I often hear companies' collaborators complaining that they are in too many meetings.
By the way, today's business complexity brings a continuous flow of information that obliges managers and middle managers to continuously review, revise, and decide correctly what is necessary.
To do this, they need to be in meetings...
However, I think the real reasons why people are complaining are:
- Their agenda is locked in not avoidable pre-scheduled meetings to which they don't feel they can contribute.
- The meetings are only informative moments.
- The meetings are unesuful.
- Decisions are not taken.
- Facts reality is not profoundly investigated.
- Meetings are an ugly mix of information, troubleshooting, people confronting, and people not confronting.
In company life, there are moments to get information and more extended essential moments when it is necessary to work out problems and find solutions.
If we consider the 80/20 Pareto principle, ideally, our working hours should be 20% in meetings (where we get and share information) and 80% in problem-solving activities.
To solve problems, it is necessary to allocate the appropriate time and human resources.
I never heard collaborators complaining about working on problems; I always heard them complaining about being in too many meetings that don't allow them to work!
So when people in your company complain about too many meetings, consider it a signal of LOW PRODUCTIVITY RISK.
Check with your collaborators about their outlook calendar saturation and, if necessary, do the following:
- Reduce to 20% of their working time collaborator's participation in meetings.
- Improve the meeting's agenda so they can respect the 20% time ratio.
- Set up the rule that during the meetings, organizing and scheduling problem-solving activities outside the meetings is a MUST.
- Plan to revise the results of the problem-solving activities during the meetings.
To your success
