12 Ways to End Soul-Sucking Meetings
- Lisa Anne
- Apr 21, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 17, 2022
Poorly run meetings cost US companies $399 Billion.
The survey says:
“We surveyed 182 senior managers in a range of industries:
65% said meetings keep them from completing their own work.
71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient,
64% said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking.
62% said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.”
12 Ways to End Soul-Sucking Meetings:
#1. Eliminate back-to-back meetings.
All meetings end 10 minutes before the top of the hour.
#2. Shorten standard meeting length to 25 minutes.
#3. Prepare people to participate and put them on the agenda.
Mary presents 3 pros and 3 cons to get the conversation started.
#4. Improve meetings.
At the end of meetings, occasionally ask:
What made this meeting work well?
What’s one way to make our next meeting even better?
#5. Declare NO-MEETING times. If you’re able, declare NO-MEETING days.
#6. Make meetings small.
Observe the two-pizza rule. Two medium pizzas can feed all attendees.
#7. Eliminate multi-tasking.
Minimize technology. No cell phones, for example.
Multi-tasking lowers your IQ to an 8-year-old. (Forbes)
Multi-tasking makes you inefficient. (Stanford)
If you really want to be productive, do one thing at a time.
#8. Spend time building relationships.
Strong relationships and psychological safety result in efficient meetings as long as you maintain focus on goals.
#9. Don’t talk about it unless you plan to do something about it.
Spend less time criticizing and complaining and more time solving.
#10. Making decisions in the meeting, NOT before the meeting.
I’ll never forget one leader saying, “Never go into a meeting unless you know the outcome before you begin.” Foregone conclusions indicate wasted meeting time.
Discussions are manipulations if you’ve already made up your mind.
#11. Eliminate interrupting and bloviating.
#12. Reduce observers.
Anyone who consistently leaves meetings without something to do shouldn’t be in the meeting.
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