Meetings are supposed to facilitate strategy development, teamwork and problem solving. Every day, there are between 11 million and 55 million meetings in the United States, and according to research, employees today spend an average of six hours in meetings every week.
Meetings clearly play a huge part in team discussions. They set out to create an environment where a team can address goals, problems, and new ideas. But unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Research has shown that, when done incorrectly, meetings can result in more employee fatigue, worse attitudes and reduced team productivity. And this effect is huge. In fact, if we assume that a modest 15% of meetings are ineffective, we can estimate that organisations waste $213 billion on meetings per year, and that’s the cost on the US economy alone.
So what mistakes are we making when we have meetings at work? And how can we make meetings more effective?
Meetings are an integral part of running any company. Essentially, they let employees know how an organisation operates and what is going on within the teams in a business.
Meeting science looks at what happens before, during and after a meeting in the workplace. Researching the effects of meetings, how best to design them, and how to use them informs a wide range of teams and businesses about how they can operate effectively.
Anyone who has worked as part of a team knows what it feels like to have a good meeting. They make you feel productive, prompt collaboration and problem solving, all within a reasonable amount of time.
But, not all meetings are equal. Let’s take a closer look at some common mistakes that are made in meetings…
1. Spending too much time in meetings
Research has shown that going to more meetings, particularly bad meetings, leads to more employee fatigue and a higher perceived workload.
2. Coming to the meeting unprepared
Not preparing for the meeting leads to employees perceiving the meeting as less effective, so setting up expectations is important.
3. Starting a meeting late
People may become increasingly frustrated when waiting for a late team member. Being late to a meeting has been shown to negatively impact people’s attitudes towards:
4. Being too serious
Research has shown that patterns of humour and laughter in meetings were related to good team performance, both immediately and after 2 years. The effects of humour included:
This effect was only true when people showed no concern about the future stability of their job.
5. Complaining and criticising others
This study suggests that when team members complained and criticised others during meetings, there was a decrease in:
6. Not having a debrief
Debriefs usually encourage reflection, giving team members feedback and tips for future improvement. Post-incident discussions can be used to increase individual and team performances by between 20 and 25%.
Meetings serve a critical purpose – if they are done well. Generally, meetings set out to achieve four main goals. They allow us to:
These goals are essential to running any organisation. Now that we know what mistakes we may have been making, we can design more effective and efficient meetings using research on meeting science.
The meeting problem can be tackled at three different stages:
Here are some tips that can be applied at each stage.
Designing, facilitating and attending an effective meeting involves many factors. Research suggests that these include being prepared, being on time, not complaining, reflecting, and being time effective.
Meetings are essential to effective communication within any organisation. For this reason, we cannot abolish meetings altogether. The solution to the meeting problem is not to get rid of meetings altogether, but to design them in an effective and efficient way using the research on meeting science.