Monday, February 05, 2007

Are You Running Too Many Poor Or Non-Productive Meetings?

There are numerous meetings that take place every day in organizations. There are informal spur-of-the-moment meetings. There are weekly staff update meetings. There are monthly executive briefings. And there are board meetings, training meetings, strategic planning retreats, meetings with clients, staff and suppliers.

Most meetings generally take too long, cover too little, end without specific plans, objectives or outcomes and waste time, money and resources. I believe that “meeting” is an important business function. Meetings get people together to share information, ideas, problems, activities, solutions and feelings.

One of the common complaints of many employees (including managers) is how many meetings are held that are a waste of time, energy and company resources. These meetings can be anything from an organized once-a-year corporate annual meeting or retreat to those spontaneous meetings where people say, “let’s take a few minutes and get together and see if we can work this out, solve this or come up with some creative ideas.”

What would you guess is the total number of man-hours spent in meetings in your department or organization in a month? Just multiply the total number of meetings every day for a thirty day period, by the number of people in those meetings by the length of time then divided by 60 and then multiply by 20. If you can handle it you can also take your average hourly wage (that includes the payroll for executives and managers who may be not be on an hourly wage) and multiply that times your total number of hours. This exercise might take a few minutes and don’t do it if you are on any kind of cardio vascular medication.

My research indicates that most managers and executives spend too much time in meetings and not enough time taking actions or making decisions that will solve the problems that cause the need for another meeting. Actually my research found that 63 % of managers said that most of the meetings they attend are redundant, a waste of time or poorly run.

Most meetings generally take too long, cover too little or too much, end without specific plans, objectives, decisions, outcomes or results and often waste time, money and resources. I believe that meeting are an important business function. Meetings get people together to share information, ideas, problems, activities, solutions and feelings. But poor meetings will often have the opposite effect.

There are numerous meetings that take place every day in organizations. There are informal spur-of-the-moment meetings. There are weekly staff update meetings. There are monthly executive briefings. And there are board meetings, training meetings, strategic planning retreats, meetings with clients, staff and suppliers.

Most meetings generally take too long, cover too little, end without specific plans, objectives or outcomes and waste time, money and resources. I believe that “meeting” is an important business function. Meetings get people together to share information, ideas, problems, activities, solutions and feelings.

One of the common complaints of many employees (including managers) is how many meetings are held that are a waste of time, energy and company resources. These meetings can be anything from an organized once-a-year corporate annual meeting or retreat to those spontaneous meetings where people say, “let’s take a few minutes and get together and see if we can work this out, solve this or come up with some creative ideas.”

What would you guess is the total number of man-hours spent in meetings in your department or organization in a month? Just multiply the total number of meetings every day for a thirty day period, by the number of people in those meetings by the length of time then divided by 60 and then multiply by 20. If you can handle it you can also take your average hourly wage (that includes the payroll for executives and managers who may be not be on an hourly wage) and multiply that times your total number of hours. This exercise might take a few minutes and don’t do it if you are on any kind of cardio vascular medication.

My research indicates that most managers and executives spend too much time in meetings and not enough time taking actions or making decisions that will solve the problems that cause the need for another meeting. Actually my research found that 63 % of managers said that most of the meetings they attend are redundant, a waste of time or poorly run.

Most meetings generally take too long, cover too little or too much, end without specific plans, objectives, decisions, outcomes or results and often waste time, money and resources. I believe that meeting are an important business function. Meetings get people together to share information, ideas, problems, activities, solutions and feelings. But poor meetings will often have the opposite effect.