“At one time, we always started the meeting with a personal weather report and had to finish with some good news or a business case to share. It put the human side back at the forefront and encouraged everyone to participate in a slightly roundabout way.”
Nicola, 29, real estate agent
“Recently, I suggested to my manager that we cancel a weekly meeting where we often went in circles and didn’t really have much to say. Honestly, it felt kind of pointless. In the end, we set up a meeting to discuss it. That one lasted an hour and 45 minutes!”
Julie, 38, civil servant
“We took on a trainee who used to attend meetings. She got into the habit of making summaries of the meetings. A three-line e-mail was enough. That’s when I realised that we were making life a lot more complicated for nothing.”
Nathalie, 50, jurist
“One day, we swapped our weekly meeting for a 45-minute walk outside, or sometimes an hour over coffee on a terrace. Contrary to what you might think, it’s not a waste of time – quite the opposite. It helps us come up with more ideas, and it’s even turned into a little ritual now.”
Aurélie, 39, real estate agent
“My managers wanted the whole team to use a new, highly technical tool that I was in charge of rolling out. We had dozens of meetings to talk about it and explain it. But nobody was using it. Finally, I wrote a detailed explanatory email and sent it to the whole team. That was enough to get everyone on board.”
Sid, 40, restaurateur
“I had the chance to work in a company with a strong Japanese culture. Meetings were very short, highly structured, and silence was king. People only spoke up to say something relevant, and ‘consensus’ was the golden rule. We walked out of meetings with clear action points, knowing exactly what needed to be done. It was a true model of efficiency.”
Stéphanie, 40, HR director
“To keep in better touch with my team, I decided to organise a second meeting a week, as we often went too far in the first one. We ended up repeating ourselves a lot and I even caught some of my colleagues dozing off. I backed off.”
Olivier, 56, auditor
“After six canceled meetings, a new monthly one was (finally) scheduled. It quickly turned into a (very) awkward moment for the manager, as nobody responded. No ideas, no comments. In the end, we realised we could often do without it.”
Luc, 40, sales representative
“At a briefing meeting with an external service provider, no one took any notes of the meeting. At the end of the meeting, the killer question came up: ‘Will there be a summary email?’ A bit late to ask!”
Margareth, 27, designer
Share your stories with us at temoignage@paperjam.lu before the deadlines. In our upcoming issues, we’ll be exploring new themes:
- AI at work (submit before 01.10)
- remote work (01.11)
- onboarding (25.11).
This article was written for the October 2025 issue of Paperjam magazine, published on 24 September. The content is produced exclusively for the magazine. It is published on the site to contribute to the full Paperjam archive. Click this link to subscribe to the magazine.