We’ve all been there, sat in room either doodling, daydreaming or thinking about what you are going to do once you are out of this meeting or even wondering why you are there in the first place.
According to Atlassian, creators of Trello & Jira, half of all meeting participants consider meetings to be a waste of time. People use an average of 31 hours every month in unproductive meetings. 91% say they’ve daydreamed during meetings and 73% say they’ve done other work.
An article in the Harvard Business Review in 2017 reported that meetings have increased in length and frequency over the past 50 years, to the point where executives spend an average of nearly 23 hours a week in them, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. And that doesn’t even include all the impromptu gatherings that don’t make it onto the schedule.
It seems we have two problems. Firstly, too many meetings and secondly the meetings we do have are far from productive.
So, what should we do about it? How do you handle your meetings and how are meetings handled across your organisation?
I remember many years ago working as a consultant sitting in a Steering Committee meeting with a group of executives. I hadn’t been at the organisation long and was shadowing a very experienced colleague of mine, the lead consultant who had been invited to his second SteerCo meeting.
The meeting started late and there wasn’t an agenda to speak of or much-supporting material. The group proceeded to chat about this and that. About 10 minutes later another two people came in and disturbed the conversation. The previous 10 minutes then got repeated somewhat as side conversations also broke out. I looked across at my colleague who at 25 minutes in was losing the will to live.
Then, to my astonishment, he proceeded to slouch in his chair and slowly slide off it onto the floor making a groaning sound as he did so. I didn’t know what to say or do as all the senior executives looked at him strangely as he lay on the floor with a bored look on his face. ‘Are you Ok?’ the CFO said. ‘No, I am not’ replied my colleague.
What would you do if you were in this meeting? How would you react?
My colleague went on to explain how ineffective the meeting was, the reasons why and proceeded to coach on ways to improve not only on meeting etiquette but also on structure, timings and objective setting. He also did a calculation of the cost of each person multiplied by the number of hours we were sitting there for.
Try this:
Next time you are in a meeting take a quick check on how much it might be costing, just an estimate and keep it to yourself this is not anywhere near an exact science. You will be amazed at how addictive this can be when you see the cost stack up versus the output. Take a guess at each person’s annual salary and add them together. Next, divide by 250 (approximate working days per year) gives daily cost. Divide this by 8 (roughly the amount of hours in a working day) will give you the hourly cost. Now multiply by the length of the meeting in hours. Wow, pricey isn’t it.
The executives sat open-mouthed having never been challenged this way before, no one had dared. One or two of them challenged back which was great for the coach so he could further dive into specifics on meetings. By the end of the session, the group were hugely appreciative of the feedback, even if it was a bizarre way of making a point, a point it certainly did make. It is worth noting that my colleague had gained the utmost respect from this group due to the improvement work that had been carried out.
This story has stuck with me ever since and many years later I still see meetings that are equal or worse than this. It really frustrates me as I want to grab the pen, the flip chart or the microphone of a video call. I’ve certainly polished my meetings up as a result and continue to review their effectiveness. You can always tell if a meeting has not been planned properly, always. The irony is, that a well-planned meeting will go largely unnoticed as people are involved in the activity and are engaged. And who reviews meetings after for effectiveness anyway? Not many.
Steven Rogelberg’s 2019 book, The Surprising Science of Meetings is a recent attempt of many to understand how we can handle meetings more effectively. It seems obvious that what is suggested is to think carefully about the length of meetings. Yet many organisations still don’t seem to have this cemented as part of every meeting they hold.
Think back to the last meeting you attended. How did it go? Did you actually enjoy it? Was it effective? Was it needed? Did all the people have input for most of the time?
Now think back to the last meeting you arranged. Be honest. How well planned was it? How much time did you have or spend planning it? Was everyone engaged? Did everyone speak? Did you review it after for its effectiveness?
In December 2019 Zoom had 10 million daily meeting participants. In March 2020 it had 100 million, but the following month as countries went into lockdown this increased to 300 million. Astonishing figures.
You could argue with the advent of things like Zoom that organisations have got worse as people arbitrarily add Zoom after Zoom. Audiences for them increase too, potentially making them less effective each time. Never mind some users recent security concerns.
Is this lazy? Is it too easy to 'throw' in the diary? Should it be standard that these meetings open as one hour-long if not adjusted? Is it need or are they driven by our anxieties to feel like we are all contributing?
It is also widely reported that virtual meetings demand a higher level of concentration & emotional effort. People are finding them exhausting especially when they are back to back and set in these challenging times working from home during the lockdown.
The calls themselves, much like my opening line, are driving questions as people’s minds wander: What is this meeting for? Why am I here? How much longer? Are we just going around in circles? Can they hear me? Can they see me? Do they know I’m naked from the waist down? Or is that just me?
Meetings, or rather the way we do them has always been a problem, it’s not Zooms fault and I love using Zoom. This pandemic has forced us to ask questions about the current way of working which is great. Meetings and their value will be one of those things that should and will have greater scrutiny going forward as people ask: why?
How can you make your own meetings more effective? Here are 5 top tips for effective meeting management:
Limit the number of meetings you hold
- Obvious right? So why do we accept without question multiple meetings and complain about a crammed calendar every day? It shouldn’t be assumed that having a meeting is the best and only way to manage things. Be ruthless and remove or don’t add meetings that are not needed. Even if the meeting is super-efficiently run if it’s not really needed it’s a waste of time. Management guru Peter Drucker said, ‘There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.’ This is true outside of meetings too.
Cap meeting times
- You may notice in virtual meetings and calendars there can be a tendency to create a meeting that automatically allocates 1 hour. Challenge this, can we do it in 30 minutes? Can we reduce the attendees? Don’t use the full amount of time for the sake of it, finish early, review why and carry lesson to the next meeting.
Reduce meetings down to next level
- Can a face meeting reduce to a Zoom call? Can a Zoom call reduce to an email?
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
- This should include a timed agenda, objectives & expectations. The right people should be invited. No hangers-on, no just in cases. People that have an active part in the session. If you can’t describe this, then they should likely not be there. The agenda cannot be too broad, this is when the invite list gets too long and people are in the room with 50% interest or less. In this case, two 30-minute meetings are better than one 60-minute meeting where half the crowd have no interest. You must record the next steps, owners, and dates and this should feature on your agenda to summarise key actions and these must be sent out afterwards. No action from a meeting is a sin.
Review
- You must evaluate the effectiveness of your meetings, always. This starts in the meeting itself by spending 5 minutes just at the end asking the attendees how it went. Short and sharp. I like to use ‘Benefits & Concerns’. As in, what are the benefits of the last 30 mins, and what are your concerns? Concerns are always written down using a positive tone. For example, instead of ‘I don’t know what this meeting was about’ we would write ‘I wish I knew more about this meeting’. This helps generate next steps, avoids a whinging session, and also attempts to avoid people airing their concerns privately at the coffee machine to their colleague. We don’t go into detail; we just record it. If the concern can be answered on the spot quickly, it is. When the meeting ends you should review how it went from timings to attendees to tone and how you would make it better next time. You should keep an eye on all of this as the meeting facilitator, but it can be tough so it's useful to have a support person here.
So, ask yourself this: How would you rate your meetings? How would people rate yours? Would they be more enjoyable if you could evaluate them for effectiveness?
Want to learn more?
Please do comment, give your views and get in touch for a chat.
Cavan