UNPACKING THE EPIDEMIC OF UNPRODUCTIVE AND INEFFICIENT GATHERINGS

Picture this: It’s Monday morning at 8:00 am. You find yourself in an over-lit conference room or a dreary zoom call, with colleagues who’ve barely had time to caffeinate. Everyone lets out collective sighs as the clock strikes the hour. It’s the dreaded weekly meeting extravaganza – the first of eight for the week, because one meeting per day isn’t enough.

Papers, decks, and spreadsheets are strewn about like party decorations. Prepping for these meetings is a full-time job in itself – if Excel and PowerPoint were humans, they’d complain to HR for being overworked and underpaid.

As you sit there, the minutes crawl by at a pace that makes watching paint dry seem exciting. They extend into lunch breaks, your kid’s soccer practice, and well, all the breaks you never knew you needed until now.

As the meeting concludes, you look around, and it’s as if you’ve stumbled into a hypnotic trance-inducing state. Nobody has a clue about what they’re supposed to do next. As the weeks pass, what happens to those action items that no one understood in the first place? Well, nobody ever follows up on them. It’s like a collective amnesia descends upon the team.

"Action items?

Oh, you mean those things we pretended to write down while doodling and scrolling social media?”

But the real kicker? These meetings lack a clear goal or purpose. It’s as if they were designed as a cruel test of your patience. Maybe the real objective is to see how long you can sit still in one place without throwing a tantrum that makes a toddler look civilized.

Why Meetings Often Suck

Meetings – a word that should come with a warning label. While they’re supposed to be essential for organizational life, they often feel like cosmic punishments. So, let’s peel back the layers of this absurdity and figure out how to make meetings suck less, and perhaps, even an event to look forward to.

1. Too. Many. Meetings.

2. Meetings are too long

3. Meeting have no clear goal/purpose

4. Meetings have too much prep work

5. No clear post-meeting action items

6. No one ever follows up on unclear action item

1. Too. Many. Meetings.

One of the most common complaints about meetings is that there are just too many of them. That’s because our inboxes are full of calendar invites – meetings about meetings, meetings about not having enough meetings, and meetings about why there are too many meetings.

Solutions:

• • Prioritize Meetings: Only schedule meetings if they’re as essential as your morning coffee. Before setting up a meeting, ask yourself if the same information could be effectively communicated through a project management tool, email, or another more efficient means.
  • Implement Meeting-Free Days: Consider introducing “meeting-free days” to your company’s calendar. These magical intervals allow employees to focus on actual work without the disruption of endless meetings. No internal meetings. No client meetings. I’ve experienced this first-hand and it’s amazing.

2. Meetings Are Too Long

Long, drawn-out meetings can give sloths a run for their money. When meetings run on and on and longer than the scheduled time, attendees often lose focus and become disengaged, making it difficult to achieve the intended goals (if any have been set).

Solutions:

• • Set Time Limits: Like a game show, meetings should have a timer that starts ticking as soon as they begin. Setting a clear time limit forces attendees to stay on track and get to the point. Designate a time-keeper to remind the meeting leader when half the time is up, then 10 and 5 minute warnings.
  • Create an Agenda: Share a detailed agenda, ahead of time, so detailed it rivals a treasure map. Knowing what to expect helps attendees stay awake and alert.

3. Meetings Don’t Have a Clear Goal/Purpose

Perhaps one of the most significant reasons why meetings suck is the lack of a clear goal or purpose. You sit there, wondering if there’s objective beyond testing your ability to appear interested in the inexplicable.

Solutions:

• • Define Clear Objectives: Before scheduling a meeting, clearly define the purpose and objectives. What do you aim to achieve? Why are you gathering this group of unsuspecting souls, besides the joys of seeing everyone’s faces?
  • Determine KPIs to be Discussed: If the purpose is a project or team status meeting, determine the standard KPIs (key performance indicators) that will be reviewed on a regular basis. If you know the meeting’s objective, you’ll know the data to present.
  • Use the “5 Whys” Technique: If you’re as baffled as a cat trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube, ask “why are we having this meeting” five times. Eventually, you might stumble upon the elusive purpose of the meeting, buried beneath layers of smoke and mirrors. Just like a root cause analysis.

4. Meetings Have Too Much Prep Work

It’s like preparing for a space launch every week. There are spreadsheets to create, presentations to craft, and data to gather, all for the grand spectacle known as…the meeting.

Solutions:

• • Utilize Project Management Dashboards: Related to #3 above, if the team knows the KPIs to review, a dashboard can be built to reflect the data. Make it easy for your team by using project management tools that make data magically appear when you need it. If the PM tool is up-to-date, preparing the data should be lightening fast. 
    Streamline Meeting Prep: Tell your team they’re only allowed to prepare what fits on a Post-it note. Or, better yet, encourage them to embrace the chaos because, really, who needs all those meticulously crafted slides? This is something I’m working on personally – I love meticulously detailed slides.
  • Assign Responsibility: Distribute specific preparation tasks among team members to lighten the load and ensure that everyone contributes to the meeting’s success.

5. No Clear Post-Meeting Action Items

Leaving a meeting without clear action items is like going grocery shopping without a shopping list. You’ll end up with a cart full of confusion.

Solutions:

• • Designate a Scribe: This is one of my favorite tips to improve meetings. Appoint someone to take meeting notes and summarize the key action items, decisions, and deadlines. Someone should immediately come to mind – you know, that person who always takes obsessive notes, always. I’ll admit, that’s usually me. It is extremely difficult to lead a meeting, field questions, stick to the agenda, and take detailed notes. Divide and conquer. Use a shared agenda/notes document and ensure everyone knows where to find it.
  • Use Action Item Tracking Tools: Leverage project management or task tracking software to document and assign action items, making it easier for team members to follow through on their responsibilities. I love using ClickUp docs for meeting notes – text in a doc can be turned into a task with an assignee and due date, in about 5 seconds per action item.

6. No One Ever Follows Up on Unclear Action Items

It’s like a game of corporate hide and seek. Action items are assigned, then vanish into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again.

Solutions:

• • Clarify Responsibilities: Ensure that action items are crystal clear. Include specific details about what needs to be done, by whom, who they need to annoy with questions, and when it’s due by. I’m going to sound like a broken record – leverage your favorite project management platform.
  • Regular Follow-Up: Implement a system of regular follow-up on action items. This can be done in subsequent meetings, through email updates, or preferably as task comments in your PM tool. Holding team members accountable for their commitments is essential to achieving desired outcomes.

Not only do meetings suck, they’re expensive

According to otter.ai, each week employees attend an average of 17.7 meetings (totaling 18 hours), at a cost of approximately $1,600 – 30% of which are non-critical.

Meetings often suck, but they don’t have to be the bane of your existence

By recognizing the absurdity that plagues meetings and implementing practical solutions, organizations can transform these gatherings into productive and meaningful exchanges of information and ideas – dare I say even events to look forward to. Let’s end the excruciating cycle of unproductive meetings and start reaping the benefits of efficient, purpose-driven sessions that leave you with a smile (or at least less of a cranky face).