Escaping from unnecessary meetings

Escaping from unnecessary meetings – expect resistance

You would think it would be easy to cut down on the number of meetings you attend. About half of meetings content is irrelevant to some of the participants. It is an enormous business cost and a source of personal frustration. The business and emotional case is clear. So why do pointless meetings survive? If you’ve ever tried to get out of a regular meeting you probably experienced resistance. In some cases people feel personally hurt if you don’t attend their meetings, as if it was a test of personal loyalty.

It seems that there are a lot of things going on around meetings, other than just getting the work done. People attend for social contact, visibility and networking. Attendance at meetings is equated with involvement and participation – even if all you do is sit and listen to someone else’s presentation.

There’s also a lot of inertia:  meetings have always been poor, so expectations are low. Although it may seem simple to run a training course on effective meetings management, making the change that surrounds it in a systematic way is a much bigger task.

Based on our experience with our clients, we developed a structured six step approach to help people disconnect from unnecessary meetings, focus the content and attendees more specifically, and improve the relevance, focus and participation of the meetings that are left.

If you would like fewer, better face to face and virtual meetings, find out more here,