Deming and his research team discovered a strong positive correlation between high meeting intensity, subsequent wage growth, and on-the-job skill acquisition. While the correlational nature of the study cannot definitively establish direct causality, the authors hypothesize that frequent meetings serve as critical transmission channels for institutional knowledge. Meetings afford junior staff direct exposure to senior colleagues, offering rare opportunities to observe high-level decision-making and absorb complex operational skills.
Despite the substantial financial costs meetings impose on high-wage corporations, the economic benefits appear to outweigh the investments, leading the study’s authors to famously conclude that meetings function as the "broccoli of work"—frequently unpalatable, but ultimately nutritious for career development.
Strategies for Success
To improve the immediate atmosphere of workplace gatherings, researchers have evaluated the strategic use of humor. When humor is authentic, positive, and supportive, it can alleviate tension, encourage creative risk-taking, and bolster overall team performance.
However, observational research conducted by Lehmann-Willenbrock across two German corporations indicates that humor is only effective when participants already possess a established baseline of psychological safety and familiarity. Colleagues must know one another well enough to feel secure making and receiving jokes without fear of misinterpretation or social penalty.
Furthermore, the freedom to use humor is heavily moderated by power dynamics within organizational hierarchies. Science educator Vita Stout, alongside bat research colleagues, examined comedy usage at the 2022 International Congress for Bat Research in Austin, Texas. In findings published in Proceedings of Biological Sciences B, the researchers transcribed the exact timing, context, and audience responses to jokes delivered during scientific presentations.
While the study concluded that well-timed humor can foster community and social connection in professional settings, it also highlighted a distinct demographic imbalance: older, established male researchers made jokes far more frequently than early-career scientists or individuals from underrepresented backgrounds. The findings demonstrate that humor in formal gatherings is often a privilege exercised predominantly by those who already occupy positions of authority.
Beyond conversational dynamics, physical timing plays a pivotal role in meeting success. Meeting organizers must account for natural human circadian rhythms by avoiding scheduling sessions during the post-lunch physiological energy dip. Lehmann-Willenbrock acknowledges that even academic institutions routinely ignore these biological realities, frequently scheduling critical committee meetings at hours when participants are most physically exhausted and digesting food.
Similarly, scheduling practices must remain sensitive to personal and family obligations. Calling mandatory late-afternoon sessions—such as scheduling meetings at 5:00 p.m.—creates acute friction for working parents and caregivers who must balance personal responsibilities alongside professional expectations.
Finally, emerging research highlights clear cultural disparities in meeting expectations and etiquette. In a study examining 1,432 corporate workers across six countries, Lehmann-Willenbrock and her collaborators evaluated how participants reacted to scenarios where leaders or colleagues arrived five, ten, or fifteen minutes late.
The findings revealed striking regional differences: workers in the United States and the Netherlands reported high levels of frustration and irritation when a meeting leader was late, whereas participants in China and Chile demonstrated significantly greater tolerance for the same delays.
Kreamer notes that cross-cultural analysis remains one of the largest unaddressed frontiers in meeting science. Because the vast majority of existing meeting research over the past three decades has been conducted within North American and Western European cultural contexts, it remains unclear whether established best practices apply universally across global workforce cultures. Expanding research into broader international contexts remains an urgent priority for organizational psychologists—a task that will inevitably require gathering researchers together for many more meetings to come.
