Why you should aim for 100 per cent fewer meetings

In the second of a two-part series in this excerpt from his book, Smart Teams: How to Work Better Together, author and productivity thought leader Dermot Crowley provides advice on how to reduce the number of meetings at law firms, and improve the productivity of meetings which do go ahead.

I am a bit tired of working in organisations where many managers and leaders spend most of their day in back-to-back meetings. It is not necessary, and it is not productive. Imagine if we had 100 per cent fewer meetings in our organisations.

That’s right, 100 per cent. How could this be? How could we get anything meaningful done without coming together in meetings, at least occasionally? Okay, I don’t really want to eradicate meetings altogether, but I would like to see four 25 per cent decreases when it comes to our meetings. Here is what I mean.

What if your team worked to reduce the number of meetings it held by 25 per cent over a month. Imagine if you then looked at reducing the average length of meetings by 25 per cent. You also worked on reducing the number of participants in each meeting by 25 per cent. Finally, you put strategies in place to reduce time wasted in meetings by 25 per cent. That equals a 100 per cent reduction in meetings … kind of. Of course, this is a bit tongue in cheek. But I put it this way to grab your attention, which is what you need to do with your team if you are to change their behaviours!

Can you see the productivity uplift if we tightened up in these areas? It would be massive! And, I believe, not that hard to achieve.

25 per cent fewer meetings

There is a lot of fat in the meeting system. The number of meetings we commit to could be paired back. It would take a conscious effort, though, and the erection of some boundaries around how time is used in our week.

Rather than seeing our schedule as a ‘free for all’, where any available timeslot could be seized on as an opportunity to meet, we should aim for a balance in our week. This would depend on our role, of course.

In most roles no more than 50 per cent of time should be allocated for meetings. This means 50 per cent of time is protected to get other stuff done. This is a game we can play with ourselves. If we decide that 50 per cent of our week should be protected from meetings, then we need to get creative on how we meet the demands of the business and protect our boundaries.

The first step is to attend meetings only if they have a clear purpose and value (more on this later.) A second step is to look for creative ways to achieve an objective without a meeting; for example through a quick conversation, a phone call, or a written brief or report.

Finally, we should see our available time as a resource we need to manage carefully. We cannot fill our jug to the brim and not expect some spillage. We need a mark that says ‘Do not fill beyond this point’. That should be our ‘high meeting level’, to be exceeded only in extreme circumstances. Again, I am not denying that meetings can be a critical tool for progressing work. We do not need to eliminate meetings altogether. I am suggesting a meeting diet. Let’s cut the fat.

Here are some strategies to help reduce the number of meetings:

• Don’t just default to a meeting – consider the alternatives.
• Clarify the meeting’s purpose – you might find it is not needed in this case.
• Review all regular team meetings. Are they necessary?
• Downgrade a meeting to a conversation.

25 per cent shorter meeting duration

Why are most meetings scheduled for an hour? Is it because the total time needed to cover the agenda items equals an hour? I don’t think so. It is because most calendars divide your day into one-hour timeslots, and this has become the default.

In a humorous essay in The Economist in 1955, C. Northcote Parkinson proposed what has become known as Parkinson’s Law, which states that ’work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’. If you schedule a meeting for an hour, it will take one hour. If you schedule it for 45 minutes (a 25 per cent reduction in duration), it will take 45 minutes, and you may even get more work done, as everyone will be more focused. Again, there is a lot of fat in the system here. We all tend to fall into default thinking patterns and go with accepted norms or patterns.

If over the next month you were to challenge yourself to reduce the time allotted to every meeting you schedule, you might be pleasantly surprised. And this goes for the meeting invitations you accept as well.

Challenge whether you really need an hour for a meeting, and you may find many meetings can be completed more quickly. This may also have a flow-on effect, as colleagues and teammates begin to change their default thinking and propose shorter meetings.

Please don’t take this to mean that all one-hour meetings should be replaced by 45-minute meetings. Meeting durations should suit the content and agenda. Why have a 45-minute meeting when we only need 15 minutes?

The idea that the agenda should dictate the duration of the meeting is critical to productivity in a collaborative workplace, and will be explored in more detail later. Here are some strategies to reduce the length of meetings:

• Plan the agenda and set the meeting length as needed.
• Agree in your team on 25- or 45-minute meeting time defaults.
• Leave small talk until the end of the meeting.
• Focus the meeting at the start, and clearly define the proposed outcomes.
• Meet by phone or online if these are options.
• Ensure there is a clock in the room so everyone can monitor the time.

25 per cent fewer participants

I ran a session recently with a senior technical team in one of the big banks in Australia. They complained about how most of their days were spent in meetings, and they often ended up triple-booked as senior stakeholders in the wider bank made heavy demands on their time.

They described many meetings that would include up to a dozen participants, with only one or two people actually talking throughout the meeting. Really? A dozen spectators? Do that many people need to be present to listen to one or two technical experts? Could the decisions/ideas/strategies discussed in that meeting be communicated to the wider group in a more efficient way? Absolutely! We fall into the trap of inviting everyone to cover all bases, but this reduces the productivity of many, if not most, of the people involved. Research suggests that including any more than seven participants in a meeting makes decision-making harder.

In fact, a study by Bain & Co found that every attendee over seven reduced the decision effectiveness by 10 per cent. In larger groups, everyone may have an opinion, which can complicate clear decision-making. With larger groups side-conversations can erupt, which takes authority away from the meeting leader. Larger groups (if well facilitated) may work well when the meeting purpose is to brainstorm or generate ideas, but often less is more.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, relies on his ‘two pizza rule’: Meeting participants should not exceed the number that could be fed comfortably by two pizzas. The two-pizza analogy helps us keep in mind the importance of holding the numbers down when organising meetings.

Here are a few other strategies to reduce the number of participants in meetings:

• List the participants and their reason for attending.
• Create an agenda and invite people based on this.
• Use the ‘Required’ field only for people who must attend.
• Use the ‘Optional’ field for those participants who are not essential, but who you feel should have the option to attend if they wish.

25 per cent less time wasted

Finally, what can we do to increase the quality of our meetings, and to decrease wasted time, focus and energy? Well-planned meetings with a clearly stated purpose that are attended by the right people and are driven by a strong agenda will get the most out of the allocated time for all involved.

Do you believe that most of your meetings fit this description? Or are they a little fuzzy? Fuzzy meetings often start a bit late, have no clear direction or agenda, and finish as participants of the next meeting are knocking on the door. They also probably end without any clear actions or decisions, which may require a further meeting to establish. To ensure it is focused, not fuzzy, we need to bring to the meeting an agreed process.

To ensure a productive outcome, there are things we need to do before the meeting, during the meeting and after the meeting. Consider if the following strategies might help to reduce wasted time in your meetings:

• Plan the meeting beforehand, including establishing the meeting purpose and agenda.
• Send the agenda to participants well ahead of the meeting.
• Distil supporting information to make it easy for the attendees to grasp.
• Begin the meeting by focusing everyone on the agenda.
• Run the agenda to time.
• Redirect new topics to a ‘parking lot’ for future meetings.
• Manage personalities that may derail the meeting agenda.
• Ensure participants capture and own their actions.
• Pause and agree on the best use of the final 10 minutes.
• Evaluate every meeting.

If we work as a team to apply the 100 per cent fewer meetings principle to our work, the productivity gains will be huge.

Dermot Crowley is a productivity thought leader, author, speaker and trainer. He works with leaders, executives and professionals in many of Australia’s leading organisations, helping to boost the productivity of their people and teams. For more information, visit www.dermotcrowley.com.au or email dermot.crowley@adapttraining.com.au.