If you polled employee across a wide swath of companies and asked for one thing, they would like to see changed, having fewer meetings would rise to the top of everyone’s list. Let’s face it, most meetings suck.
People complain about how most meetings are timewasters. Is there a better way to achieve the same results?
Why is it that few if any companies measure employee participation and meeting hours/month as a KPI?
There is a feeling that meetings are free and don’t have any cost associated with it. It is perhaps one of the most wasteful activities for most organizations. If you calculated the hourly wage rate for each attending employee, you’d find that many meetings spend thousands of dollars with no oversite.
Hey Microsoft and Google here is an idea
Imagine if Outlook or Google Calendar tracked your hours like an iPhone app can follow your steps or miles walked? It would impose discipline to get work done without gathering too many people around a table when there are many simpler options to achieve the goal.
What if you budgeted meeting time was like other expenses?
So your boss says you are only allowed to attend 5 hours of meeting per week or a certain number of hours/month. You have to use those precious hours wisely, and you can’t schedule meetings once you have hit your allotment.
I’m not against meetings and I don’t like to micro-manage. Meetings play an essential role when properly managed with clear agendas, expectations of outcome and limited participants. They can help connect associates and reinforce core values. But meeting ‘creep’ is everywhere within most businesses.
Don’t Hold A Meeting
Here are some suggestions to try:
- Create a meeting budget that limits meeting attendance per employee. Try it for a month and watch how creatively people find alternatives.
- Instead of a meeting, pose a question via email or Slack to your colleagues. Ask for input and tips to help you think through the challenge. Since employees can respond asynchronously, it allows you to get the benefit of their ideas, without forcing everyone to stop what they are doing, sitting around a desk.
- Don’t allow meetings with more than three people. If you need more people to attend a meeting, you probably have too broad a topic. Three people meetings force a discipline to pick only essential participants.
- Use the principles of RACI. (Responsible, Accountable, Consulting & Inform) The RACI discipline requires you to identify who is the decision maker who is held accountable. And, who needs to be consulted and informed. Organizations with a clear line of responsibility and decision making often have higher employee satisfaction.
- Instead of wasting people’s time in a meeting, summarize the findings and decisions from a three-person meeting via notes or email. You inform people of the choices without losing an hour of their time.
- Hold meetings in short increments of time like 15-minutes. Why does a meeting need to be an hour?
- Do what Bezos does at Amazon. No one presents information at a meeting. A word document (never PowerPoint) goes out beforehand. The meeting is for discussion of the content of the note and decision making. So, instead of wasting the time of 8 executives, Bezos insists that people have already read the brief or idea.
If you like these ideas, let me know, and we can set up a meeting to discuss. (that’s a joke, sort of).
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free and we can explore if working together makes sense. Try my new chat feature on my site if you have a quick question.
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash
