Meetings Don’t Need to be Miserable
Three simple rules to transform your meetings from a waste of resources into a valuable return on investment
Poorly executed meetings are a drain on your resources. Think about how many meetings you had last week. How many people were in those meetings? How much time did you spend there? You can use this quick cost calculator to find out how much money each meeting is costing you.
Meetings don’t just cost money. They cost time as well. Every hour that you and your team spend in poorly planned meetings is time that can’t be spent advancing the goals of your organization.
When I was younger, I suffered through many ineffective meetings. I would look at the agenda (if there was one) and count how many of the items could have been a quick email update. I would think through my to-do list and think about all of the things I should have been working on instead.
When I was the victim of time-wasting meetings, I thought canceling all meetings was the solution. I would have loved to gain those extra hours in my week to do work that mattered. I see now, though, that meetings don’t have to be evil. They can be redeemed! And when they’re done well, they can actually be an integral part of your workweek.
If you’re responsible for planning meetings, you can implement these ideas yourself. If you aren’t, you can humbly request some of these elements be present in your meetings from the person who runs them.
Every meeting needs a purpose
If your organization is too bogged down in meetings, you might actually want to start by canceling all of them for a couple of weeks. Two or three weeks without meetings will quickly reveal which were important and which were a waste of time.
With a clear schedule, you have the freedom to only resume the meetings that are important. Taking two or three weeks off from your meetings frees you from the notion that the meeting is important simply because it’s been happening regularly for years.
Only add meetings back to the calendar that have a clear purpose. If that purpose is just to give status updates, consider whether an email would be sufficient. There’s nothing worse than sitting in a meeting and realizing you could have read in 10 minutes what took an hour for everyone to say.
Before each meeting starts, communicate the purpose to the attendees. This helps set the tone for the meeting and prepare everyone for the discussion at hand. It also shows your team that you value their time and have put thought and effort into planning the meeting.
Establishing the purpose also helps determine who should be present at the meeting. If it’s a decision meeting, only invite the people whose input you trust and will actually consider when making the decision. If it’s a brainstorming meeting, invite the more creative people who tend to come up with the best ideas. Inviting only the essential people to each meeting will make your meetings more productive and spare the time of the people who don’t need to be there.
Every meeting needs an agenda
Setting the agenda for your meeting, and communicating that agenda in advance is another way to show your team that you’ve put effort into planning the meeting. It also keeps your meeting on track.
There is a time and place for informal, off-topic conversations (the first few minutes of a meeting are a great place), but if it gets scattered throughout the meeting, it can quickly derail your productivity. An agenda makes sure you hit the most important items, especially if you put them at the top of the list.
As you think through the agenda, consider which projects or decisions need buy-in from the people at the meeting. What problems are you currently facing that the people in this meeting might be able to help solve? As the leader, are there any places that you need to get your team back on track? All of these are valuable additions to an agenda.
As you plan your agenda, ask about each item, “Is this about driving results or about sharing information?” Most of your meetings should be about making decisions and having debates that ultimately drive results. Your time is too valuable (and expensive) to waste it simply sharing information. There are many more efficient ways to do that.
Every meeting needs follow-up
The last 5–10 minutes of your meeting should be spent reviewing action steps. If you’ve successfully planned a results-driven agenda, there should be plenty of steps that your team needs to take in the coming days and weeks. At the end of your meeting, spend some time specifically reviewing those steps and explicitly stating who is responsible for them.
In the days after the meeting, follow up with each person who has an action step. Make sure it made it onto their to-do list and hasn’t been forgotten. If you don’t follow up early, there’s a good chance progress won’t be made until the day before the next meeting when they realize, “Oh no, I was supposed to do x, y, and z. I better do this quickly before we meet tomorrow!”
Whether you’re a group of three people in the early stages of your organization or already have dozens, or even hundreds of employees, following these three simple rules will make your meetings more effective.
Effective meetings are a boost to productivity and move your company forward. Poorly planned meetings are demoralizing and cost you valuable time and money.
When your meetings have a purpose, an agenda, and a follow-up plan, you set yourself up for success.
