Meetings That Earn Their Keep

[Kisha Fairchild, MBA]

Why agendas, outcomes, and focus save time — and money​

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

For someone who seems to ramble as a hobby, chaotic meetings are my arch nemesis. When it comes to work meetings, my tolerance for small talk is low. Five to ten minutes after the small talk, which I value, I’m wondering why I’m here. I could be getting valuable work done.

I know you have been there before. You’re planning out your day, and your schedule is riddled with meetings. The annoyance you feel at the fact that these meetings will impede your ability to execute a deliverable. You may possibly have to work into the late hours of the day due to a day filled with several meetings.

One day, I was trying to schedule a meeting with a colleague and could not find a moment on her calendar for the entire week. “Are some of those meetings focused on time?” I asked, hopeful that she would answer in the affirmative.

“No, those are actual meetings.” She replied. “On Fridays, I try to block some time so I can actually get some work done”.

Time is money​

I recall being in a meeting with several team members when a finance director pinged me with the dollar amount that the meeting was costing us. It completely put things into perspective, both as a meeting attendee and, more importantly, as a meeting host.

Meetings do cost an organization money. For every minute each individual is in a meeting, they are not working on something else. That is, of course, if they are not attempting to task switch (we’ll save that for another conversation).

Looking at a meeting through the lens of cost, considering how much each attendee earns per hour, and applying that to the meeting’s duration, has helped me approach meetings from a more productive perspective.

I have to ask myself, is this worth the organization’s money? Is this meeting a good investment?

Let them make the decision.

So you have determined the need for a meeting, but how do you decide how much your meeting should cost? In other words, who should attend, and if it is more important than their other work? You don’t.

Your job is to have an agenda and let them and their direct manager decide.

I have said this in other articles, but it never gets old. I had a former manager who said, “If you do not send me an agenda for your meeting, I’m not going”. That was over three years ago, and I have yet to send a meeting invitation without an agenda.

While I started off letting people know what the meeting was about, I have since evolved to outlining the expected outcome.

This type of agenda serves several purposes: one, it allows invitees to assess whether they need to be in attendance for the meeting, whether it is a priority, or if they can send a delegate in their place. Two, it allows you to determine the value of the meeting, which is essentially evaluating its worth to the organization.

This way, you have provided your invitees with enough “data” to determine how they will allocate their time, people, etc.

It is not on you. They decided to attend based on the details you provided.

Now about that meeting​

A secret about those agendas is that they serve an additional purpose — as a reminder. There have been periods when I was scheduling two or more meetings a day for a few days. At some point, I ceased retaining the reason for those meetings.

I am not ashamed to admit my brain will only hold so much information at a time. I love to do brain dumps to make space for new ideas, concepts, and general learning.

A day, an hour, or minutes before a meeting where I have just finished a call or project in a completely different sector of my organization, taking a quick gander at my agenda has been a lifesaver.

Recall that I dislike wasting my time, and more importantly, I do not want to waste the time of others.

Time is money.

Having a detailed agenda with an expected outcome allows me to refocus and be ready for a productive and effective meeting. I will keep the agenda open, especially in meetings where a slide deck is not incorporated, and allow it to guide me and keep me on track.

No rambling here.

Practical Application​

When preparing to schedule a meeting, create an agenda and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is this a meeting that needs to be held, or can it be resolved via email or over a platform like Teams?
2. Who are the key contributors or stakeholders?
3. What key takeaways should I retain from this meeting?
4. Can this be solved in 15 or 30 minutes? One-hour meetings should be reserved for working meetings (i.e., real-time work on a project, document, etc.)
5. Does the outcome of this meeting propel us toward achieving a goal, completing a deliverable, or resolving a problem? (The answer to this is the ROI)

I am sure there are some experienced folks out there who can think of more questions, but this will definitely get you started on the path to both reducing unnecessary meetings and creating meetings worth the investment.

Try it out, and I guarantee you will see a difference.

Find our submission guidelines to become a writer for PoW and the latest stories HERE

---

Meetings That Earn Their Keep was originally published in Psychology of Workplaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Continue reading...

 

Join 𝕋𝕄𝕋 on Telegram
Channel PREVIEW: