Are Meetings Worth It?

Are meetings where ideas go to die? If your meetings have let you down, you're not alone. Employees often resent meetings: a study by the American Psychological Association showed that people "who tend to be highly task and goal oriented were most negatively affected by meetings." It is true that sometimes we need to meet: not all decisions are easy to make over other methods of communication. If meetings are a necessity for an organization, how can you make them less painful and more productive?

Send Out Information Before the Meeting

Preparation is key for most important actions in life, so why would you enter a meeting without knowing the facts behind the discussion? If people can't prepare for the meeting, they will not feel confident taking part in it. Those who need time for reflection will be far better prepared if they can take some time before the meeting begins — thinking about questions or doing reading so they feel ready for a discussion.

Reduce Travel Time

If you're connecting with people outside your immediate office environment, a single meeting can eat up a large part of your day. Use video or phone conferencing or a simple person-to-person phone call when you can. If you need to meet in person, consider creating a walking meeting to add invigorating exercise into the mix. When you're with others in a room, consider adding a no-device policy so that everyone who is physically present is also mentally present and not checking their messages.

Know Why You're Meeting

Properly planning a meeting is key to its success: an agenda helps focus the group's work toward achieving desired outcomes. Be conscious about who you meet with as well — it is important to have the right people in the right meetings for the right reasons. When you're meeting about a focused discussion topic or action and you bring the right people into the room, good decisions happen.

Consciously Facilitate Meetings

Have you ever been in a meeting where a single person took center stage the entire time? Or where a few individuals' comments derailed the entire agenda, and you spent the time critiquing rather than creating? A successful gathering of people must be consciously facilitated. Keep people on time, ensure that everyone has the opportunity to speak, and allow critiques at a designated time when they'll provide useful contributions, not as constant interruptions.

Look for Action and Facilitate Follow-Up

Long meetings full of discussion are sometimes just what is needed, but at other times, a brief meeting focused on action is what's required. If you want efficient meetings, block half the time you usually do and keep strict time. There's always something else to say, but organized facilitation, strict timekeeping, and follow-up items delegated to a specific individual can help you not only hold efficient meetings but facilitate change.

While meetings are ubiquitous, few people have training that helps them make meetings more productive. By improving the way you do meetings in your workplace, you can improve morale, efficiency, and even gain time for creativity and reflection.