Why Organizations Need to Shift to 30-minute (NOT 1-hour) Meetings

I hear people complain about being so busy, in meetings all day long, can't get everything done in a day. These 3 things are all related! It's all the 1-hour meetings we have in our schedule that causes our your day to get away from us.

This past month I led 81 new client meetings that were 30 minutes long, with over 65% of those meetings leading to paid contracts. Most would consider that extremely successful, here's my thoughts why a 30 minute meeting is more effective than a 60 minute meeting.

The Sense of Limited Time

In pretty much every 30-minute meeting I lead, someone says "since we only have 30-minutes..." that sets the tone that there's no time to idly chat, ramble, or get sidetracked.

Having a full 30-minute agenda, everyone is focused on the key points of the meeting, the end goals desired out of the meeting, and keeping the meeting on point.

In these 30-minute new client meetings, we don't even do introductions. We make it a point to note everyone's name and their title on the invite so everyone knows generally who is who, but no 10-12 minutes of the meeting spent providing some random background of people in the meeting that no one remembers afterwards anyway.

Decision Makers Show Up to Short Meetings

I rarely get decision makers into a long meeting, they know the long meetings are a waste of time, and if they do show up they're not engaged. When I do short meetings that are focused and to the point, the execs show up, they get what I noted on the agenda, and as long as the topic is of interest to them, they're actively engaged.

And of course when I get the decision maker in the room, action items are taken care of right there and then.

Starting on Time - Ending on Time

Because a meeting is only 30-minutes long, being 10 minutes late to a meeting is effectively missing the entire meeting, but for an hour long meeting, it's quite common the meeting is delayed at LEAST 5 minutes and many times 10 minutes or more because someone is running late. I start my 30-minute meetings on time, those that come late miss a good portion of the meeting, and so be it. If my meetings are important, they'll know better next time to show up on time.

In the last 10-minutes of the meeting, we start focusing on ensuring we got through all of the points of the meeting, have action items determined, and attained the planned outcomes for the meeting. If we have 10-minutes left and we're not on track to achieve the goals of the meeting, there's clear focus to get to the end results with 10-minute to get things accomplished. No rambling, 3rd / 4th / 5th repeated restating of the same thing, it's laser focus to achieve results.

The meeting wraps up before the time allotted as the next 30-minute meeting is coming right up.

Follow-on Meeting If Needed

If the goals and results weren't achieved in the initial meeting, a follow-on meeting can be scheduled, BUT here are the parameters for follow-on meeting:

• The meeting is scheduled for 15-minutes to wrap-up outstanding items, NOT another 30-minute meeting and most certainly not a 1-hour meeting "because we obviously needed more time". NO, the objectives weren't achieved in the first 30-minutes and at most 15-minutes and maybe just 10-minutes should be allocated to complete the initial meeting
• Agenda for the follow-on meeting is CLEARLY noted of zero'g in on specific outcomes, NOT spending the entire time rehashing the discussions and decisions from the initial meeting. It's literally to pick up exactly where the initial meeting left off. Item #1 on the follow-on meeting invite is everyone is to re-review their notes and come prepared to pick-up the follow-on meeting right where the initial meeting left off.

When You Get Good at 30 Minute Meetings - Start Booking 20 Minute, then 15, and 10 Minute Meetings

Even 30-minutes is too long for many meetings, where a 20 minute, 15 or 10 minute meeting is all that is needed. Meetings CAN start at the quarter hour! Just put in the subject the start time of the meeting (ie: "1:15pm XYZ meeting")

Again, don't stretch a meeting out just because. Allocate 10 minutes, get through your points of action, get things done and move on to your next meeting.

When Longer Meetings ARE Needed

And yeah there are meetings that require brainstorming, collaboration, point/counterpoint discussions that need to be longer than 30-minutes. But start these longer meetings with a short 15-30 minute pre-meeting session where you can quickly draft out the topic, focus, and results that will be desired in the longer meeting.

Having a quick, short meeting to set a solid agenda will then help you identify WHO should be in the longer meeting, what the agenda/goal(s) are for the meeting, and whether the longer meeting should be 30, 45, 60, 90 minutes long.

But these longer meetings are special and unique. Most meetings should just be 15-30 minutes of core work. Get efficient at the use of time, you won't always be sitting in endless meetings of rambling and inaction.

No Time to be Social?

And yes, this short meetings format doesn't allow for time to chat about the weather, the weekend sports game, the latest bits in the news. But when you get good at getting your work done in 15 minute or 30 minute stints, it's amazing how much time there is in a day or week to book a social/connect meeting.

Grab a time everyone can bring their morning coffee into a 9:30am 20 minute meeting, or bring lunch together for a 30-minute gathering where you can chat and catch up on the latest.

As it is now, many people work through lunch because there's not enough time in the day when you have a half-dozen 1-hour meetings that run late and chew up the day. The short-focused meetings gets twice or three times as many meetings done in a day, eventually leaving a lot more time as everyone gets more efficient and effective in their day.