If you don’t need it, axe it! That’s my motto when it comes to meetings.
What’s startling is how few people in business seem to understand the value in cutting out a meeting that will be lightly attended, unproductive or just plain useless. Instead, the meeting stays up on everyone’s calendar, coworkers arrive, they yawn, they text, they daydream, they work on their laptops, and when they leave, their memory says, “Why did we have that meeting?
If you work for a company that has meetings, particularly a larger business, you know what I mean. No matter your job or your position within the hierarchy of the company, at some point you are pulled into a meeting where you wonder, “What the heck is this about? We’re going to waste our time.”
Sure enough, you do. That’s because the agenda hasn’t been set, people don’t know the purpose of the meeting, or whoever is running the meeting has no idea how to run an effective meeting.
What is an effective meeting? The short definition is, “One that ends before it is scheduled to.” That’s a sign that the meeting was well-organized, solved a problem and accomplished what it was set up for.
The more complex definition of an effective meeting is one where people come out and say, “I learned something.” Or, “NOW I know what we need to do next.”
Really, that’s quite simple, don’t you think? For some reason we don’t walk out of many meetings feeling that way.
Instead, we walk out confused, bored or frustrated with the lack of direction or finality. You should leave a meeting knowing something new, having a clearer direction on a project or a better sense of what to do next on your job.
The meeting organizer is responsible for this. Set expectations. Establish clear direction. Keep on the agenda.
I’m not sure where business meetings lost their way. If you read business publications or talk to people around your office, most would agree there is a lack of direction in the meetings they attend.
One of the best solutions to the unnecessary meeting is to cancel it. I’ve found this not only frees up time for everyone to actually work on their projects, but it increases your popularity. People love it when you give them time back in their lives.
This point was driven home recently to me. I host a regular weekly meeting and it typically has a fairly lively agenda that we keep rocking. One of its goals is to generate ideas. We also have to check off deliverables on a consistent timeline. Those are the standard reporting items, along with a monthly report we go through to gauge success and help us decide on adjustments down the road.
Despite frequently having good new issues as topics of discussion, there are weeks where nothing new is going on. We could decide to hold the meeting. I did this a couple of times, then thought, “What the heck am I doing? Nothing is going on that requires us to meet, so let’s cancel this dang thing.” So I did.
And I continue to do this once every six weeks or so, and sometimes in back-to-back weeks. Why invent work if the trains are running on time? Give people time away from meetings so they can focus on other parts of their jobs.
Sometimes it seems there is a mindset that you have to be in meetings to prove your importance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Meetings serve a function, but sometimes it’s the canceled meeting that serves the most important function.
What’s startling is how few people in business seem to understand the value in cutting out a meeting that will be lightly attended, unproductive or just plain useless. Instead, the meeting stays up on everyone’s calendar, coworkers arrive, they yawn, they text, they daydream, they work on their laptops, and when they leave, their memory says, “Why did we have that meeting?
If you work for a company that has meetings, particularly a larger business, you know what I mean. No matter your job or your position within the hierarchy of the company, at some point you are pulled into a meeting where you wonder, “What the heck is this about? We’re going to waste our time.”
Sure enough, you do. That’s because the agenda hasn’t been set, people don’t know the purpose of the meeting, or whoever is running the meeting has no idea how to run an effective meeting.
What is an effective meeting? The short definition is, “One that ends before it is scheduled to.” That’s a sign that the meeting was well-organized, solved a problem and accomplished what it was set up for.
The more complex definition of an effective meeting is one where people come out and say, “I learned something.” Or, “NOW I know what we need to do next.”
Really, that’s quite simple, don’t you think? For some reason we don’t walk out of many meetings feeling that way.
Instead, we walk out confused, bored or frustrated with the lack of direction or finality. You should leave a meeting knowing something new, having a clearer direction on a project or a better sense of what to do next on your job.
The meeting organizer is responsible for this. Set expectations. Establish clear direction. Keep on the agenda.
I’m not sure where business meetings lost their way. If you read business publications or talk to people around your office, most would agree there is a lack of direction in the meetings they attend.
One of the best solutions to the unnecessary meeting is to cancel it. I’ve found this not only frees up time for everyone to actually work on their projects, but it increases your popularity. People love it when you give them time back in their lives.
This point was driven home recently to me. I host a regular weekly meeting and it typically has a fairly lively agenda that we keep rocking. One of its goals is to generate ideas. We also have to check off deliverables on a consistent timeline. Those are the standard reporting items, along with a monthly report we go through to gauge success and help us decide on adjustments down the road.
Despite frequently having good new issues as topics of discussion, there are weeks where nothing new is going on. We could decide to hold the meeting. I did this a couple of times, then thought, “What the heck am I doing? Nothing is going on that requires us to meet, so let’s cancel this dang thing.” So I did.
And I continue to do this once every six weeks or so, and sometimes in back-to-back weeks. Why invent work if the trains are running on time? Give people time away from meetings so they can focus on other parts of their jobs.
Sometimes it seems there is a mindset that you have to be in meetings to prove your importance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Meetings serve a function, but sometimes it’s the canceled meeting that serves the most important function.
