Meetings that Matter
Why care about meetings?
How many hours do you spend each week in meetings? Multiple that by month…by year…and it’s likely a significant chunk of time. The Harvard Business Review says it may be as much as 15% of your entire enterprise’s time — likely more for the most senior, most expensive, employees. Add in the emails, scheduling time, reminders, and prep for meetings, and you could easily double that.
With meetings quantity matters less than quality. How many of those hours do you find productive? If you’re like most of us, you won’t say “All!” If you’re lucky, you’ll report the majority are worth your time, but more of you will say half or even less. Some might even say “None!” That doesn’t just waste every attendee’s time, it wastes your organization’s money. (Here’s a quick meeting cost calculator: use it to see how much meetings cost your bottom line.)
There are ways to move more meetings into the productive column. You may be surprised to hear it’s a long list, and that some of the things on it are quite simple. This includes ways to improve meetings or even cut the number of meetings and time spent in them. I share this list with you because I’m on a mission to make meetings matter. I know they can. I know we can do better work — our best — if we improve how we spend our time.