“I am in meetings all day.” I feel like I have heard this phrase in my 1:1s for the past 12 months. Employees have been working about 10 – 15% more hours / week since 2002. One factor to this surge in work time is the amount of meetings. Employees are spending more time during non-work hours completing their projects.
Here are three factors to consider as you seek to build more efficiency into your business and escape the meeting quagmire:
Recurring Meetings
Meeting volume has surged since COVID. We attend meetings more frequently. There are several factors – hybrid work has left us feeling less connected, so we schedule more meetings. The FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) factor – ‘I should be a part of that meeting.’ means getting invited to more meetings to ensure you do not miss anything. I see leaders having higher control needs, information and understanding of what is happening with their direct reports. So, more meetings are scheduled. (NOTE: It is understandable that you desire more control and certainty, just be sure that your need for control is not reducing your employees autonomy.) Meetings serve the business, we do not serve meetings. The question is ‘are the meetings in service of the business mission or are they on the schedule to quell anxiety and reduce the leader’s stress.’
Meeting Facilitation
Once you enter a meeting that you are leading it is important for the leader to reflect on this question – “What parentage of the time are you talking vs. listening?” Early on in my career, a coach posed this question to me. I was leading a sales team and the meeting felt like a chance for me to process. I felt the anxiety of the silence and it pushed me to fill the space with words. Another coach of mine, encouraged me to “Let the silence do the heavy lifting.” As the engagement by the team decreased, my voice increased. I thought that I could compensate by speaking. Be mindful, of when you decide to share your opinion in the meeting. As a leader, you set the tone and your team likely will want to follow you and may acquiesce to your idea and it could stifle their input.
Meeting Audit
I encourage leaders to complete a meeting evaluation to determine the effectiveness of their meetings:
- List each of your meetings that you led or attended over the past 30 days.
- Write the title and purpose of these meetings. For example: To accelerate the effectiveness and collaboration of the sales team
- Write the objectives or deliverables (what done looks like) for each meeting – if you do not have one, that is ok, but every meeting should have clarity on what done looks like today
- List the attendees
- Write the name of the project or program or business unit that the meeting serves
- Provide a pre-reading
- Assign others to lead portions of your meetings. This activity builds meeting engagement.
Remember that meetings serve the business, you do not serve meetings. I would recommend starting with your recurring meetings. Turn those off for the next 30 – 60 days and only reschedule if you need to make a decision or create a strategy. If productivity improves without the meeting and attendees can share information on a tech tool like Asana or Wrike ect..then the meeting is not needed.
Meeting Resources
There are two books that include some great content on meetings, that I recommend:
Your Best Meetings – Rebecca Hinds