I often hear companies' collaborators complaining that they are in too many unuseful meetings. By the way, today's business complexity brings in a continuous flow of information that oblige managers and middle managers to continuously review, revise, and decide correctly what is necessary to do.
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.
- 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 there are more extended essential moments when it is necessary to work out problems to find solutions.
If we look at the 80/20 Pareto principle, ideally, our working hours must be 20% in meetings (where to get and share information) and 80% in problem-solving activities.
To solve problems 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
