Are BAD meetings draining you?
The Root cause of bad meetings
Why Human dynamics make or break meetings
At first glance there are many possible causes for bad meetings.
Bad tech, bad location, bad timing, stressfull day, that one person who does X, the list goes on…
But on a deeper level there is only one reason.
Human dynamics!
Because meetings — like all group interactions — are living expressions of what we believe about power, hierarchy, purpose, and even our own role within a collective.
Person 1
Internal environment (Psychological safety, sense of power/purpose, goal expectation, experience etc)
External environment (tech, team, boss, company, weather)
Person 2
Internal environment (Psychological safety, sense of power/purpose, goal expectation, experience etc)
Person 3
Internal environment (Psychological safety, sense of power/purpose, goal expectation, experience etc)
Every person brings their own ideas, emotions, and expectations into the room, and those invisible layers begin to interact with the layers of everyone else in the meeing — sometimes in harmony, often in friction.
It gets complicated fast.
Do those human factors interact with the tech, the space, and even the weather to shape the outcome? Absolutely.
And yet, as Priya Parker so perfectly said, “It’s not possible to reduce a human challenge to a logistical one.”
So, if AI didn´t fix the problems in your meetings…
Let me introduce you to facilitation
Facilitation
The art of turning unproductive meetings into aligned, high-impact spaces
Shortly put, facilitation means hiring a guide to guarantee and ease your way to your desired destination.
If you are still reading, you probably found out the hard way that :
Writing an agenda does not guarantee a meeting outcome
Organising a team offsite does not automatically create team alignment
Forcing your way to a goal burns the team — and rarely works twice.
That is, intentions set the stage but it takes more than intentions to reach a goal. It takes awareness and mastery of human dynamics — what we often call culture.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” (Thanks Peter Drucker)
Strategy is the intention. Culture is the invisible system of human behaviors, beliefs, and dynamics in which the humans implementing the strategy operate.
When you want to change a specific outcome without embarking on a year-long change management project, is when you hire a facilitator.
A facilitator is responsible for shaping the human dynamics LIVE within the group so that the group keeps moving toward their intended goal with as little friction as possible.
Because facilitation prevents your meetings from becoming part of the 72% that research deems ineffective — and transforms them into spaces of momentum, connection, and clarity.
Not sure this is a BIG problem ?
Facilitation is A Game-Changer If ...
you want Speed
You need all hands on deck working together as smoothly and quickly as possible because of ambitious goals, tight deadlines or staff shortage. 
You want flow
You want to clear the plate for the team to focus on what they do best instead of spending time on logistics, internal politics etc.
YOu Want depth
You are facing a situation that you do not have the time/ability/energy to resolve and need an external specialized party to step in for you.
You want reset
Something challenging has happened (hard project, intense growth, team fight/attrition etc) and you need to work through it as a team to get to a new equilibirum.The Research
The Sky-high cost of bad meetings
Every research and employee experience points in the same direction :
We meet more than ever before ( ≈ 3x more since Covid for white collar jobs)
Most meetings are not effective or efficient (Estimates range from 30% to over 70% )
Inefficient meetings are a major barrier to doing other productive work
Inefficient meetings cost millions of dollars and untold energy from teams every year.
Sounds familiar ?
About Helen & Co
How We can help you
Hi there ! I’m Helen, the founder of Helen & Co.
I am on a mission to transform meetings into spaces that people actually enjoy.
I hold live sessions that help teams have hard conversations, navigate complexity, build trust & alignment, and finally hear each other — across departments, across power structures, across cultural difference.
I reduce the emotional friction in teams which in turn creates speed and ease and flow which we all crave but find so difficult to achieve.
Curious ?
Testimonials