4 Ways to Improve Meetings

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26 May

The Dreaded Meeting

Let’s face it. We’ve all walked out of a meeting (or signed off from a Zoom call) and thought, “well that could’ve been summed up in an email”. For many, meetings are rarely viewed as productive, organized, cost effective or satisfying.

We know that communication is essential to the success of our teams, so what can we do to overcome the dreaded meeting? How can we turn them into an asset to our productivity instead of a liability?

The Fundamental Problems of Meetings

Meetings typically have a late start and unfixed end time. This has a cascading effect on your teams, and their day. When a meeting doesn’t start right on time, it makes it difficult to cover all the talking points and by extension it is more likely to run overtime and have a detrimental impact on all teammates' next task.

This overflow robs teams of even more of their time for productivity. In addition, the concept of “Zoom Fatigue” is real! We have to constantly monitor our own behaviours, and normalize only interacting with people on screens for countless hours a day. The longer the meetings, the more extensive our zoom fatigue will be, without the normal social rewards we get from an in-person meeting.

Furthermore, a meeting that goes sideways warrants a reflective period afterwards to decompress and recover. Along with the rumination that occurs for ourselves, we often loop in coworkers or other people, to express our frustration and other emotions brought on.

Essentially, bad meetings are contagious.

Losing Productivity

A complaint from employees and leaders everywhere is that meetings take away their time to be productive. In order to be engaged in a meeting, you're required to step away from what you're doing, and put all other work tasks on hold.

While we can blame the default settings in Outlook and Google Calendar that automatically block off one hour as a default meeting time, we can outsmart the technology and save everyone some time. Maybe you only have 20 minutes worth of things to discuss, so schedule a 20 minute meeting instead of the 60 minute default or even the 30 minute suggestion.

Too Many People Meeting

For one reason or another, leaders tend to over invite to meetings, calling on anyone who is remotely available. For every employee that is pulled into a meeting, there is one less person working on other critical tasks.

Why do they do this? Elon Musk doesn’t, and in fact encourages people to leave meetings if they aren’t able to actively contribute. Inviting non-essential personnel sets the stage for decreased productivity, and lack of clarity for the “tag-along attendees”. Using Elon Musk’s approach, a meeting only really requires the facilitator, and anyone working directly on the project at hand.

4 Strategies to Improve Your Meetings

With every bad meeting comes significant consequences. Employees and leaders across the board complain that meetings don't allow them enough time to get their work done. Unclear instructions and actions lead to confusion. Bad organization results in loss of focus on projects, and delays completion. Irrelevant attendees slow down the conversation, and extend meeting duration.

Essentially, bad meetings are contagious. So what can you do to avoid all this?

Set clear objectives for your meetings.
Create a detailed agenda well ahead of time outlining all the major areas that must be discussed. Consider including timelines, so that you know when it’s time to move on in the discussion. Above all else, set a clear start and end time. Establish a culture of punctuality for meetings as a sign of respect for everyone’s time. If you’re reaching the end of your meeting time, and haven’t finished the agenda, consider what details you could send out in an email to avoid keeping your team any longer.
Assign a meeting facilitator.
The job of the facilitator is essentially to keep you on time. They make sure you're working your way through the agenda, and most importantly they wrangle in those rants when somebody gets completely off topic. As horrible as your coffee order was this morning, now isn’t the place to lament it.
Limit the number of people in the room.
Resist the urge to mass invite your team to a meeting. Loop in only those who you have questions for, who can assist the project, or who may be seeking clarification on the task at hand. That’s it. Chances are, including anyone extra will be neither beneficial to them, nor the meeting agenda.
Present the meeting in an engaging format.
Use visual stimuli like videos or presentations to increase engagement and retention from your team. Your team mirrors you, so make sure you present with lots of positive energy. Involve the meeting attendees with questions, and make it known that you are there to help.

Meetings are essential, and they're not going anywhere. We rely on them to keep everyone on the same page, to get our jobs done. In order for this tool to help and not hinder us, we need to organize them better, design them consciously, and make sure they’re serving us and our work needs.

How are you going to make tomorrow's meetings more effective?

When it comes to what is fundamentally wrong with meetings, we’ve only just scratched the surface. As far as solutions go, these four strategies are easy to implement, and immediate.

Our Podcast, The Science of Work further explores the data behind meetings, and provides a deeper learning opportunity for you and your team. Listen to Episode 1 “What the Science of Meetings Tell Us.” You can find all of The Science of Work podcast episodes on Apple, Spotify or wherever you stream.