Cut The High And Hidden Cost Of Wasteful Meetings

Have you ever received feedback, either positive or negative, on how you use others’ time at work? Imagine getting the following:

• Needs to provide more clarity on the purpose of his meetings
• Regularly attends meetings and multitasks throughout
• Hijacks discussions with unrelated tangents

You would likely be shocked to receive such a pointed critique. And yet, these statements describe exactly the kind of behavior that runs rampant in offices everywhere, often modeled by leaders themselves.

The typical defense is that there’s not enough time for preparation or follow-up. Besides, everyone else does the same thing. That must mean it’s ok, right?

Only if you’re in the business of wasting time and money.

Take one example: we recently helped a team within a leading global hospitality provider assess their ways of working for inefficiencies. We asked the team to estimate how much of their meeting time was simply wasted; their answers averaged out to 23 percent. Then we dug into the data, figuring out how much time in total the team was spending in meetings, and converted this time into dollars. The result? Overall, the team had wasted $2.5 million that year in unproductive, inefficient meetings. 

If you could use another million dollars or two in your operating budget, maybe it’s time to think differently about the value you place on time in your organization. Here’s a few quick ways to drive down time cost.

Ask your team to think small

When we evaluate meeting effectiveness, one of the first places we look is the average number of participants. Most meetings are packed with silent observers who aren’t really observing at all. The ideal size for a working meeting is 6-8 individuals. Any larger and there’s not enough airtime for everyone to contribute.

But what if I miss something important? Chances are, if you’re in a meeting just to listen in case something relevant comes up, you’re going to miss it anyway while you’re multitasking. Listening while writing an email isn’t listening. Your brain only has one processor.

Swap out status for purpose

Meetings tend to be the default move for collaboration. Launching a project? Book a standing meeting. Need to know how the team is spending their time? Schedule a team meeting. Don’t remember what you decided in your last meeting? Schedule another one.

In an efficient, effective work culture, meetings are used sparingly and with intention. Update and status meetings where a large group gathers for the benefit of just one leader are a terrible use of time. Each participant gives up the full meeting time, but only one gets anything out of it.

Instead, we help teams establish efficient, asynchronous ways to share information, and recommend that meetings only be held when there is a clear, active purpose, such as to solve a specific problem, to make an important decision, to understand and evaluate a series of options, etc. Make this purpose clear in your invite, using an active verb, and only invite those critical to achieving it.

Prioritize follow-through

If your meetings end with a whimper, like folks trickling out as the meeting runs 20 minutes over or with ambiguous commitments to next steps, it’s as if the meeting never happened. Keep a close eye on how you’re using your time and close any active discussions with at least five minutes left. Use this time to recap any decisions made and the necessary next steps.

Here’s the most important part: ask the individuals responsible for these next steps to respond affirmatively with a timeline for completion. Then, distribute or post a recap with these decisions and commitments included to serve as a single source of truth. The “meeting to remember what we decided during the last meeting” will quickly become a thing of the past.

We all tend to prioritize continuous improvement when it comes to the “what” of our jobs – is the team leveraging the latest data, tactics, or trends? But when it comes to the “how,” the status quo is too rarely challenged. To waste less time, save money, and improve team morale, take a closer look at the cost of collaboration.