Are your firm’s meetings a waste of time? Score them and find out

How much of your time do you spend in meetings? If you’re a leader, the answer is probably, ‘a lot’. Now for a tougher question: how many of those meetings are actually effective, in the sense that they have a positive impact on your firm’s performance?

If you’re struggling to answer that, you’re not alone. Far too many meetings pass by without anyone ever stopping to measure their effectiveness. But when you take the time to score your firm’s meetings, you can understand and improve meeting effectiveness, eliminate unproductive meetings, and improve overall performance. Let me show you how.

Remember, meeting effectiveness is a key part of leadership 

It’s baffling, really, why we neglect to measure meeting effectiveness when we routinely measure other drivers of success. Because, make no mistake, meetings (or should I say, good meetings) are a key driver of success.

The impact of meetings spreads far beyond the conference room. Meetings are where key issues are discussed and decisions made. Meetings play a critical role in people building relationships and trust, both internally and with clients. Meetings influence employee satisfaction and productivity. One study showed that improving the firm’s approach to meetings yielded a 42% increase in team collaboration and a 28% increase in team performance. What’s more, satisfaction with work/life balance shot up from 62% to 92% – probably because people felt they were wasting less time in pointless meetings!

A single-point improvement in management practices can deliver the same output boost as a 25% increase in the labour force. That’s not to be sniffed at. So of course meeting effectiveness should be measured, alongside other key business drivers. After all, as the old adage goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Measuring your meetings

I know you’re busy, and so is your team. The last thing you need is a complex measurement system that creates more work and increases meeting frustration. The good news is, you just need a simple score from 1–10.

At the end of each meeting, ask everyone in the room to give the meeting a score of 1–10, based on the meeting objective. So, 10 represents a fantastic, productive meeting that achieved the desired objective and resulted in clear outcomes. And 1 represents a pointless meeting that resulted in nothing but a desire to bang your head against a brick wall.

If this feels a little alien at first, ask some questions to help participants arrive at their score, such as:

• Was everyone prepared for the meeting?
• Did we stick to the agenda?
• Did we achieve what we set out to do?
• Did we communicate openly and honestly?
• Are we clear on what happens next?

Another, arguably more impactful, approach is to break the score down into distinct elements, where the maximum total score is still 10. For example, choose five criteria and give each a score of 0 to 2 to give you a maximum of 10. You could go with:

• Was everyone prepared for the meeting?
• Did we stick to the agenda?
• Did we achieve what we set out to do?
• Did we communicate openly and honestly?
• Are we clear on what happens next?

You can use different criteria, and weight the criteria scores according to importance, so long as the maximum total is 10.

Some tips to get more value out of the scoring process:

• Make sure the score you give is an honest one, and encourage participants to score honestly. If a meeting sucked, say so.
• Have everyone say briefly why they gave the score they gave. This feedback is vital for improving meetings.

The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) says you should expect all meetings to be a 10. I’d argue it’s better to use positive psychology and start with a more realistic target, then build up to 10. 

Your meetings might, for instance, score 4 or 5 to start with, but you could set a goal of getting to 10 within six months. This means you can feel good about your meeting performance of 6, 7 and 8 as you move towards running world-class meetings. 

Building a culture of better meetings

Scoring your meetings is a hugely effective way to monitor and improve meeting success. But there are other building blocks for effective meetings, such as always having an agenda, agreeing on team rules for successful meetings, and deciding on clear actions/follow-ups. 

The ultimate goal is to build a culture of better meetings across the whole firm, and in client meetings. To really embed this attitude, consider having a KPI for meeting effectiveness and including meeting performance in individual performance reviews. 

You can also use Agendali’s meeting management software to improve your meetings. Designed for accounting firms, it’s packed with template agendas and performance metrics to help you track meeting success. Give it a go today and enjoy the benefits of having better meetings.