I usually make a fool of myself. Maybe that's why I don't get invited to meetings very often?!
For some meetings we have a meeting to agree the agenda. Then a pre-meeting to agree who is going to say what (largely to stop the chair saying anything daft). And then we have the meeting. And then we have a debrief meeting.
Thankfully that’s not for every meeting. But it’s not uncommon. Welcome to local government.
Aren’t the GP partners the Practice Managers boss?
Tell the manager to wind their neck in! 🙂
Suggest having the meeting standing up. If they don't agree stand up anyhow.
Can you reschedule it to an hour shortly after lunch? Then you simply fall asleep after 15 mins of unengaging drone. It's what I do!
Are you a partner in the practice? If so does the practice manager report to the owners? Should be able to resolve the issue that way.
BTW, is the practice manager an ex receptionist that’s worked their way up? Now you know how we all feel phoning to make an appointment!
It is possible to decline meeting invites.
Have the meeting standing up. No chairs in the room.
There must be medicines you could take/administer to liven thing up a bit?
I humbly suggest that the reason there are so many meetings in the modern business environment is because managers don't want to, or can't, do their actual jobs, i.e. managing. Meetings are their safe place.
It is possible to decline meeting invites.
It’s compulsory.
Aren’t the GP partners the Practice Managers boss?
She’s been there longer than any of them and they’re scared of her.
@BoardinBob - you have my sympathy. I’m lucky to have a job that I (mostly) enjoy and that feels like I achieve something meaningful.
She’s been there longer than any of them and they’re scared of her.
Can they slip something into her tea to make her doze off!? 🙂
It’s compulsory
but aren’t you a partner? Someone you employ is making something you don’t want (and the other partners don’t want)
mandatory…… nah, no thanks.
but i do have some insight & thoughts on the whole GP thing, as my missus is a dr and was a partner previously. You all go to uni and med school to be doctors. At no point does training include management or business ownership or finance. Then we/you/government/the general public etc wonder why doctor's don’t “know” how to run the business side of the surgery.
You think that's bad, i have monthly meetings every week!
but aren’t you a partner?
No I’m not. I’m a salaried GP.
Then we/you/government/the general public etc wonder why doctor’s don’t “know” how to run the business side of the surgery.
However the evidence shows that we do it better than the hospitals which do have professional business management?
I ran my business with up to 9 employees for 10 years and never had a meeting. I worked for a year in a language school in Barcelona that never had a meeting either. At the other extreme a boss hardly ever sent out memos or wrote anything down so did it all in meetings and expected instant feedback - that worked well too. If the meetings are useful I don't see the problem, if they achieve nothing buy a paper copy of the Beano/Morning Star/Guardian and read that, standing up until your turn..
It depends with a subset of my colleagues it was possible to have a quick focused meeting, make sensible decisions add in a few more people who liked the sound of their own voices and they could last for hours.
If the meeting were on line I used to plan bike routes on my second screen.
Meetings - the practical alternative to work
Been in many a practice meeting where you find yourself sat there feeling resentful of the time its taking and thinking of all the jobs you could actually have achieved in that time (or more likely thinking how late am I going to have to stay to catch up!)
I guess starting point would be what does the meeting aim to actually achieve? Many of these meetings are just information dissemination and it could be and should be done another way. If its actually making decisions then need to review who actually needs to be there (may be different for each meeting)
You need a good chair who drives it on and doesn't allow agenda points to get sidetracked. I imagine GPs are as good at this as vets are (want 4 opinions then ask 3 vets). If that's not the PM then someone else has to take over that role.
They also need to review the agenda beforehand and decide if it should actually be on there or is it just information dissemination in which case it's not getting on the agenda.
Action Points checked before the meeting so you don't get sidetracked agreeing the previous minutes before you even get to the current agenda.
Only way it will change is if someone actually stands up and states it isn't working and need to review it. Guess one of the partners needs to be that person though.
At least its only once a month though 😉
I've got one of my monthlies coming up on Thursday, it's the one that's always the full 2.5 hour argument, i just bring my laptop in and do work whilst they're arguing semantics.
Another one i go to is actually really good, lots of decent people discussing trends, themes, etc and trying to either gain some insight, or provide it, they're not all bad.
If you think you're going to run anything without monthly meetings to organise stuff you're in la la land.
Suggestion 1 - suggest a better agenda. If you can't, then shut up till you can - moaning without a solution is just noise.
2. The problem is that If you really want to do something in them monthly is too infrequent. If its only monthly it ain't really important (!at least for details)
Our manager is off so I chaired the weekly team meeting - 11 minutes, done. Usually 1.5 hours.
Admittedly I hadn't got any feedback/bollocks from the preceding management meeting.
Suggestion 1 – suggest a better agenda. If you can’t, then shut up till you can – moaning without a solution is just noise.
I can, and I have. It’s been nixed. As said previously the partners are too scared of the likely fallout to do anything about it.
I think that part of the problem is that the meeting is held in the protected learning time, and the practice manager hates the thought that people might get off early.
So you're a salaried gp and not a partner. As a lowly employee why do you have to attend. Surely meeting happens, things get decided. You are told what to do. Meeting avoided.
I don't mind focused, proper meetings. Ones where people leave in a better position than they were beforehand.
If, for example, I know there's a shitload of work coming my way, but it could be an infinite amount if people don't clarify what they want. All parties leave with more certainty than they began with - if it ends naturally before the scheduled end time, then everyone just ****s off to get on with the actual doing.
But, I despise the other kind. The 'for the sake of it' bollocks. Because:
1. A few needy staff need to feel cuddly.
2. Managers don't trust their staff without giving them a pep talk.
3. Some people just need an audience.
Etc.
Work is work. I don't need to feel bouncy about it. I need the info and requirements to get (and for my employer to get) the best out of my time. I'm satisfied if I do a good job on something. I have enough professional pride to want to do stuff well. But I'm not obsessed by it and I'm not putting my heart and soul into it - and it is not going to dominate my life via my mood.
I've been there twice before, and I'm not going down that road again for anyone. 🙂
@onehundredthidiot apparently because I’m paid to be there and there’s very important information to be disseminated.
As mentioned it’s an ego trip for the practice manager, and she can’t stand the fact that people might be slacking off.
Oh, I forgot my worst ever type of meeting.
The ones where they’ve brought in outside “consultants” who are helping us in a “collaborative learning exercise” to which they’ve applied a predetermined agenda.
The most recent one where they wanted to unveil their (crap, wishy washy) mission statement for the organisation.
I have attended good and bad meetings.
Good meetings only need to last for 15 to 30 mins maximum.
Bad meetings can last for more than an hour on Saturday (when I was working in the far east).
My wife is a GP and a few years ago I helped her practice with a review of business processes. When it came to practice meetings, which they all complained bitterly about, I got them to change the meeting duration to multiples of 12 minutes which was, at the time, the length of each patient consultation. It really worked for GP mentality and they soon adjusted the weekly meeting down to 2x12 mins
It’s rare I agree with @chewkw but any meeting longer than 30 minutes needs a bit of looking at. It’s probably not really a meeting, it’s a couple of people who need to work on something together who have accidentally involved lots of people who don’t need to be there - or it’s just complete bobbins.
There are occasional exceptions.
Refuse to go " sorry i am too busy to attend" i have done this and when i got pushback i quoted tbe nmc code at senior management ( 3 levels above me) and asked tbem to put it in writing that i should leave the patients to attend the meeting. I never went to another one.
Or play buzzword bingo.
We have loads of pointless meetings now, I'm really not sure how anyone gets any actual work done. The worst ones are weekly round table catch-ups where everyone says what they're working on. The only people who care and need to know about what I'm working on already know, because we're working together, and vice versa. It used to be a fun place to work before all this kind of stuff came into it, it has really sucked all the joy out of what should be a great job.
weekly round table catch-ups where everyone says what they’re working on. The only people who care and need to know about what I’m working on already know, because we’re working together, and vice versa
We have these, they’re okay until the more enthusiastic amongst us start giving chapter and verse.
But yeah, those who need to know already do.
I feel your pain. We have a weekly MDM where a certain not too bright and over promoted nurse proceeds to dominate proceedings.
It results in no decisions being agreed or urgent matters resolved - and later meetings being arranged between the grown ups.
The nurse clearly thinks confidence is a marker of competence .. but nobody else in the meeting does.
Badly run, boring or directionless meetings are awful.
You need a new practice manager. One who knows how to organise a meeting.
Isn't this in "manager 101" training.
As mentioned it’s an ego trip for the practice manager, and she can’t stand the fact that people might be slacking off.
My god, presenteeism is one thing in a lower level job but if I were you and I had managed to become a doctor and someone was suggesting that I couldn't manage my own time and work effectively without oversight I would be raging!
Sounds like someone needs reminding that their job is to do all the crappy admin so the doctors can do the actual work. Good luck.
I had a meeting yesterday with an SLT member (operative word). For the duration they were talking about jobs we’d finished weeks or months ago. In the end I flipped and asked why this couldn’t have been an email or, better still, they look at the reporting system that they had us start to use. Utter incompetence.
As mentioned it’s an ego trip for the practice manager, and she can’t stand the fact that people might be slacking off.
have you considered that this might in fact be a “you problem”, and either the partners also suffer the same difficulty or are just politely nodding at your gripes whilst thinking “shit the **** up, come to the meeting, do as you are told, if we wanted you to run the practice we’d have made you practice manager or offered you a partnership”…
I’ve obviously not been to the meeting, but I’d be surprised if a GP practice could function effectively without communication (two way) and dissemination of information (top down) as well as reviewing “metrics”. I imagine Doctors also have very big egos (almost every one I’ve met has) and I have some sympathy for the practice manager who has to try and actually get them to do what they need doing rather than the doctors have decided is important.
Now, imagine I was one of your patients, let’s say im a 16 yr old with type 1 diabetes - and I “have to attend” a clinic with my consultant every few months. And I came to you and said:
“It’s awful.
An ego trip for the consultant.
It’s boring and pointless. I get frustrated and so am not my best self when the bits that I do care about come up on the agenda.
Everyone else seems to manage to zone out. I find that impossible without making it obvious by fiddling on my phone.
My parents hate it too, but they’re too chicken to do anything about it.”
what would you do then?
hourly rate of participants * no. of hours per meeting * no. of meeting per year.
Take this number to your boss and let them do the rest.
Feel ya. One thing I've realised is the civilian/corporate world is full of professional meeting attenders who mistake activity for action.
Career laughs all over the place.
I have many meetings a week. They are all shit. Happy days.
i feel for you, especially as a salaried I guess you ahve less of a voice.
I'm a partner, and make it patently clear at all meetings that I really dislike meetings (ones I run, or MDTs etc) and feel they offer little advantage other than 'box ticking'.
I'll highlight to all particiants that once all agenda points are covered, we're DONE. I don't care if it's scheduled for an hour and we're done in 10 minutes. The meeting is for the agenda, not for the time.
Also, a popular phrase I use is "this isn't for this meeting". It's a meeting, not a general discussion.
Honestly, most of our work and planning gets done in informal catch ups and chats!
Also - I now insist that all MDTs etc are face to face! It really makes the other parties (community groups etc) who LOVE making meetings deeply think about whether we do actually need one, if they have to drive 10 minutes to my surgery!
Does it make me popular - possibly not. Do we now have successful meetings - generally, yes!
DrP
We used to have this ‘weekly catch up’ nonsense on a Monday afternoon at a company I used to work for. It lasted all afternoon yet only about 5 minutes of it would be relevant to me. I hated it! I think everyone did apart from the department manager who instigated it. It was completely pointless and just prevented us spending the afternoon actually getting stuff done.
So I started taking my sketchbook in with me and while making it look like I was taking notes, I’d pick one of my colleagues and draw a caricature of them during the meeting, then I’d give it them after we left. It was done affection rather than taking the piss and I’m a pretty handy illustrator, so they were always well received
Everyone knew I was doing this apart from my boss, so it then became a guessing game as to who I was going to sketch each week. This added in extra fun for me as I could then studiously look at someone, making them suitably nervous, while actually drawing someone else. Everyone else would be nudging each other and guessing at who I was drawing this week
Simple things to get you through… 😀
monthly meeting
Monthly
Once a month
Suck it up mate
have you considered that this might in fact be a “you problem”, and either the partners also suffer the same difficulty or are just politely nodding at your gripes whilst thinking “shit the **** up, come to the meeting, do as you are told, if we wanted you to run the practice we’d have made you practice manager or offered you a partnership”…
I did have the opportunity to become a partner and chose not to.
And no, that’s not what’s going on, although as mentioned earlier on, I’m not my best self in these meetings. I know that the partners hate them, I also know that the partners are scared of the practice manager. I also know that the partners aren’t really engaged with leadership within the practice, which is one of the reasons I declined a partnership.
I’m I have to say, from the tone of your posts you seem to have a problem with doctors in general and me in particular.
As far as I’m aware, outside of forensic psychiatry and patients under section no patient “has to attend” any clinic at all.
I also hated "pointless meetings" (IT, retired now) I joined an organisation (my last perm role) and introduced a number of meetings and a process of managing them. Agenda's minutes, action points, follow up procedures etc. All of these were absent when I joined, although staff spent plenty of time apparently "in meetings" Initially there was a lot of push back, particularly from staff who didn't welcome being held to account or provide feedback on their projects or make any effort to work collaboratively.
Meetings and communication are key to any organisation but they have to be managed correctly.
suggest a walking meeting
Great idea
standing meetings.
Yes, introduced these. So many people are happy to settle in for the morning/afternoon.
@surfer I too have no problems with purposeful meetings. It’s the pointless ones that get me.
Honestly, most of our work and planning gets done in informal catch ups and chats!
AKA "meetings"
I’ll highlight to all particiants that once all agenda points are covered, we’re DONE. I don’t care if it’s scheduled for an hour and we’re done in 10 minutes. The meeting is for the agenda, not for the time.
AKA a well managed "meeting"
I also know that the partners aren’t really engaged with leadership within the practice
Forgive my ignorance but I assumed that the parters were leadership?
In any case it seems like you (the collective you at your practice, not just you personally) can either carry on as you are and keep hating the way it's run, or engage with it and try and promote meaningful change whatever that looks like. Easier said than done, but at least one of those options has an outside chance of the place being run in a way which works for you.
@soundninjauk - that's how it should be, but they're not particularly engaged. If I'm honest they've mostly got varying degrees of burnout and learned helplessness.
If I’m honest they’ve mostly got varying degrees of burnout and learned helplessness.
That's gonna be a challenge to shift without at least one of them who's up for making some noise.
I often give people a time scale for the meeting - like 8 minutes
If it end up as 13 minutes I mention that and then say if we start on time next meeting we can do it in 8 minutes
Other peoples meeting can and do go on interminably
@soundninjauk indeed. I think my only option is to suck it up and then rant about it on here. 😉
TBF the practice manager is doing what the partners want, it’s a difficult job, with I imagine some big ego’s involved. It’s a multi million pound business with highly paid staff, surely it needs meetings. Maybe you are sitting through unnecessary stuff. The admin team could have a separate meeting to the GP’s, but with a GP or partner present, and visa versa. I find a ten minute morning huddle with the team over a cuppa works well.
KPI catch up
Any news
Any problems
Any resolutions to problems
So and so did really well.
Have a good day.
Problem with monthly is how do you progress things.
Just escaped from my usual weds morning of meetings 9.30 to 12.30.... honestly one meeting a month?! wow, if it is the only time everyone gets together has got to be useful surely....even if its just to go round the table and see if anyone has any important concerns or issues that others in the group need to know / may be able to help with!?
Surely you guys need to be discussing important stuff like finances as a collective and making some decisions? Maybe as I've never worked in a smaller business I don't get the idea that everything can be done by 121 conversations and nothing drastic goes wrong...and from audits that all needs documenting, who made the decision, when, where etc.... fintech / gov is quite regulated, surely so is the NHS?
Maybe, if its not clear from the agenda ask the practise manager what they want to achieve from the meeting? what obligation is it fulfilling? I've read a couple of topics from you know and it sounds like you want to go to war with this person.....that way won't go well for either person, so its best you try to work it out rather than fester and post about it on stw....
I do hate meetings, however my last 3 'managers' do not seem to 'do' emails or written communication, and with working remote, and them bascially knowing bugger all, the best way to manage them is via a collation of the willing in a meeting to try and outnumber their bollox with common sense and actual understanding. On your own, as a reportee you just get overruled, ignored or misunderstood.
@DT78 the practice manager isn't who I was ranting about in my other post.
And to be clear, I'm far from the only person who has a problem with the practice manager, in fact I don't believe that there is anyone in the building who does not. The partners are aware of this.
Unless it’s a week-long meeting, just suck it up. You might even be able to make it somewhat useful by contributing helpfully. Once a month. Sheesh, kids today don’t know they are born.
You know what I hate more than meetings? Review meetings.
I've just had my half-year review, where we discussed my 'performance against goals' and how well I was doing against the 'customer first behaviours'. I hate it, and it's all so unnecessary. As a contractor you just told me what you wanted me to do, I did it, you paid me. So why, as a permie, do we need all this other nonsense...
I’m I have to say, from the tone of your posts you seem to have a problem with doctors in general and me in particular.
no I’ve no problem with doctors or you. As far as I know we’ve never met and probably only interacted on a small handful of threads (but I don’t pay much attention to the names on threads - I frequently confuse Cougar and Convert in my head). So I’m sorry you think I have an issue with doctors or you but i think sometimes some professions are quite bad at introspection and considering what the other party is trying to achieve. Having reached a height of “clinical” capability they may not actually be that good at dealing with people and particularly people they view as further down the pecking order. The same may well be true in other high achiever professions. They are used to being respected, revered etc and not used to being challenged - perhaps even your response to my challenge is a little indication of this. Doctors are presumably good at listening to patients and diagnosing diseases but are they automatically good at listening to each other and identifying their own opportunities for improvement? It certainly sounds like your partners are not - so how would you learn this through osmosis.
You know the characters involved - if the PM is really a problem and the partners won’t solve it then raise a grievance. If they’re mildly irritating but the partners put up with it because they solve most of the managerial headaches for them then suck it up. What I am saying is if this person has been there forever and none of the partners has ever tackled it, it’s either not as bad as you say or it’s a toxic environment you’d be better off out of. Only you can work that out, as we only have a limited version through your eyes. But if you are asking how to get the best out of the meeting there are people here who spend much of every day in meetings and will be able to provide advice on that. You didn’t really answer my question on what you’d tell a patient who found their clinic as pointless…
As far as I’m aware, outside of forensic psychiatry and patients under section no patient “has to attend” any clinic at all.
and You are not compelled to attend the meeting you can leave / find a new job (good luck finding anything which requires fewer tedious meetings!).
but I was hoping you might suggest to your patient things like: talking to the consultant 1:1 about how they feel particularly around tone/language; going to the meeting with a SHORT list of points they want to discuss; asking in the meeting what the realistic objectives were by the time you meet again; identifying one positive thing that going to the meeting achieves - and focus on that benefit. Ultimately though I assume if you really believed the consultant was the issue you’d feel that you needed to support the patient either to challenge the consultant OR to find an alternative clinic. All of those concepts are transferable to your situation.
If you genuinely want help challenging waste of time meetings and not letting your worst self come out then I’m sure there are people here who will help if you give more details…
I have someone who works for me who sounds a little bit like you - he gets annoyed by meetings, gets annoyed if there are meetings that don’t include him so he is out of the loop, gets annoyed at other people focussing on the “wrong” issues. He will lose the plot in a meeting and have a tantrum in a way where nobody is evening thinking about what he is saying but are all amazed about how he is saying it. He could be at “partner” level but doesn’t want the hassle that goes with it. We’ve had some quite frank discussions about his personality being the thing which holds him back, he sees every meeting as an opportunity for a personal victory - he has an inability to empathise with anyone else in the meeting and a total mental block on the possibility that other people are not as smart as he is and just need to apply themselves; perhaps you need to find a “mentor” to guide you.
Of course it might be, that you actually quite enjoy being the awkward **** in the meeting! Certainly I’ve been to meetings where I was invited specifically to fulfill that role - to make sure everyone knew that they had a load of group think and were wasting time congratulating themselves whilst there was chaos outside.
Gosh, I thought this was only about meetings. Meeting my mates down the pub on Saturday - does that count?
Is it just a "monthly meeting" OP or does it have a specific Title or Topic? Is there an agenda and/or actions list?
Personally I tend not to prioritise meetings where the purpose is not clear and/or an agenda is presented ahead.
It's good to be clear what the whole point of a meeting is, whether I have any role in it and if there are any actions that need to be reported on/accounted for. Actions without a (realistic) timeframe attached aren't really actions, you're within your rights to refuse attendance where your role can be addressed in writing or by sending a delegate.
Having read through this thread, I give thanks to whatever deity might be listening for the fact that I never found myself doing a job where I might have been considered for any sort of management or supervisor rôle!
It’s not a job I would be comfortable doing, and having to deal with personnel issues just isn’t something I’d be competent doing.
Being given a specific job to do and being left alone to do it is what I’m good at, or was good at; I’m retired now so never have to think about such things ever again.
From your posts it sounds like a dysfunctional workplace.