Founder and Chief Culture Officer of Ideal Outcomes, Inc. Author of the new book Culture Ignited: 5 Disciplines for Adaptive Leadership.
Have you ever attended a meeting whose sole function was to arrange meetings? Or been to one where after 30 minutes of a scheduled 60-minute meeting, you’ve found yourself saying, “What am I doing here?” Perhaps you’ve found yourself daydreaming about your next vacation while a senior executive drones on about a topic that’s of absolutely no relevance to you and your work.
It happens all day, every day in companies throughout the country. For many organizations, meetings have become so dysfunctional they seem to be unproductive time-wasters only meant to aggravate employees.
In a survey of senior managers (paywall) across various industries:
• 71% declared that meetings were unproductive and inefficient.
• 65% said meetings kept them from completing their own work.
• 64% reported meetings came at the expense of deep thinking and
• 62% said meetings missed opportunities to bring teams closer together.
In the same article, researchers Leslie A. Perlow, Constance Noonan Hadley and Eunice Eun, wrote, “Instead of improving communication and collaboration, as intended, bad meetings undermine those things.” I find that a great deal of companies hold too many meetings that fail to deliver meaningful results. They comprise nothing more than a group of people who start nowhere and end nowhere, yet invest a lot of time in the process.
Research by software giant Atlassian has found that, on average, most professionals spend 31 hours a month in unproductive meetings, and 91% admit they’d daydreamed with 39% reporting having even fallen asleep. The report found that unnecessary meetings create an estimated $37 billion salary cost to American businesses.
So what do you need to do to make sure you’re not a victim of “meetings madness?” Here are seven tips:
1. What’s It All About?
Every meeting needs to have a specific purpose. It should be focused and relevant. When setting up the meeting, ask yourself, “What do we intend to achieve?” Don’t allow the meeting to stray off topic because one participant wants to raise a different issue. And before organizing the meeting, consider whether the purpose can be achieved instead in a memo or email.
2. Set An Agenda
If you launch into a meeting without a clear agenda, you’re basically sailing a ship without a compass. I recommend that you provide participants with a list of issues to be discussed well in advance so that they can come prepared.
List topics in order of importance and a suggested amount of time to cover each of them. Mark Cuban, a well-known meetings skeptic, once said, “The only way you’re going to get me to a meeting is if you’re writing me a check.” He also warns that meetings can be easily sidetracked by trivial small talk like, “Who got the donuts?” and “How are the kids?”
3. Pick The Participants
Make sure the right people—and only the right people—are invited to specific meetings. Elon Musk has told Tesla employees to avoid large meetings unless they’re guaranteed to provide value to everyone, and even then to keep the meeting short. Along the same lines, Bain & Company says that smaller meetings tend to be more productive. They have a rule of seven: “where every person added to a decision-making group over seven reduces effectiveness by 10%.”
4. Encourage Participation
I think it is important to give everyone a chance to voice their opinion. Know the individual personalities and solicit the input of those who are slow or hesitant to speak up—because I find that they often have some of the best ideas. Don’t let strong-minded individuals dominate the conversation.
By being more inclusive, you’re more likely to foster a better workplace culture. On the other hand, Elon Musk sensibly advocates that people leave meetings if it is obvious they are not adding value. According to him, “It is not rude to leave; it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
5. Watch The Time
I’ve found that punctuality fosters a culture of respect and efficiency. Always start and end meetings on time because everyone’s time is valuable. Consider establishing buffer time between meetings by having 25- and 50-minute events rather than 30 or 60 minutes.
It’s especially important when so many of us today have back-to-back Zoom calls. Never forget to take different time zones into account, and appreciate that a meeting at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon might not have the most energized group of participants.
6. Make Decisions
Most meetings should conclude with actionable takeaways. If you’re walking out the door without an understanding of the next steps and who’s doing what, you shouldn’t have had the meeting in the first place. Make sure to assign roles, set deadlines and ensure accountability.
7. Review Regularly
It’s easy to slip into the habit of holding meetings on a fixed schedule. So periodically evaluate the necessity of these meetings. Assess who needs to be involved and how productive they are. Survey participants to get their input.
Final Thoughts
Well-run meetings can spur collaboration, creativity and innovation. They can strengthen relationships and drive decision-making. They not only have to be well run but also targeted and respectful of everyone’s time with active participation. Otherwise, they run the risk of being counter-productive. I encourage you to use these tips to help make meetings memorable and meaningful.
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