The meeting where the decision had already been made

Imagine a meeting where everything seems open, but the decision has already been made. This sensation, as common as it is frustrating, explains much of what happens in many organizations.

When we attend these gatherings, we often perceive that the conversation has invisible limits and that the real decision was made before it even began.

—What do you think of the proposal? The question sounds sincere. Someone opens the debate, nuances appear, possible alternatives are discussed... The meeting progresses, and it still seems that everything is open. We can decide.

Of course, sometimes, as the meeting continues, we begin to sense that something doesn’t quite fit.

There are people who speak as if the decision still needs to be made. But others listen with a very particular calm. As if all the fish had already been sold.

And the truth is, the end of the meeting was already written before it started. The decision was made a long time ago. The meeting is a formality.

In many organizations, this happens more often than it seems. The meeting is called as a debate, but what really happens is something else: explaining the decision, preparing the ground, or beginning to build consensus around what has already been decided.

This shows. And no one likes it at all. No one likes to be deceived.

They may not say it explicitly, but they perceive that the conversation has limits no one mentions, but are felt. Contributions can be made, yes, but there is a line that no one expects to be crossed.

Over time, if these meetings keep repeating, they end up leaving a strange feeling. And it’s not that they are useless. In fact, they can be very effective and serve to share information, provide context, or explain why a decision was made.

But they are not the decision-making space they seemed to be at the beginning.

And this ambiguity ends up affecting something very delicate within teams: trust in the process. When people feel decisions have already been made, they don’t participate in the same way.

They keep attending meetings, they keep giving opinions, but with a different energy. They participate, but no longer believe.

Perhaps, in these cases, the important question is not whether that meeting was necessary or not. The question is another.

When we call a meeting to decide together…do we really want to decide together? Or is it a “cosmetic” meeting to make the decision seem shared?