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How To Make More Money By Having Better Meetings

This article is more than 4 years old.

Meetings are the worst.

To quote Dave Barry: “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.’”

A Bain & Company study, reported in the book Time, Talent, Energy, found that meetings consume about 40 percent of working time for managers.

Key data points from the Bain research to consider: up to half of the content of meetings is either not relevant to participants or could be delivered outside of a meeting, 40 percent of meeting time is spent on information that could be delivered before the meeting, and 50 percent of meetings are rated as “ineffective” or “very ineffective.”

Bad meetings are costing you money. If they are with prospects, they certainly are not helping you attract high-paying clients.

“A meeting can be defined as a gathering of two or more people featuring collective interaction and engagement using conversations to make progress toward a purpose, says author Rich Horwath. “Note the use of the words ‘interaction’ and ‘conversations’ in the definition.”

Ah, talk with people not at people.

Horwath is a New York Times bestselling author on strategy, including his most recent book, StrategyMan vs. The Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan. In his career he has helped more than 100,000 managers develop their strategy skills through training programs.

“If you find yourself in meetings, and especially teleconferences, on a regular basis where the format is primarily one-way presentation, there’s ample opportunity to improve your situation,” says Horwath.

According to Horwath, there are critical steps business leaders can follow to take a more strategic approach to meetings, video conferences and teleconferences:

Identify current meeting mistakes. “Meeting mistakes occur in three phases: pre-meeting, in-meeting, and post-meeting. They can also be categorized as either leader or participant mistakes. For example, a common in-meeting mistake by the leader is failing to rein in off-track conversations. A common in-meeting mistake by participants is multitasking, which conveys a lack of interest in the topic and/or a lack of respect for the person speaking at the time.”

Educate managers on what “good” looks like. “Begin this step by collecting the current best practices being used by managers within the organization. Then look externally to see what principles and guidelines are being used by other organizations within and outside your industry as it relates to meetings.”

Develop meeting checklists. “In order to effectively change someone’s behavior, it’s helpful to provide physical or environmental triggers. One highly effective trigger is the use of meeting checklists. These physical reminders ensure that teams across the organization are aware of the basic meeting principles, techniques, and tools to optimize their meeting time.”

In my view, meetings don’t have to be pointless pontificating about ideas that will never get implemented. Take charge of your meetings and make them conversations and not lectures.