Meetings are part of organizational life. No workday is complete without them. And while they may take on different forms from 1-1s to team check-ins, away days or workshops to huddles and townhalls, training sessions to board meetings, zoom or TEAM calls, in-person, hybrid, and remote, they are ever-present.
All these meetings and so little precious time.
And the truth is, over 70% of people rate their meetings as ineffective. I haven’t yet come across someone who has not experienced a soul-crushing or mind-numbing meeting (if you are that person, please let’s talk!). And with meetings becoming more frequent and longer, the future may look bleak and the cost to organizations enormous. Doodle’s 2019 State of Meetings report estimated that the cost of poorly organized meetings in the U.S. and U.K will reach almost half a trillion dollars for these two countries. 😳
Here are just a handful of reasons why meetings suck and cost the organization money:
- they are talk shops, times when the loudest voices claim all the air space and repeat their views over and over
- they get no work done, make poor/no decisions, generate no new ideas
- they get stuck on issues
- they are repetitive, expected, and unsurprising
- they don’t engage the minds of the participants
I could go on, but it’s time to reclaim this wasted organizational spend and put your $s to better use.
While some organizations have successfully banned meetings, meetings are seen as a necessary organizational intervention for most. There is a recognition that meetings are part of corporate life, integral to the collaborative process, essential for social connection, and highly influential in shaping organizational culture. We know that meetings can be BETTER and that at their best, they are times to get work done, get deep work done. Well-designed and run meetings boost productivity, engage in healthy conflict, lead to better decisions, increase collaboration and connection, unleash innovation and creativity, solve real problems, strengthen relationships, leave people happier and add bottom-line value to your business.
You can shift your meetings from an expense to a revenue-generating asset.
There is a wealth of information on the web on making meetings more effective. Most will start the conversation with PURPOSE, stating that meetings without purpose are the most significant contributor to ineffectiveness. You can find a selection of other Ps contributing to meetings being an expense, such as people, preparation, process, place, etc.
Before you go down this route, stop for a second and ask yourself this question, do you focus enough on how people experience your meetings? I love Priya Parker’s TED talk, and while she focuses on the importance of purpose in her message, I believe that hidden inside Priya’s message is the importance of purpose and engagement.
Did you know that 97% of workers need conditions that encourage collaboration to do their best work. What they really need to be at their best is an intentional environment that fosters engagement (in service of purpose), leading to meaningful, transformative gatherings.
Meetings (or gatherings) are at their best when they are engaging.
And meeting engagement is not a nebulous, magical state that we just hope to get lucky and achieve – we can break down engagement into precisely what makes it up – in other words, the DNA of engagement. And when we do this, we can reconstruct meetings into highly engaging and value-adding moments in time.
Ultimately the question isn’t why we are still having meetings. It is we are we still having ineffective, disengaging meetings?
If you are ready to master meeting engagement, you can check out our online course, Engagement Matters. Here you can learn about the 9 dimensions of engagement and start transforming your meetings. This is a fully asynchronous offering (self-paced, online course) that enables leaders, gatherers, learning designers, scrum masters, coaches, teachers, professionals, and facilitators to maximize participation, engagement, and involvement in gatherings.
