Productive Meetings?

Productive Meetings - Mission Control Productivity Workshops

In business today, it's common for people think of the words "productivity" and "meetings" as oxymoronic - the two terms simply do not belong in the same universe. This is despite the fact that in Fortune 500 companies, meeting costs average over $500 per hourly meeting (not counting travel costs). In a global study of 38,000 knowledge workers, published in an April issue of HR Innovator Magazine, 32% of respondents said that ineffective meetings were among the most common productivity pitfalls of their work.

Here are a few other interesting characteristics regarding meetings from our Mission Control Productivity programs on managing teams:

If you put people together in a room, they will talk about something. If they haven't been told what they are there to talk about, they will talk about anything.

Most unproductive meetings are the result of not planning what is to be accomplished, or inadequate planning before the meeting. That is a function of individuals not managing their own productivity. The fallout of an inadequately prepared meeting is to create a nonproductive occasion for each individual in the meeting. The same effect is caused by unprepared participants.

Work expands to fill available time. If you put people together for an hour's meeting, they will use the hour, even if they could have produced the same result in 15 minutes.

People in meetings have individual work and communication behaviors that, unmanaged, accelerate the natural entropic drift of meetings. This isn't bad, it's just human.

The only thing worse than having to sit through an unproductive meeting is not being invited.

When people are talking about "wasted" meetings they are not talking about their meetings, they are talking about yours.

Productivity Paradigm:

People have been meeting since tribes formed. It's a social habit that goes way, way back. Accordingly, face-to-face meetings operate inside a well-understood set of social rules. The challenge is to plan and prepare to have your meetings be productive. When considering a meeting here are some questions to ask:

If you didn't have this meeting, would it be missed? What breakdowns WOULD be caused - not COULD be caused - by not having this meeting? If no breakdowns are apparent, you probably don't need to meet.

If sharing information is the purpose of the meeting, are there other ways the information could be shared that wouldn't require a meeting?

If decisions are to be made, who's accountable, and is a meeting the best venue for making that/those decisions?

Are there benefits in having people interact face-to-face in this particular meeting, and if so, what are those benefits?

What outcomes going into the meeting are sufficient to warrant the expense or cost of this method of deriving those outcomes? If the outcomes don't justify the costs, how else could they be produced?

If you could make this happen without this meeting, how would you go about it and would that be a better use of time?

Can you produce the same or better results using other methods or technologies?

If, after honestly answering these questions, it looks like a meeting is still the best way, then prepare and have your meeting.

Remember: People want to be invited to meetings because it means they belong, they are needed, and they are valued enough to be expected to contribute in some way. Meetings aren't going away - we all want to know we matter.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

"Since I took the workshop nearly a year ago, I've doubled my productivity. This increase comes not only from implementing the system but also from the clarity and peace of mind I now have. The most profound change has been the way that clarity impacts how I do my job. It's incredible."

Marty Millington

Senior Human Resources Manager, Toshiba America