One of the most common themes that comes up in conversations with people in the organisations we work with is simply ‘’meetings’’. If I had a pound for every time someone said to us, ’’I waste so much time in meetings’’ – well, let’s say that I’d have enough money for a good few rounds in the pub. We know that there are some very good reasons for meetings, although so much of our experience of them can feel wasteful and frustrating. So it’s worth taking some time to think why this is the case and how we can try to make them work better for the whole organisation.
People have a tendency to just say ‘’meetings’’, without thinking about what kind of meetings in particular cause them grief. What is it about those meetings in terms of behaviours that they find so frustrating? So in our view, it’s worth doing a bit of research inside your organisation to uncover your people’s day to day experience and find out what they really think. Sometimes it takes a bit of drilling down to the detail to get away from generalisations. Diary studies can be a good way of getting people to identify the size and shape of what’s causing their complaint. Short but structured interviews and may be focus groups are useful ways you can get people to identify what they really think wastes their time. It’s also good to focus on the positive as well as the negative. What are the hallmarks of a productive meeting? In our experience, most people are experts in their own organisations and, given the time and tools, can diagnose for themselves what works well and where things go awry.
One school of thought holds that one of the reasons we think meetings are such a plague may be because we see them as interruptions in accomplishing the work goals we’ve set ourselves for the day. This can make us feel frustrated, particularly if the meetings that interrupt us are perceived as being of low quality. This is especially true for people who are classed as Type A personalities and are more driven to achieve. More generally, when people feel that they have spent time in ineffective meetings this has a negative effect on their productivity and their well-being at work. Studies show that over a period of time this can have a direct effect on their intention to leave. So what makes the kind of day to day meeting that we all experience feel ineffective? There’s some research that suggests that perceived meeting effectiveness is influenced by really simple disciplines – use of agenda, clear purpose, starts on time, participants come prepared and participate. Hardly rocket science, but while we know some or all this, why do we find it so hard to practise?
We suggest that you tackle it, at its simplest, by getting teams to first admit their frustrations and then to sign up to new ways of behaving, and to hold each other accountable for them. What are the particular factors that cause misery for your people and what can they do about it if they sign up collectively to a new way of behaving? A recent study has shown, for instance, that being late for meetings is a subjective experience. If the participants are sitting in a meeting room with door open chatting amongst themselves, the latecomer may well not interpret their behaviour as lateness. So if people are regularly late in your organisation, something as simple as getting everyone to sign up to shutting the door and starting the meeting on time can send out a clear deterrent message. And if you’re one of those people who is habitually late, it’s worth being aware that the same study highlighted our tendency to levy negative judgement, however unfairly, on the perpetrator.
If you do find the number of meetings you go to is getting you down, remember that they have plenty of unspoken benefits in addition to their overt purpose. They can act as a conduit for information about politics, people and performance as well as being opportunities to strengthen relationships and collaborative working. Some psychologists even suggest that meetings are not as much a waste of time as people claim – that perhaps they are just a convenient thing to moan about!
Perhaps part of the answer to increasing meeting satisfaction lies in how we arrange the space in our offices.....more of this another time.
Rogelberg, S. G., Scott, C. W., Agypt, B., Williams, J., Kello, J. E., McCausland, T., & Olien, J. L. (2013). Lateness to meetings: Examination of an unexplored temporal phenomenon. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.745988
Rogelberg, S. G., Leach, D. J., Warr, P. B., & Burnfield, J. L. (2006). " Not another meeting!" Are meeting time demands related to employee well-being? Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(1), 83-96.
