Let’s face it: everybody hates meetings. They are long, boring and put you to sleep. Yet, most employees spend a tremendous amount of their work time sitting in meetings. Here are the top 5 reasons why meetings drive everyone crazy:
1. The meeting could have been done faster in writing
Meetings are great for discussion. If you are having a debate and comparing perspectives, talking through it is incredibly valuable. On the other hand, if you are just sharing status updates, it’s always a bad use of time to do that in a meeting. Updates should be done in writing with a tool like Weekly Update.
2. You have nothing to contribute to the meeting
Adding extra people to a meeting who are sitting there and don’t have the insight or relevance to actively contribute is a drain on everyone. The only people in the meeting should be the ones who have a stake or true insight on the topic being discussed.
3. One person is talking too much
Even if the topic of the meeting is relevant for you, you probably can’t stand meetings when one person dominates the conversation. This hinders the ability to have a real discussion, and turns everyone else off.
4. The meeting is not results oriented
Meetings should have a clearly defined goal and expected outcome. Meetings just to talk about something but not draw conclusions are a waste of time. For example, if you are meeting to decide the ideal date for an upcoming event you are hosting, the meeting should have only the stakeholders connected to the event, you should discuss the pros and cons of different dates, and walk out the door with a date selected.
5. The timing is ambiguous
Meetings that extend past their allotted time are never good. It’s disrespectful to everyone’s schedule to not stick to the scheduled start and end time. The default meeting time should be 30 minutes, and it should be rare to extend to an hour. Keep meetings short and to the point.
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