How Can I Skip Meetings to Get Work Done Without Getting Flack From the Meeting Leader?
The simplest way is to send a representative in your place. Ask in advance. Tell the meeting chair that you would like to attend but have some work that must be done immediately. In your place, you would like to send someone who will represent you and therefore your department at the meeting. If you truly mean it, promise to attend the very next session.
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If the sessions will be ongoing, and you see no purpose in attending the meetings, explain your doubt about your need to participate at each and every session. Offer to be a guest at sessions where your contribution will help the group. And keep that promise.
Most managers will appreciate work priorities as a legitimate excuse for someone’s inability to attend a meeting session. If they take issue with your comment that you don’t see a need to attend regularly, agree to attend a few of the first meetings. You may find that your participation is important—if not to the group’s efforts, then to your own group and the commitments that it might be called upon to make based on decisions made by the group.
If early sessions prove that you were right—that you weren’t really needed—you can go to the meeting chair and repeat your earlier remark. Ask to continue to be kept involved by receiving minutes from future meeting sessions.