“When leaders know how to lead great meetings, there's less time wasted and less frustration. We have more energy to do the work that matters, realize our full potential, and do great things” - Justin Rosenstein

​​​​​​​An organisations culture is heavily influenced by those in leadership roles. How CEO’s run meetings permeate throughout the layers of the organisation. A 12-year study revealed that meetings are an even bigger issue than the business community realises. In short, CEO’s need to make meetings shorter and more effective.

“You can do anything, but not everything” – David Allen

I didn’t realise what a can of worms I was opening when I decided to write some blogs on meetings!!! (See Elon Musk’s 3 rules on meetings, Do this after every meeting and How to make status meetings more effective). Feedback has ranged from being thanked for providing pragmatic tips through to detailed questions on how to run better meetings. There’s one theme though that’s stirred the emotions more than anything else and that’s: “How do I to stop overcommitting during meetings when my manager is allocating tasks I don’t think I can achieve in the expected timeframe, but before you know it I've said yes.”

“Actions speak louder than meetings” - Lee Clow

Ineffective meetings that don’t drive decisions are a waste of time. This is especially true with status meetings. Sure, the team needs awareness of the issues and progress of key initiatives but having key resources just talk about what they’ve been up to is inefficient when it doesn’t lead discussion on the most important points. Is there another way to hold meetings more effectively?

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself" - Henry Ford

How often have you attended a meeting and the energy is sucked out of the room when it’s discovered that agreed actions from the previous meeting weren’t done? It happens a lot, doesn’t it? Whoever missed the deadline apologies, explains how busy they were and then commits they’ll get it done by the next meeting. This has a big bearing on the success, tone and culture of meetings.

“The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings” - Thomas Sowell

The #1 complaint busy workers tell me a major impediment is to getting their work done is due to the amount of time consumed attending meetings. That shouldn’t surprise as it’s widely reported how white-collar workers typically attend an average of 61.8 meetings per month with at least 50% of meeting time is wasted. How do the best deal with so many meetings?