Meeting Overload: Do We Really Need Another Zoom Meeting?

These days people are huddled around their laptops spending much of their time in meetings, but do we really need all these meetings? We’ve all been in meetings that are long, boring, and unproductive. In modern corporate culture, that’s what we do, we meet. Today, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that Americans meet 11 million times a day. Wow!!! What if some of those meetings were actually productive? Surveys show that executives consider 67% of their meetings as complete failures. A study by the University of Nebraska-Omaha estimates the yearly cost of unproductive or unnecessary meetings at $37 Billion.

However, what psychologists know is that teams who hold productive meetings have a competitive advantage. They help us innovate faster and make better decisions. But those meetings take significant work, ahead of time, to get the right people in the room and get quality work done.

Here are 5 keys to gaining a competitive advantage when it comes to your next meeting:

1. Should I really be having this meeting?: Think about it, what would life be like if this meeting never happened? If you can’t imagine what life is like after the meeting, then don’t schedule it at all.

2. Set a clear goal for the meeting: Whether meeting for the purpose of information sharing, brain storming, or decision making, you must always set a clear pathway. Set the meeting up ahead of time with a clear ‘Time’, ‘Purpose’, and ‘Outcome’.

3. Invite the right people: In business, nothing screams out respect louder than using someone’s time wisely. Put the right people in the room, no more, no less.

4. Facilitate inclusive meetings: Be mindful, there are some people who ‘think out loud’ and may dominate the conversation. We call those folks ‘extroverted thinkers’. Others cultivate their thoughts before talking, we call these folks ‘introverted thinkers’. Call people by name and ask them to share their thoughts. This will provide the opportunity for everyone to have a voice.

5. Follow up/action items: Avoid making next week’s meeting a replay of the last meeting. Take good notes, distribute action items in the form of ‘what’, ‘who’, and ‘when’. Start your next meeting with a review of the action items.

One last thing. These days we are all using meeting platforms like Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams to name a few. Just because the technology exists, does not make it the right thing to do. Call me old-school, but sometimes the best approach is to pick up the phone and have a one-to-one conversation.

Good luck and sell strong!