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I was recently invited to a meeting and what we were there to talk about wasn’t made clear. The invitation mentioned one thing, but it turned out the meeting’s purpose was something else. The sad thing is the lack of clarity wasted my time and the time of the others in the meeting.
At the most basic level, badly run meetings waste time and, therefore, money. A 2021 report from Doodle suggested that UK businesses could be losing as much as £26 billion each year to unproductive meetings.
Before we get into any blaming, it’s not solely the fault of the individuals running the meetings – it’s up to the organisation to ensure everyone knows how to run an effective meeting and is encouraged to put it into practice.
How do you know that meetings are a problem in your organisation?
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There are so many things that HR could focus on to improve productivity across the organisation, so how do you know that making changes to your meetings run will create measurable positive results?
When badly run meetings are creating problems across the organisation, this is what you’d expect to notice:
- It’s usual to be unprepared for meetings
- People join meetings and don’t know why they’re there
- No one likes meetings and people avoid them where possible
- Some attendees only contribute to a small segment of the meeting, but are expected to attend the whole thing
- Multitasking in meetings is usual or expected, i.e. people are on their phones or responding to email
- Side conversations often occur during meetings
- Meetings frequently overrun
- One or two voices dominate meetings, and some people aren’t heard at all
What’s the cost to your organisation of bad meetings?
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Not only do badly run meetings waste people’s time and therefore money, when you scale up the costs of bad meetings across an organisation, it quickly becomes alarming.
Firstly, consider the cost in people-time of a 60 minute meeting. When you multiply the number of people attending by the cost of employing each of them for one hour, the costs quickly add up.
Or try this: a key person at the meeting hasn’t read through the preparation notes before joining, and other attendees have to wait 5-10 minutes while they get up to speed. Even 5 minutes, multiplied by the number of attendees, can be expensive. The more senior the attendees, the more expensive it gets.
Then there’s the extra work caused by bad meetings. Compound the cost of a poorly managed meeting there’s the added cost of not having made key decisions, or making decisions without all the necessary information during the meeting. If meetings end without reaching key decisions it may be more difficult to gain consensus outside of the meeting and those decisions might be made without all the relevant input. Without clear direction from a meeting, work on the relevant task or project will be less efficient and your people will become more frustrated.
Don’t forget, that frustration has a cost of its own. Bad meetings leave our people stressed, with more work and less time to do it in. Another signature of bad meetings is that one or two people dominate, meaning the rest don’t have a voice and their contribution isn’t valued. That leads to disengagement and, ultimately, has a negative impact on wellbeing.
We’ve tried creating rules for meetings, but nothing changes – so what works?
The challenge is that how we run meetings is part of the organisational culture. We need to train and support our people with how to run better meetings; make sure they have incentives to do it and support them when other parts of the organisation try to pull them back into the ‘old ways’.
The good news is that shifting how meetings work will have a positive impact on the organisational culture as a whole, not to mention improving productivity and reducing stress levels.
Here’s my top tips for running effective meetings:
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1. What does the meeting need to achieve?
Meetings should be about outputs, not inputs. Have a clear objective and ensure that everyone invited knows what the meeting is about, and has all the information they need to be able to prepare effectively beforehand.
2. Who needs to be at the meeting?
It is the meeting organiser’s responsibility to draw up a list of attendees and be clear why each person is needed. What value are they adding to the meeting? If that’s not clear, they probably shouldn’t be there.
3. Be clear about when, and ensure everyone’s available
Arrange meetings far enough in advance to make sure everyone is available, book time in everyone’s diaries so that they’re clear when it is and the length of the meeting. Use calendar and scheduling software if you can to make this as easy as possible and allow people to easily share their availability.
4. Share the agenda and preparation notes before the meeting
You’ll get the best from everyone if you give people as much information as possible before the meeting, in an easily digestible format. This leaves maximum time during the meeting for questions and discussion. At the minimum, all meetings should have an agenda available in advance as this is important for inclusivity.
5. Set a clear expectation that everyone arrives fully prepared
Ensure you are clear that the documentation sent beforehand is to be reviewed prior to the start of the meeting. Some people need time to reflect and process before sharing their thoughts. Gathering all the information before the meeting and sharing it with all delegates will allow everyone to prepare and to contribute fully.
6. Value the art of chairing a meeting well
Having set up the meeting well, with what, who and when clear to everyone involved, an effective chair will make sure all attendees are involved, have an opportunity to speak and know their contribution is valuable. Don’t let disagreements turn into slanging matches and also keep the meeting to time. If more time is needed, that needs to be agreed and scheduled.
Putting it into practice…
Does your heart sink as you read the above? Do you already know these things will make a positive difference, but really can’t see how your workplace would even get started? Would all good intentions disappear in a matter of days? Would there be just too much resistance?
That’s because it’s not just a meetings thing, it’s an organisational culture thing. How we run meetings links back to how the organisation operates and how it supports (or not) its people.
