Why Do We Meet? A Brief (and Surprisingly Fascinating) History of Meetings
Why does the history of meetings matter? I don’t know, but it’s pretty fun to think through. And it adds some context to why we have this human drive to meet. And just maybe, we start to scratch at this inherently human practice of gathering, and recognize the potential for being better together.
I’ve been deep in the archives lately. Not actual dusty bookshelves, but my digital equivalent: PDF scans and journal databases. Turns out, if you’re wondering how we humans ended up scheduling 12M meetings a day in the U.S. alone,1 the answer runs deep. Like, Middle Ages-deep.
So…how did we get here? Why did humans start meeting in the first place? And why does it feel like meetings are both the glue that holds organizations together and also the thing slowly draining our will to live?
What Even Is a Meeting?
Before we dive in, let’s get clear on definitions. Scholars Karen Tracy and Aaron Dimock make a helpful distinction:
“To meet” (verb) = people intentionally coming together for a purpose
“A meeting” (noun) = a more formal, bounded event, usually where people gather to share information, coordinate action, solve problems or make decisions2
Not every coffee chat counts. But your weekly team standup? Yep. That’s a meeting.
Meetings: From Medieval Battle Plans to Boardroom Rituals
The story of meetings starts way before Zoom fatigue. According to historian Wilbert van Vree, early “meetings” in medieval Europe were mostly about military coordination. Think local farmers being summoned by their lord to hear about battle plans. Not exactly open brainstorming sessions.
As power became more centralized under monarchies, meetings shifted. Kings would call nobles together—not for lively debate, but to listen and affirm decisions already made. These were performative gatherings, heavy on ceremony and light on participation.
But here’s where it gets interesting:
As democratic ideals took root, meetings evolved alongside them. The more societies committed to equality, the more meetings became necessary. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough for one person at the top to dictate next steps. More voices meant more discussion. More discussion meant more meetings.
Van Vree puts it bluntly:
“Democracy is the dream, meeting is the actual practice.”3
In short: doing democracy means having meetings.
The Rise of Meeting Manners
As meetings became more frequent (and more crowded), rules became essential. That’s where meeting manuals come in.
In 1845, a clerk in the Massachusetts House of Representatives wrote one of the first U.S. legislative meeting manuals.
In 1876, Major Henry Martyn Robert published Robert’s Rules of Order, which would become the gold standard for orderly parliamentary procedure.4 (Fun fact: I’ve actually been in meetings leveraging Robert’s Rules of Order…in the 2020s!)
These weren’t just guidelines for etiquette (although they were that too). They were also about managing conflict, ensuring fairness and giving structure to inherently messy human dialogue, just in a very prescribed and procedural way.
Meetings Go Corporate
Fast-forward to the post-WWII boom. As businesses scaled and projects became more cross-functional and complex, meetings proliferated.
In 1973, Henry Mintzberg estimated that managers were spending 60% of their time in meetings.5
Van Vree’s research found that small companies (fewer than 10 employees) spent about 10% of their time preparing for and conducting meetings. But in large companies with 500+ employees, that number jumped to 75%.6
And along with this boom came burnout and dissatisfaction.
In the 1980s, Helen Schwartzman documented how meetings had become synonymous with boredom, frustration and wasted time.7 No longer the alternative to duels or decrees, meetings became their own kind of affliction.
The emphasis in the literature shifted. Instead of just teaching parliamentary procedure, it began focusing on facilitation skills, decision-making processes and how to manage difficult personalities.
But Here’s the Twist
Even as we complain, we keep showing up to meetings. Why?
As easy as it is to bash meetings (and trust me, I’ve done my fair share), scholars remind us: Meetings aren’t just about making decisions or sharing updates. They’re social rituals.
Public meeting scholars like McComas argue that regular gatherings, especially recurring ones, reinforce social bonds, clarify group identity and even soothe organizational anxiety.8
Tracy and Dimock say meetings are where we build and fracture community.9 Schwartzman famously frames meetings as one of the few organizational spaces where power can be both enforced and challenged.10
So yeah, meetings can be messy. But they’re also deeply human.
The Takeaway
If democracy built them, bureaucracy bloated them and ritual keeps them hanging on…maybe the next chapter for meetings is about intentional design.
Sure, we can imagine a world without meetings—maybe even a world where humans don’t need to gather at all. That’s not a world I want to live in.
But a world with better meetings? That’s the world I want to build.
-E
Keith, E. (2015, December 4). 55 million: A fresh look at the number, effectiveness, and cost of meetings in the U.S. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.lucidmeetings.com/blog/fresh-look-number-effectiveness-costmeetings-in-us.
Tracy, K., & Dimock, A. (2004). Meetings: Discursive Sites for Building and Fragmenting Community. Annals of the International Communication Association, 28(1), 127-165.
Van Vree, W. (1999). Meetings, manners and civilization: The development of modern meeting behaviour. London: Leicester University Press.
Van Vree, W. (1999).
Van Vree, W. (1999).
Van Vree, W. (1999).
Schwartzman, H. B. (1986). The meeting as a neglected social form in organizational studies. Research in Organizational Behavior, 8, 233-258.
McComas, K., Besley, J. C., & Black, L. W. (2010). The rituals of public meetings. Public Administration Review, 70(1), 122-130.
Tracy, K., & Dimock, A. (2004).
Schwartzman, H. B. (1986).