Episode 89 - Better (and Fewer) Meetings Now!

<h2 data-pm-slice="0 0 []"><strong>Summary</strong></h2> <p class="">The amount of time leaders spend in meetings has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. But so too, thankfully, has our understanding of what makes a meeting effective. It’s time to have better (and fewer) meetings now!</p> <p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true"> </p> <h2><strong>Transcript</strong></h2> <p class="">Hello and welcome to episode 89 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at ways to have better (and fewer) meetings now!</p> <p class="">Over the past 50 years, the average amount of time leaders spend in meetings has steadily increased from below 10 hours per week in the 1960s to now approaching 23 hours per week. And the recent proliferation of video conferencing has removed the travel time between meetings altogether. We can now move from meeting to meeting without even leaving our desk. As a result, many of the clients I am working with describe an increase in meetings with remote working, and the associated demands that places on their time.</p> <p class="">Research into the attitudes of senior managers towards meetings identifies 65% of people who see meetings getting in the way of completing work. A similar percentage, 64%, see meetings being at the expense of deep concentration work. It’s hard to get into the flow if you have meetings scheduled every other hour. </p> <p class="">Other research by Desmond Leach and colleagues looked into the factors that lead meetings to be rated as effective by participants. They examined a range of factors including the use of an agenda, keeping minutes, punctuality, the appropriateness and comfort of the room facilities, the number of attendees, the length of the meetings and the use of a chairperson. Of all of these, they found the three most important factors were:</p> <ol data-rte-list="default"> <li> <p class="">Agenda use - distributing an agenda ahead of time, sticking to it during the meetin