While meetings are a vital element of effective collaboration, if there are too many of them, they can become overwhelming. In America alone, 11 million meetings take place every day, out of which a third is considered unproductive. This lost productivity costs companies $37 billion annually.
What’s worrying is that the switch to remote working caused by the pandemic has doubled the number of meetings from 7 to 14 a week.
Therefore, it’s crucial to consider what can be done to introduce a healthy meeting culture. This is what we’re going to cover in today’s piece.
Let’s imagine the following scenario. Anna is a team-leader in a tech company, she manages a team of 5 people. She has no time for deep work as she spends most of her workday in meetings (6-8 hours, to be more precise). Unfortunately, most of them are unproductive, as they’re not managed appropriately. I bet this sounds familiar!
If you can relate, then here are a few behaviours which you should avoid to improve your meeting culture:
Let’s go back to the previously mentioned scenario. After spending hours in meetings, Anna has finally decided to calculate how much it really cost, and it shocked her! She realized that it’s a massive expense, which motivated her to do something about it. As mentioned above, unproductive meetings cost companies billions of dollars! If you want to check how much it costs your company, then we recommend using this calculator. Hopefully, it will act as a trigger for you to improve your meeting culture.
After realizing how expensive it is to sit in unproductive meetings, Anna started to collect data on the time spent by her team in meetings. This helped her ensure that her team and herself have enough time for deep work, which made a massive difference. Spending just 10% less time in meetings would save Americans $3.7 billion yearly. So, here are 4 metrics worth tracking to make sure your meetings are productive:
Even though meetings are necessary for effective collaboration, it’s vital to keep its number under control to avoid productivity losses and enable enough time for deep work. To introduce a healthier meetings culture, among others I recommend gathering data on the time your team spends in meetings and avoiding behaviors that negatively impact productivity during meetings. If you want to discuss this subject in more depth, then get in touch with us at Network Perspective.
Sources:
$37 billion are lost every year on these 12 meeting mistakes
https://www.businessinsider.com/37-billion-is-lost-every-year-on-these-meeting-mistakes-2014-4?IR=T
The New Future of Work: Research from Microsoft into the Pandemic’s Impact on Work Practices
How Much Are Meetings Actually Costing You?
Your Scarcest Resource
https://hbr.org/2014/05/your-scarcest-resource
Estimate the Cost of a Meeting with This Calculator
https://hbr.org/2016/01/estimate-the-cost-of-a-meeting-with-this-calculator
