Management Information

By Gerald Cook

Meetings...meetings...meetings...I often wonder if anyone out there dislikes meetings as much as I do. Do you have to participate in mindless meeting after mindless meeting in which some of the participants actually seem to believe that they are accomplishing something productive by endlessly talking?

It's as if no one in an organization is capable of making any decision these days without having a series of meetings to discuss it. Even worse, this "meeting culture" that has invaded the hearts and minds of our businesses has created an army of employees who think that talking about work is the same as doing work.

So what can be done to try and stamp-out these seemingly endless meetings? Let's tackle the why first. I believe that there are three main reasons for the existence of this seemingly endless parade of lengthy and mindless meetings.

1) Meetings reduce individual responsibility and accountability. Instead of one person making a decision, that person can have a meeting and diffuse both the responsibility and the accountability for a decision.

2) Meetings make some people feel important. It gives them a sense of great importance to conduct or participate in meetings. The longer the meeting drags on, the more important these people feel.

3) It has become too easy to do other things while sitting in a meeting. People take their laptops to meetings and sit and do their own thing. So while one person is busy rattling off whatever it is that they want to rattle off about, other people are sitting there doing something else. This is a key reason why meetings drag on and on. There is no sense of urgency by the participants for meetings to end.

So now let's discuss what can be done to reduce both the number of and the length of the mindless meetings you must endure. The best way to reduce meetings to the low position on the totem pole that most of them deserve is to create an environment that encourages employees to enthusiastically accept accountability and responsibility.

In other words, give your employees the responsibility, the authority, the freedom, and the duty to do what needs to be done to make your organization a great success. Develop this kind of entrepreneurial mindset within your organization, and watch the mindless meetings begin to fade away.

That's the best way to make it happen, but there are several rules that you can implement immediately that will help you begin to stamp-out all those mindless time-wasting meetings. These rules may seem extreme to you, but they will work.

First, remove all the chairs from your meeting room. Remove the comfort factor from lounging around in meetings. Create a reason for your employees to only call meetings when absolutely necessary. Create a sense of urgency to make those meetings as short as possible.

Second, prohibit participants from bringing their laptops to meetings. Help everyone focus their complete attention on the issue at hand by removing their biggest distraction. If a computer is needed to properly address the meeting's purpose, then give one participant the responsibility for bringing and using it during the meeting.

Finally, use the ancient technique utilized by many of my university professors back during my MBA days. Place a limit on the amount of time a meeting participant can talk. That will force them to efficiently organize their thoughts and focus on what is really important instead of endlessly babbling.

Will these three techniques be popular? With those in your organization who have developed an intense dislike of meetings, these steps will be viewed as a move in the right direction. With those in your organization who have come to embrace the "meeting culture" as a good thing, these steps will be viewed in a much less favorable light.

Regardless, you will be clearly demonstrating exactly how you feel about all those meetings that are wasting everyone's time and sapping so much of their productive energy. And that's a good thing for everyone in your organization to know. A very good thing.

Gerald Cook holds a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree in Business Administration, and he has extensive real-world business consulting experience. Gerald is the author of the "One book every small business owner or manager should read!" Visit http://www.discovergreatsuccess.com for more details.

Copyright 2006 – Gerald Cook. All Rights Reserved. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you keep all the links active, do not edit or modify the article in any way, properly attribute the article to the author, and follow all the EzineArticles terms of service for Publishers.