Meeting Madness: Counterproductive Meeting Behaviors and Personality Traits

When used effectively, workplace meetings serve as an invaluable opportunity for coworkers to achieve organizational objectives. However, meetings are often regarded as inefficient, unproductive, and a waste of time. Due to meeting attendee frustration, there can be detrimental impact on employee wellbeing. In this paper, we examine the impact of a specific type of meeting behavior, counterproductive meeting behaviors (CMBs), which include non-constructive criticism and complaints on perceptions of meeting effectiveness. Additionally, we explore the potential moderating influence of personality characteristics on this relationship. While meeting leaders may take great efforts in designing meetings based on good meeting practices supported by research, meeting outcomes could be largely influenced by the individual personality characteristics of meeting attendees. This research is aimed at developing a greater understanding of how individual differences, namely personality traits, play a role in meeting interactions and outcomes. Respondents completed a survey that measured CMBs, personality characteristics, and meeting effectiveness. Our findings indicate CMBs are negatively related to perceived meeting effectiveness. Additionally, the negative relationship was stronger for individuals who possess higher levels of agreeableness and stronger for individuals possessing lower levels of extraversion. We discuss implications for managers and meeting attendees.