Your Time Is Gold – Stop Wasting It In Bad Meetings

Does it make me a bad person that I was delighted to learn my Puerto Rican bestie was often awakened to her mother clapping “El tiempo es oro!” on weekend mornings? It’s reminiscent of my own mother’s encouragement to “Wake up now all shiny bright and do your best with all your might!” Apparently, 1970s moms were taught that the best motivational technique to use with their children involved loud, time-focused admonishments.

They were right, of course. Time is gold. Time is money. Time is a resource that you can’t make more of. You can only use the time you have with intention.

So when executives tell me that the meetings in their organizations are “fine,” it physically pains me. “Fine” is not actually fine.

Would you go on a vacation that was “fine”?

Would you accept a job that was “fine”?

Would you choose a life partner who was “fine”?

I hope not. I certainly wouldn’t, nor do I tolerate wasting my precious time on meetings that don’t matter. Meetings that are “fine” tend to start without any real purpose or objective, meander through tangents, and end with next steps that are quickly forgotten or by putting yet another meeting on the books.

This may sound like an exaggeration, but take a moment to check your calendar. How many upcoming meetings have a clear purpose in the invite? When’s the last time you received a clear, timely recap from a meeting you attended? How often do you spend the beginning of a meeting trying to remember what was decided at the last one?

In the workplace, we never seem to have enough time to do what matters, and yet we treat time like a) it’s infinite and b) we have no control over it. Employees spend 31 hours a month in unproductive meetings. We sit through long update meetings, waiting for our three minutes to talk to the boss. We show up to a strategy discussion without having finished the pre-read or asking what our role is. We arrive late, leave early, and accomplish little. When the bulk of your meetings produce no more than a mediocre outcome, that’s a lot of mismanaged time.

We’ve shifted to a knowledge economy without fully transitioning our mindsets and behaviors to those that will maximize the brain power of our employees. As leaders, we give our teams all the tools in the world, but we don’t teach them how to use them for the maximum impact.

This starts with meetings. Meetings are the place where we demonstrate to one another what good looks like. And I promise you, good does not look like disinterested multitasking or half listening to one another. Show me the breakthrough that was built in a mediocre meeting.

So the next time you’re sitting in a listless meeting, instead of riding it out, why not call it out? You don’t need to make anyone wrong. Ask for a reminder of what you’re all trying to achieve or suggest a new way to get everyone engaged. Shut your laptop and model being fully present. Before the meeting ends, reiterate the next steps, secure commitments, and then appoint a team member to send around a recap. If you’re going to invest the meeting time, make it matter. And stop accepting fine. El tiempo es oro!