Ever since I was invited into Hong Kong’s banking industry, 10 years ago, I’ve had to put up with that great modern scourge of creativity – the committee meeting. I’d like to think that I’ve accumulated some experience on the inner workings of the Hong Kong committee meeting, because I’ve had to write down every word that has been said at every one of those meetings – which roughly must equate to at least 1,500. As the only native English speaker in the bank who understands what everyone is talking about, I was roped into being the secretary for all of the important committees of the bank (Managing Director’s Office meeting, which morphed into Management Committee, as well as the bank’s Asset and Liability Committee to name some).
“What’s the definition of a camel? A horse designed by a committee.” This is the standard description of a committee, and it applies to Hong Kong committees as well as anywhere else. Committees are never where decisons are made, but they offer a stage and the opportunity for drama, embarrassment and plain stupidity – as illustrated as followings:
I can’t recall the amount of times the women at the bank’s committee meetings have stormed out of meetings, with tears rolling and tissues flying. I can only say that their actions never seemed to come to much, as decisions they were unhappy about were sustained, and their reputations maintained. The men in the committees were never permitted to perform the teary-eyed “I want my way” act. It was the domain of the women only. Pity, really, I would have enjoyed seeing some of the more macho members showing off their feminine sides. I sometimes wished that the guys in charge of collecting the bank’s bad debts after the 1998 recession had used greater imagination when trying to escape the constant badgering of management. They could have saved their health.
I was invited to attend an important breakfast committee meeting with the bank’s credit rating agency. In order to break the ice, provide a sort of ice breaker and compensate for the fact the meeting was taking place so early in the morning, management had decided to offer pastries and coffee at the meeting. This is a recipe to disaster, and it turned out that way for one senior member of staff. He decided that the chocolate croissants looked nice, he decided to take one and took a big bite. Unfortunately, he took such a big bite that the chocolate filling leaked onto the side of his face. As I was nearest to him, I pointed out that he had a smudge. His embarrassment turned worse, when he decided to use a tissue to remove the offending chocky. His haste and unsteady hand meant that he actually managed to smear the chocolate further away from his mouth, until it was actually dangling from the lobe of his ear. At which point he excused himself from the meeting.
Sometimes meetings can become a death nell. At one time, our marketing director turned up late for a morning meeting. Usually, the doors of the room are locked when the meeting starts, but on this particular day this form of psychological cruelty was overlooked. When asked to explain his tardiness, the marketing guy simply answered that he had overslept. Two weeks later he was fired. I suspect that this was not due to being late for the meeting, but rather that he had not been particularly creative with his reason for being late.
