Scientifically speaking, stress is not always a bad thing.
Stress can be positive or negative and either motivate or overwhelm us, depending on how long it lasts and if we feel equipped to handle it.
Meetings are like stress given they possess a similar duality. While they often have a bad reputation, when executed well, they enable efficiency, promote engagement, foster inclusivity, facilitate active collaboration, and spur creativity.
However, poor meetings can cost organizations big time.
This article explores meeting overload - how to identify if it is happening at your organization, and strategies to minimize overload for your team.
Meetings are essential in business: they ensure alignment and help drive business outcomes. In fact, 81% of business leaders recently surveyed, believe that meetings help them at work.
But it’s often difficult to remember these benefits when you are pulled in multiple directions among the myriads of meetings scheduled daily. In the US alone, estimates are that 55 million meetings take place each day.
In a 2023 McKinsey Featured Insight Report, the three different types of collaborative interactions occurring in organizations were detailed:
From McKinsey & Company. (2022, January 10). If we’re all so busy, why isn’t anything getting done?.
Note: This article was a collaborative effort by Aaron De Smet, Caitlin Hewes, Mengwei Luo, J.R. Maxwell, and Patrick Simon, representing views from McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice.
Link: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/if-were-all-so-busy-why-isnt-anything-getting-done
Meetings are used to achieve results for each type of interaction:
If meetings foster productivity, collaboration, and decision-making, then why are we even discussing them as a potential problem?
Because not every meeting is good and not every meeting is necessary.
In a recent survey of 5000 employees spanning four continents, 78% of workers reported that they struggle to get work done because of meeting overload. Half of them also reported that they needed to work overtime just to meet deadlines.
Those figures should concern every manager.
75% of managers say they have never received meeting training. Given that approximately 11 million meetings are happening per day in the US alone, imagine the shift possible if team leaders could access insight and guidance on tangible ways to improve these meetings.
Let’s talk about meeting overload.
Tolerance is good but not when it comes to bad meetings.
Empowering your direct reports to say no to bad meetings may seem obvious but it’s easier said than done. Leader bias could be at play or even concerns that not inviting everyone may promote FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) among your team.
Regardless, here are a few red flags that leaders should watch for and questions to ask your team to ensure meetings stay on track:
Excessive meetings take time away from enjoyable tasks or priority deliverables. They can result in boredom or a lack of engagement. This eventually leads to poor productivity or low job satisfaction among your team members.
A great question for your team to understand if this is happening within your organization is, “I've noticed some of our meetings are running longer than planned. What do you think are the main reasons for this, and how can we improve our meeting efficiency?”
For quieter team members, too many attendees can deter participation, and honestly, how can everyone’s voice be heard when there are so many of them?
To empower your team to reduce the size of meetings, prompt them with, "Are there any meetings where you think a smaller group would be more productive? How can we decide who truly needs to be there?"
If you don’t have a desirable outcome for your meeting, what’s the point? To see if this is happening within your organization, gather direct and actionable feedback from peers or your direct reports.
To elicit feedback from your team, you could ask questions such as, “What do you think we can do to ensure our meetings have a clear agenda and objectives? How can we make sure everyone is on the same page?"
To maximize attendance and engagement, be sure to consider your direct reports' schedules and any looming deadlines they may have. Gather input before scheduling meetings to yield the best results.
Ask, "I've noticed some meetings might not be at the best times for everyone. What times work best for you, and how can we best accommodate everyone's schedules?"
For a deeper dive on meeting overload and research based strategies to address them, refer to our Meeting Science series.
Meeting cadence, the frequency, duration, and scheduling of meetings, also impacts employee perceptions about their productivity and how they feel about work. Research highlights three key takeaways for managers:
It might seem like a small consideration but meeting schedules directly impact how your team members feel. And that has a significant impact on their ability to perform and contribute.
A final word of wisdom, always set clear expectations for your meeting participants. Are you asking them to listen? Participate? Brainstorm? Problem-solve? Sharing expectations and any pre-reading material in advance not only helps prepare attendees but also allows you to optimize actual meeting time and promote attendee engagement.
Try as we might, everyone has biases. For leaders, these biases impact the way they manage and interact with their teams. When it comes to meetings, leaders often feel that their meetings are better than their direct reports’ views of the same meetings. These ‘blindspots’ are a problem because if you are unaware of a problem, how can you fix it?
With data, actionable insights, guidance, and tools.
To learn more about biases, meeting overload, and the potential problems with meetings at your organization, contact Kairos. Developed in conjunction with organizational scientists studying behaviour, team dynamics, and leadership in workplaces, our integrated meeting platform facilitates data gathering within your organization, and provides real-time guidance based on these insights, plus tools to help you leverage meetings as a source of competitive advantage.