Meetings are a great way to communicate with people within your company. However, they can be huge productivity killers.
Is a particular meeting even necessary? If you’re meeting for an hour, one perspective is that its not only one hour that is lost, but one hour multiplied by the total number of attendees.
I think meetings should only be called after a consensus is reached that the meeting is necessary. What does it mean for a meeting to be necessary? The two factors I can think of is coordination and conflict.
🤝 Coordination
For when a decision requires collaboration from different people. This includes people within a team, other teams or departments. The decision could be in regards to a feature that needs to be built and so, speaking only to the relevant people to have a decision made on what their requirements and expectations are is why this meeting is necessary.
🤼 Conflict
For when there are disagreements from two or more parties. A meeting in this instance can also be necessary to resolve this conflict and that a consensus has been reached.
The Pros and Cons
Meetings are important and useful, but can also be counter-productive by taking time away from actually getting work done. In my opinion, some of the pros and cons are:
Pros 👍
✌ You may be part of the decision making
This kind of activity can help you feel like a valuable member of the team.
💡 You may be able to contribute and share knowledge to other attendees
There may be times where your experience or knowledge can have an impact and so sharing that can only be positive.
📰 Receive relevant information
This is important if its related to work you’re involved in. You may only be listening during the meeting but the content may be insightful.
📢 You can ask questions
If you don’t understand something or require further clarity, being present during the discussion allows you to ask questions.
Cons 👎
🤷 The meeting may not be relevant to you in particular
As mentioned before, attending meetings will cost your time and attention. If the contents of the meeting isn’t relevant to you, then you could be spending your time and attention on other things.
😫 You may have nothing to add to the discussion
This is related to the above point, the meeting isn’t relevant to you and you have nothing to add, then why is your attendance even necessary? Better to use that time on more pressing tasks
😩 It can be mentally draining
This one is often overlooked. People in your team, likely has different energy thresholds for long meetings. I often feel extreme fatigue when a meeting has ended. Finding the energy and motivation to start a new task or continue where I left off can be challenging and therefore severely reduces productivity.
☹ Reduces Your Productivity
If you’re in the middle of a task, having to pause and attend a meeting which may not even be relevant to you is sure to affect your overall productivity. Although you can work around this by with good time management provided the meeting was scheduled with enough time.
Do You Need To Attend? 🤷
Some meetings are necessary. But we should ask ourselves, “do I need to attend”?
When meetings are scheduled, it may be relevant to you personally and so your attendance will provide you value.
The issue is, that we often find ourselves attending meetings, while relevant to other people, is not relevant for you. Meaning, had you not attended that particular meeting, you could’ve been doing something else, something more productive and useful with that time instead.
🧍 Some Practices To Consider
Being more aware about the meetings you have and conscious how much time they take, it’s worth considering adopting some practices:
🏃 Don’t meet unless absolutely necessary
Find out why you’re meeting; is a meeting necessary? Consider that if you’re meeting for an hour, it’s not just an hour of company time that is being lost; it’s the hour multiplied by the total number of people in attendance. Meetings should only be called after a consensus has been reached that a meeting is necessary.
⏱ Set A Time Limit
Setting a time limit to a suitable length, most people will lose their ability to pay attention the longer the meeting continues. Having a meeting for 15-30 minutes for example can at least guarantee that the attendees are not experiencing too much fatigue. Another benefit of this, is that the people speaking will be encouraged to ‘get to the point’ and be more concise.
✍ Ask People To Prepare in Advance
I feel meetings should not be used for brainstorming. Having a clear agenda, topics, questions or reading sent to all attendees in advance can make the meeting overall more productive. Thinking ahead and preparing for the meeting will help if you’re not good at ‘thinking on your feet’.
Summary 📝
Meetings have their pros and cons. They’re important but I think it’s also a good idea to be mindful about how much time they cost. How much productivity is lost as a result of attending meetings?
I think attending meetings where you’re an active participant is important and has value, but for those where you’re not, would it not, be just as effective if you were cc’d an email from an attendee with a written summary, key-points or the decisions from said meeting? Food for thought.