Unveiling the Productivity Challenge in Meetings

I spent 30 years+ in the Corporate World and despite the Industry I may have been involved in a truism became apparent – the folks who were the least productive and with the most time on their hands would always be the first to call for a meeting. And another.

Excessive meetings occur for the simple reason that folks with time on their hands call them and end up wasting the time of those folks who have work to get done.

Simply put if your workplace suffers from ‘Meetingitis’ then refuse to get caught up in the vortex of so many meetings.

Meetings have their place and properly set up and executed (as with nearly everything in life) are productive forward momentum-creating things.

I used to do the following: Hold most meetings standing up to encourage brevity and focus. Cancel the meeting if even a single person has not read the pre-meeting brief. Draw up an action plan for each individual attendee at the end of the meeting. Controlled the Minutes. To name a few things that improved productivity.

All too often ‘Meetingitis**’** is a prime cause of you feeling like you are not accomplishing anything, that work is a hamster wheel, that things never change, and often see you leaving work late and eating into your time with the Folks you care for the most.

Attending a lot of meetings should not be considered a good use of your time – it denotes failure on your part.

Start to say no, ask if your presence is essential but most of all be in fewer.