Are Meetings Milk?

Last week I wrote about the milk on the floor. (You may want to read or reread that first). It seems we are always trying to accomplish more than can be accomplished in the time allotted. Where does our time go?

The humor columnist, Dave Barry, once wrote, “if you had to sum up in one word why mankind has not and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’”

Spot on.

No one meeting destroys a week—no one (even-recurring) meeting seems terribly expensive. But meetings have a way of multiplying. A one-hour meeting becomes a weekly meeting becomes fifty-two meetings. Add eight people to the room and that’ll cost you 468 hours each year. If those people made $50 an hour you just blew nearly $25K. Do that just once every day and you've blown $125K every year. And who has only one meeting a day? HBR estimates that US businesses lose $37B each year in meetings!

Worse, the real cost of meetings is not measured in minutes or salary dollars. It is measured in opportunity costs.

What didn't get accomplished because we were in that meeting? What important conversation didn't happen? What strategic thinking was postponed? What constituent wasn't called? What employee wasn't coached? What problem wasn't solved?

The real cost of meetings is not measured in minutes or salary dollars. It is measured in opportunity costs.

I once inherited a leadership team and gave them an unusual assignment. I asked them to cancel half of the meetings on their calendars for the following week. They could send a substitute, get the notes afterward, or simply cancel the meeting altogether. Nobody panicked. The organization did not collapse. The sky did not fall.

What did happen was that we all began to look at meetings differently. We realized that many of our meetings existed for one reason and one reason only: because they had always existed and that is a dangerous reason to do anything.

The purpose of a meeting should never be, "because it's on the schedule." A meeting should exist because there is a decision to be made, a problem to be solved, or an issue that genuinely benefits from people being together.

Before accepting your next meeting invitation, ask yourself a few questions.

·      If this meeting goes well, what will be different?

·      Is that difference worth the investment?

·      Why am I invited?

·      Does it have to be me?

·      What exactly am I expected to contribute?

·      Could I accomplish more by simply reading the notes afterward?

·      What important work am I postponing in order to attend?

Leaders often tell me they don't have enough time to think strategically, coach their people, or focus on what matters most. Perhaps they don't have a time problem at all. Perhaps they have a meeting problem.

Like the milk on the floor, meetings accumulate quietly. We get used to them. We stop noticing them. Then one day we realize our calendars are full, our priorities are suffering, and our days belong to everyone except ourselves.

Be careful what you schedule. Every meeting costs something far more than an hour. Lost opportunities are rarely found.

Every meeting costs something far more than an hour. Lost opportunities are rarely found.

Look at this week’s calendar. Which meetings move the needle? Should the others stay on your calendar or is there an opportunity calling?