So much time is wasted with people explaining the obvious facts, figures, and reviews to others that they already know. In internal company meetings though, it always amazes us how 5 minutes worth of important relevant information can be stretched out to last 30-45 minutes with charts, graphs, and Powerpoint presentations all illustrating the obvious. Often it’s just because there’s a meeting format and schedule that has to be adhered to, not because it’s productive, provides new information or ideas, or generates enthusiasm. It’s become all to common everywhere these days. Meetings should have focus. We live in the time of technology. Try Skype/Slack/Convo/Apear.in for business before keeping people from lunch and bathroom breaks.
Meaningless and pointless meetings are too common
When employees are required to charge specific project or overhead accounts for attending, the meetings tend to become more focused and relevant since the project/account “owners” are accountable. Random attendees, pontificating, and other facets of poorly run meetings are minimized when one person is responsible for every hour charged. What nobody seems to talk about when discussing about this “problem” is that this is not about the meetings but about the people attending. Meetings are misused because humans tend to lack in discipline and keeping performance on a high level.
Being busy and playing the meeting game helps certain individuals
It is really frustrating to have the same meeting over and over without resolution or movement. Meetings have become a venting place or a stale reporting tool with no room for input, contradicting in itself - ends of the spectrum. People are neither present nor prepared. The cost of the meetings pales in comparison to the lost productivity! Meetings to plan meetings or to validate decisions that have already been made can go. Meetings become loose when there is a lack of leadership. There must be a character who could gather bright minds up into a structure - hence the discussions become short and productive. Work progresses a lot faster when people talk to each other, instead of following an email chain. There must be a leader on each meeting, whose role is to keep team focused on result.
The corporate culture is run by committee
The “meeting circuit” is prevalent in all organizations and is becoming the “alternative” to work. Why don’t we stop having meetings and see if there is any effect. Then introduce them back to the area’s only where they are needed. We have trained our corporate management to live in an environment that rely on conclusions based on consensus and collaboration. This creates a “safe space” whereby academics can make a decision based on a group. This leads to a culture of “parrots.” Regurgitating words from one meeting to the next is not creating, it is corporate speak ping-pong.
Meetings without structures and goals are time-wasting
Far too many recurring meetings take place just because they’re on the calendar. And if the meeting’s purpose is achieved in less than the designated time. End the meeting. People engagement is quite important. A constructive or purposeful meeting should be about engagement and purpose oriented. The chair of the meeting needs to stimulate / synergyze all the attendees/invites in such a way so that the best results or outcome is achieved. Understanding the attendees behavior/body language/emotional intelligence bit is quite important as well. Collaboration rather than dictatorship sort of environment. There’s only one thing worse than unproductive meetings and that is someone trying to artificially implement a process of making meetings efficient. Unproductive meetings are just one of the symptoms of ill and non-collaborative culture in the org. Don’t try to fix the symptoms, fix the root cause.
Every meeting should have a defined goal
When recurring meeting are required to meet this goal, consider a simple 1-page charter that clearly defines the ‘business need’ for the meeting, the specific resources / invitees required, the outcomes to be achieved, and a targeted end date for these meetings; at which time the initially stated goals should have been achieved. How do you make sure it’s not a waste of time? If you had to pay the salaries for the time spent in the meeting out of your own pocket, would it be profitable? A lot of people don’t care, they think going to meetings is “work” and makes them feel important. Meetings longer than 10 minutes with more than 3 co-workers/employees are a waste of time.
Related: Is Business E-mail Dying?
It seems any time people or groups make a goal of recording success, instead of just succeeding, the record becomes the priority more than the success. It bleeds into our personal lives too. It’s more important to have a proof on Facebook or Instagram that you had a good time than it is to actually have a good time. And in the business sector, it seems what drives the insane meeting agenda is this obsession with a record of success pushing its way over to the anticipation of succeeding. So the plan becomes just as important as the record. So now we have a plan, the event, and the record. And in this sandwich, the event always gets the least amount of attention. If you think your job is to hold meetings, take notes, attend meetings and then write reports, our bet is you are the bottleneck Parrot. Make a difference, think and act.
