How to Stop Drowning in Meetings and find 5 hours a week

Most of our clients tell us they are drowning in meetings. You know, one meeting after another. Most of them boring. No time to do 'real work'. HELP Please, written all over their face!

Recently I saw this book "Death by Meeting", by Patrick Lencioni.

Could this have an answer to help my drowning clients?! But the book was not about what I thought it would be. The author, Patrick Lencioni, suggests having more meetings not less!

He talks about a business that is under-performing and how poor meetings are a key part of the problem. He does not talk about people being swamped by meetings and therefore being ineffective. He says in some meetings we should not have a predetermined agenda and some meetings should have a flexible end point.

Yet, by the end of the book I thought - maybe he is right!

Are you drowning in meetings? Do your meetings start late and/or finish late? Do your meetings have the same agenda every week? Do some important topics get little time (or no time) and are rolled over to the next meeting?

Are the meetings often boring? Do people in the meeting clearly know what the purpose of the meeting is? When the meeting is finished do you know what to do next, and by when?

So how could more meetings, no agenda and flexible timing help you from drowning?

Context and Drama. Effective meetings have a clear context. Exciting meetings have drama.

Context is about the overall structure of a meeting. Lencioni suggests four types.
Short Daily update meetings maximum 5 minutes.
Weekly tactical meetings,
Monthly strategic meetings.
Quarterly strategic reviews.

The KEY is that each meeting must stay within it's own context. Weekly tactical meetings do not include strategic topics or discussions. Monthly strategic meetings don't have short term updates or tactical topics.

What would it take to make your meetings fun, exciting and effective? Ask yourself these questions: Do you confuse tactical and strategic items in your meetings (if you are not sure, then you do!) In meetings do people agree just to get the meeting over quickly? What makes a meeting boring? What would it take for your people to leave a meeting excited?

Set a clear context for all your meetings and see your team's productivity rise while you all save at least 5 hours a week.

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Reader comments

Thank you Mr. Michael for your nice and fantastic answers on my question, so I would work with it (the Time management system).

Do not hesitate to communicate for any issues ,I hope we are all together even (though) we are far away. for me I am Tanzania citizen in East Africa.
Khamis mussa

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Links you should visit

1) The 11th Reason to be Optimistic by Martin Seligman on Positive Psychology.

2) Time Management Central.net time management videos to inspire you to use your time wisely.

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