Right-Size Your Meetings
“People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” ~ Thomas Sowell
Back at the start of my career, my workgroup had a standing weekly meeting. I dreaded it, because it was SUCH a waste of time! It would last for 90 minutes (or longer), there was no agenda, and the two bosses would often digress into side discussions that did not apply to anything that the rest of us were doing… but of course we had to keep sitting there.
If you are in charge of the meetings for your team, consider doing a meetings “tune-up.” If you have an “all-hands” weekly meeting—which is an excellent idea to keep everyone informed of things that apply to the full team—keep it short (15-30 minutes) and have an agenda that you run through quickly. One of the agenda items might be to communicate what other meetings are scheduled for the week… and to schedule any that need to be added. You can make sure the right people are in the right meetings. As the leader, you DON’T have to be in every meeting! NO ONE has to be in every meeting!
If people are required to sit through a 90-minute meeting or Zoom call that only has 5 minutes of applicable info for them, they will disengaged and bored and IT IS A HUGE WASTE OF COMPANY RESOURCES. How much of that 85 minutes of billable time worth? How many people are sitting in that meeting not producing in that time? How many people could avoid staying late if they had that productive time during the workday?
You can and should let everyone on the team know the full schedule of meetings (many office calendar apps and programs will show them, and they are a great place to post the agenda for each meeting), but as the leader, you might have to pull in a few reluctant people (e.g., introverts who don’t like collaboration) in some cases, and limit the attendance of the rare “meeting-lovers” who want to be on every team and included in every discussion.
In summary:
Keep most meetings short
Have an agenda for each meeting
Stick to the agenda
If items come up that extend beyond the agenda, hold the applicable people back at the end of the official meeting and let the rest of the attendees go
Make sure the right people are in each meeting
Respect your people. Respect their time. Respect their efforts. Don’t make their professional life a series of time-wasting meetings.
(image source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_sowell_381904)