All things in moderation, Petronius suggested, even moderation. I would say that meetings definitely qualify.
I will be the last person to advocate for the total elimination of meetings. At times, it’s necessary to gather the team together and hammer out solutions, craft intelligent strategies and maybe eat some pizza. No one’s going to dispute that, least of all me.
But endless meetings are productivity vampires. Meetings are excellent for strategizing and a great way to communicate, but they’re terrible for actually getting work done. An employee in a meeting for an hour is an employee who isn’t preparing documents, making critical calls to business partners or driving your customer engagement.
Yet for many businesses, meetings are a fact of life. I have a friend who spends an average of three hours a day in meetings, which means that during his 40 hour workweek, he’s cooped up discussing planning when he could be doing. Not to mention that in most cases, meetings are as dry as the Mojave.
How can you keep communication channels open and powwow without turning your day into a morass of meetings?
- Use e-mail. Chances are good that you can sustain a dialogue and get a message out through e-mail, without needing everyone to be there in person. It’s a good way to reach the team while still allowing them to work.
- Quick hit meetings. Have a clear five minute presentation and set aside five-to-ten minutes for questions and dialogue. There’s no need to get bogged down in a full hour meeting for something that should take no time at all…so don’t.
- Consider whether it’s necessary. You may call meetings not because they are essential to moving ahead, but because it’s a habit. You may also be a micro-manager, something you should work on before you drive your employees completely insane.
With these tips in hand, you can start to chip away at the block of meetings that consume your day and use your time for work instead. And who doesn’t want to be more productive?
Do you have more advice for your fellow small businesses? We’d love to hear it.
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2 Comments on "The Scourge Of Meetings And Their Impact On Productivity"
Dear Mr. Choate,
Yep, it’s Me again ! Boy I wish You been around in some of the Companies that I have watched struggle through endless meetings over the last forty ( 40 ) years and usually accomplishing very little Productive or Profitable Work and could have told these fools to ” knock off the nonsense” !
Respectfully,
Joseph Anthony Smith- President
Northstar Financial Consultants, Inc.
Joseph, thanks for the comment! I’d say 90% of meetings don’t really accomplish much of anything, so it’d be great if we could just get rid of them. A man can dream, right?