Over the weekend, I was watching a commercial and it said something about all day meetings - which sent my mind down this careening, one way path into the world I so often live in… Seriously, what the hell is the purpose of an all day meeting? And why should you waste your time with one?
The answer is you shouldn’t.
Really, you will find that a meeting lasting all day is PACKED with about the same information that you will find in an hour long meeting. But people have this false notion that if you sit there and gawk at the person across the table for the entire day, you somehow get more accomplished.
Basically, my rule is no more than an hour - an hour and a half if there’s food involved - and if there’s beer, then all bets are off. The problem with today’s business world is meetings are poorly managed.
Time Management
Your time is important. Your employees time is important. Why waste either?
Think about this. If you have 15 employees, and you require ten of them to be in an early morning meeting while paying them each $20 an hour, you will be spending $200 per hour plus donuts or bagels. That $200 an hour is not spent on them increasing sales, increasing productivity, or anything else of that nature. It is spent so they can hear you talk.
Invite ONLY who you need to be there
Secondly, invite only the people you absolutely need to be there. Don’t invite the whole first shift when the information applies to only a quarter of them! Only invite the HR department or the sales staff. And if it can be managed through one on one’s, cascading voice mails, emails, or phone calls, then do it that way!
There are simply too many different ways to communicate in today’s world to waste time in a big stuffy meeting room. Besides, a phone call to your employees will probably get you more respect, but that’s a different story altogether.
Prioritize your information
Make sure you draw up an outline about what you want to cover during your meeting. Have each bit of information weighted, tackling the big ones first, while people are still the most fresh. Don’t wait until your meeting is almost over to tell them that they will be laid off at the end of the month.
Summary
I am not saying that meetings aren’t beneficial, and a lot of very good information can’t be shared. I just hate seeing organizations that have meetings just to plan more meetings. Most of the time, the employees in question just like to get together and talk - which puts a huge hit on a company’s bottom line.
If you find yourself in more meetings that you would like, have a talk with your boss. Or if you are the boss, sit down and prioritize what you would like more - bottom line profit (which your raise might be based on) or employees that have more happy hours than TGI Fridays.