Stop Going To Bad Meetings – They Are Bad For Your Career!

It’s estimated that the average business person spends 35–50% of their time in meetings. According to a poll, the average American spends 9 hours a week in meetings — and that’s just on average; some companies have even more meeting-heavy cultures.  

The problem is, the time we spend in meetings is often unproductive time, taking time away from actual work and productivity. Rather than cutting back on the number of meetings, many companies instead extend the length of the work day and week, with many employees averaging 60–70 hours a week, just to get their work done.

Research from the University of Minnesota also shows that because we have a limited amount of cognitive or what they call "executive" resources, once they get depleted, we start to make worse decisions. Long meetings or a great number of meetings in a day force us to commit, focus, and make decisions, depleting those executive resources. So if you have a particularly long meeting — say, three or four hours — or many meetings in a row, by the end, your decision making skills are diminished and the meetings become counterproductive.

But why are meetings so unproductive? The plain answer is that most meetings are mismanaged and fall into one of these traps:

1. Too many meetings. In a business that has fallen into “meeting culture,” employees and managers may feel the need to meet about everything. Al Pittampalli, author of Read This Before Our Next Meeting outlines three types of meetings that can immediately be eliminated from your schedule: meetings of convenience, meetings for formalities, and social meetings. If it falls into these categories, it shouldn’t happen.
2. Analysis paralysis. Meetings are a great way to collaborate and get different opinions before making a big decision, but they also provide opportunity for people to talk in circles, endlessly debating rather than actually making a choice. The best way to avoid this is to designate someone whose job it is to make the final decision, and make the goal of the meeting arriving at said decision.
3. Everyone’s invited. Too often, everyone who might possibly be affected by a decision or discussion is invited to participate in a meeting — whether they need to or not. This is a waste of everyone’s time. Instead, carefully consider who actually needs to be present for the meeting, and who could get a recap after the fact. In fact, it’s a good idea to assign attendees a role: leader, facilitator, recorder, timekeeper, decision maker, etc. If someone doesn’t have a clear role, they probably shouldn’t attend.
4. No clear purpose. If a meeting’s purpose is unclear, there’s no possible way the group can reach a desired outcome — assuming anyone knows what the desired outcome even is. If only the leader of the meeting knows what it’s about, no one else has an opportunity to prepare, leading people to scramble or research during the meeting. A better practice is to declare a clear purpose and goal when scheduling a meeting, allowing people to come prepared and leave with a goal completed.
5. Lack of schedule. Meetings that start late and run long are some of the biggest productivity killers. So too are meetings that happen haphazardly, any time, any place. A better solution is to block time for meetings: every Monday morning, Wednesday afternoon, or Thursday midday, for example. If that’s not possible, use an app like Calendly or Google Calendar to find a time that works for everyone. Then, start the meeting on time — regardless of who is running late — and end on time. Having an end-time is vital because meetings tend to expand to fill the time available.

The goal for any company or organization should be:

• Be more judicious about the number of meetings scheduled.
• Declare a purpose, goal, and agenda for each meeting.
• Schedule a start and end time for each meeting (and keep to those times).
• Invite only those people who are essential to the meeting and assign each a role.
• Request that people come prepared, and that presenters test the tech before the meeting starts.
• Take notes so that minutes can be distributed to those people who didn’t need to attend, but might be concerned with the outcome of the meeting.

What are your experiences with meetings? What other tips would you add to this list to keep meetings productive and on-point? I’d be interested in hearing your views in the comments below.

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