Have you ever been stuck on a call or in a meeting that felt like a complete waste of time? Maybe it was something that wasn’t relevant to your job or you felt like you didn’t have anything to add. You’re not alone!
The other day I was talking with a friend of mine who was stuck on a work call with another department. He needed to call them for assistance on a matter, and then was forced to attend this call to discuss the resolution of the issue. The problem was, this was out of his scope of practice and he really had no value to add on how to resolve the problem. It gets worse…it was 7:30 at night, after already working a 15 hour day!
It made me think about one of Elon Musk’s business rules.
Elon Musk has said, ““Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
I can’t help but think that this is one of the most logical things I have heard in a very long time!
How many times have you been stuck in a meeting, or on a call, that is a complete waste of your time? Maybe it is not relevant to your department or maybe, as in the case of my friend, he didn’t have anything productive to add.
I worked for a company that we had a standing weekly sales meeting. Our entire outside sales team traveled. The first year of the meeting we didn’t even have an agenda. If you missed the call, you had no idea what was even discussed. There were no follow up notes, or updates as to the outcome of the meeting. The meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes, but would often last an hour. The majority of the time, the meeting could have been completed in about 15 minutes, or highlighted in an email. often thought it would have been more productive to send an email with the updates and if there was something urgent, or truly important, than call a short meeting to strictly discuss the hot/urgent topic.
I feel like there are far too many meetings, and most of them are not very productive.
I found an interesting article, “The Science and Fiction of Meetings” from MIT Sloan Management. It’s an older article (2007), but the data is still profound. Here is a link if you would like to read the article for yourself:
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-science-and-fiction-of-meetings/
The average employee spends 6 hours a week in meetings. This equals 240 hours a year or 6 weeks.
It is estimated that senior managers spend nearly 23 hours a week in meetings. That is 1,196 hours a year, or almost 30 weeks a year!
And I don’t know about you, when I have to attend a meeting, it interrupts my complete workflow. It’s harder to get in the zone and to stay focused, before and after the meeting. I wonder how much productivity has been lost due to all of these meetings?
Not all of the feedback on meetings was bad and I believe there are some meetings that are very valuable and important. But the key question is…is there a more productive way to spend out time?
With more demands being put on everyone these days, and with employees on the verge of burn out, maybe it’s a good time to reevaluate your meeting schedule?
Here are a few pointers to make them more effective and efficient:
- Keep the meetings small – this keeps more people engaged and allows you to have a more relevant and in-depth conversation. If you have a dominant personality in the meeting, you can focus your attention on the introvert or less dominant person. Just because someone doesn’t speak up, doesn’t mean they don’t have great ideas!
- Agenda and Objectives. Identify your meeting objective beforehand and then create an agenda and send it out ahead of time. Ask clear questions within the agenda. For example, “when will Project X be done?” vs “Project X timeline.” Let the team prepare for the meeting, so they know what questions they will need to have answered instead of spending time in the meeting looking for the answer or having to call another meeting to discuss the answer.
- Cut the length of meeting time down. If you schedule an hour meeting, you will find a way to waste an hour, even if you only have 30 minutes of things to discuss. Try pairing back the amount of time scheduled for the meeting. I challenge you to try to make your 1 hour meetings into 40 or 45 minutes, and your 30 minute meetings into 15 to 20.
- Block off times during the week that meetings are not allowed. I personally think there should never be meetings on Monday mornings or Friday afternoons. Monday mornings are a great time for everyone to get caught up from the weekend, clear out their inboxes, and put out their fires. It allows them to get focused on the week ahead. If you start the week with a meeting, your team is already going to feel like they are behind the 8 ball. They will be more focused on all of the things they have to do, instead of on the meeting. The same holds true for Friday afternoons. People are ready to wrap up their week, finish up their projects and look towards the weekend. Their focus will not be on the meeting at hand. I recommend you ask your team, what their most productive time of the week is, and make sure to NOT schedule meetings during that time.
- Never hold a meeting for an update. You can use so many different tools (Slack, Teams, even email) to get updates.
- And finally, never use the excuse that you’ve always done it this way. I challenge you to try something new and see what happens. You have nothing to lose but wasted time.
I’d love to hear your thoughts & feedback and if you found this blog helpful, please share it.
If you are looking for news to motivate, engage and energize team. I can help! As a leadership and success coach, I help leaders and teams tap into their maximum potential to become the best version of themselves. If you are interested in learning more, you can schedule a complimentary coaching session here:
https://calendly.com/maryann-nspire/introductory-session