Eliminate Unproductive Meetings
At one time or another, everyone has griped about inefficient meetings. Whether those gatherings were face-to-face or virtual, every employee and leader has felt the pain of pointless, aimless, unfocused and generally inefficient meetings.
As bad as the momentary pain feels, new data shows that the people who sit through more inefficient meetings are actually less engaged than their peers. More than 50,000 people have taken Leadership IQ's online test, "How Do Your Time Management Skills Stack Up?" and one of the questions ask respondents to choose between these statements:
- I'm frequently stuck in meetings that are not productive or an efficient use of everyone's time.
- On average, the meetings I attend are focused, productive and efficient.
There's a stark difference in how people answer that question based on how they feel about their jobs. For example, 65% of people who dislike their jobs report that they're frequently stuck in meetings that are not productive. By contrast, only 24% of people who love their jobs say they're frequently in unproductive meetings.
Of course, correlation is not causation, but that doesn't mean that there's not some relationship here. It stands to reason that the misery of a never-ending series of interminable meetings is going to negatively impact an employee's overall happiness. And imagine how much worse that problem becomes when those unproductive meetings waste employees' time during the day, forcing them to bring mountains of work home.
Fortunately, this isn't an intractable problem. Everyone who runs meetings should apply a simple test before they're allowed to schedule a meeting, and if that test can't be passed, the meeting can't be held.
The test is called a Statement Of Achievement. It's one sentence that says, "As a result of this meeting, we will have achieved _______." How you fill in the blank is far less important than the simple act of filling it in. Every meeting must have a clearly articulated goal, and if you can't identify that goal, you can't have the meeting.
The goal can be serious and weighty, or it can be fun and entertaining, as long as it's clear. You could have a meeting to plan an in-office pizza party, and you can still make a crystal clear Statement Of Achievement. As a result of that meeting, you will have delineated which team members are responsible for which food items (or whatever).
Depending on the company, you might find that as many as a third of your meetings should not be held or should be turned into an email. Even though you can make a Statement Of Achievement for the pizza party planning meeting, it seems like that might be a good candidate for an email rather than a meeting. By contrast, a strategic planning meeting could have a statement that reads something like, "As a result of this meeting, we will have surfaced objections to our new strategy from each and every member of the executive team." That's a case where an email would be woefully inadequate, and thus a meeting would be required.
A meeting without a clear objective is going to be painful for all involved. And the data would suggest that the pain of unproductive meetings could seriously damage employees' overall engagement. If you're willing to apply the aforementioned test and eliminate some inefficient meetings, you're likely to see improved morale and decreased turnover across all of your employees.
