You’re in meeting after meeting, checking your phone under the desk, thinking about all the work piling up while you’re stuck discussing something that could’ve been an email. Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
In fact, a recent McKinsey survey shows that 80% of executives have realised that their current meeting structure needs a revamp – badly.
The traditional meeting is a dying breed. Lengthy PowerPoint presentations, endless discussions with no direction and hours spent talking about everything but what’s actually important – in today’s corporate world, there’s just no place for these things.
Traditional meetings are, quite simply, a product of their time. A time without smartphones, fast communication and employees who expect to do more than just sit around and listen. Today, it’s all about engagement, efficiency and keeping up the momentum.
In this article, we’ll give you the tools you need to take your meetings from time wasted to time well spent – and to turn them into an effective tool that makes a real difference for your company.
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Key takeaways:
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Meeting fatigue: A problem on the rise
At its core, collaboration is a good thing. With that being said, it needs to be efficient. Collaboration can and should be a catalyst for innovation and progress – not a hindrance to them.
Unfortunately, many people mistakenly equate collaboration to taking part in meetings.
An excess of inefficient and irrelevant meetings have created a serious – and increasing – problem: meeting fatigue. It’s not just a feeling – it’s a real, systemic problem slowly draining your employees of their energy.
You may be wondering – how big is this problem really? To give you an idea, here’s a number to put this issue into perspective: 13 hours.
According to Business Leader, 35% of their working time – almost 13 hours in a 37-hour work week – is the amount of time the average staff member spends in meetings in the UK.
That’s more than ⅓ of the work week spent in meetings.
With so many hours dedicated to meetings, the question is: how much of that time is actually spent efficiently?
The answer: far too little.
For most roles, it’s unproductive and unsustainable. In a recent McKinsey survey, 80% of executives say they’ve considered or are already implementing changes in meeting structure and cadence in response to the ‘overload’ that can happen as a result of too many meetings.
This meeting fatigue has consequences – not just for the individual employees, but also the company as a whole.
On an individual level, meeting fatigue can result in:
- Mental stress from constantly having to refocus
- Reduced time for focused work and creativity
- Exhaustion, leading to poor decision-making
- Decreased motivation
And, as we mentioned above, this doesn’t just affect the individual employees – it affects the entire organisation. When employees continually have to sit through meetings with no substance, they inevitably lose faith in the system. They start viewing meetings as a waste of time rather than a tool for effective collaboration.
Not sure if your employees are suffering from meeting fatigue? Look for the signals in your meetings:
- Participants are physically present, but have mentally checked out
- A continuous exchange of messages throughout the meeting
- A lack of engagement and initiative
If these sound familiar, you need to rethink your meeting culture ASAP.
The first step is to acknowledge the problem: when you do that, it’ll be much easier to find ways to take your meetings from a burden to a tool that benefits everyone.
Meetings should boost energy levels – not drain them. It’s about quality over quantity.
Meeting DNA – what separates a good meeting from a bad one?
You’ve probably experienced meetings that filled you with energy and new ideas, as well as meetings that made you wish you were somewhere else.
But have you ever thought about what separates those meetings from each other – and what the secret is to making meetings matter?
Typically, the best meetings have four defining characteristics:
- Direction: From the moment the meeting starts, everybody knows exactly why they’re there and what they’re meant to do. No chit-chat, no detours – everyone has their eye on the prize.
- Momentum: Decisions are made – the meeting is more than just talk. Every participant leaves the meeting with clear tasks and deadlines.
- Engagement: The participants are mentally present – not just physically (or virtually). They participate actively, listen and build on each other’s ideas.
- Time management: Time is managed strictly, ensuring the meeting stays on topic and concludes on time.
But there’s one thing that truly sets the good meetings apart from the bad: preparation.
If a meeting is well prepared, that meeting is much more likely to be productive and rewarding.
For a meeting to be well prepared, you need to be able to answer the following questions without hesitation:
- What’s the most important decision to be made?
- Why are these particular participants necessary?
- What’s the exact meeting agenda?
- How long will this actually take?
Apart from this, you should also make sure every meeting has a meeting leader who keeps things on track, a recorder or secretary who records what happened and what decisions were made and participants who show up prepared and participate actively in the meeting.
How to optimise your meeting culture
You can do a lot of things with AI. It can help you write, generate images, create video and much more. In The Finance and Business Synergy Report, which provides insights from more than 2,800 financial decision-makers in Europe, 61% of respondents say they believe AI can improve collaboration in their organisation.
But here’s something you may not have thought about: AI can improve collaboration by optimising your meeting culture.
In recent years, a variety of tools have been developed that function as meeting assistants.
They can do all sorts of handy things that won’t just save you a lot of time, but will also give you insights you can use to improve your meeting culture.
For example, with a meeting assistant you can generate precise summaries immediately on concluding the meeting. You can also get an overview of who talks the most during the meeting. In other words, you can use the AI meeting assistant to figure out if a team meeting is running over time because a certain participant is hogging the floor.
Read more: ‘The 9 best AI meeting assistants in 2024’
Tips for a better meeting culture
So how do you actually improve your meeting culture?
There are several things you can look into tweaking.
Meeting format
The COVID-19 pandemic propelled the virtual meeting into the spotlight, and since 2020 many more meetings have been held virtually. But physical meetings still have their place – so how do you determine if a meeting should be physical or virtual?
Physical meetings triumph when it comes to building relationships or brainstorming, or when you need to solve particularly complex problems. For these purposes, having participants physically present is invaluable.
Virtual meetings, on the other hand, are great for quick status updates and knowledge sharing – and, of course, for hybrid teams with members in different locations.
Just remember: virtual meetings take just as much preparation as physical meetings.
Sometimes, virtual meetings become less structured because they seem low stakes and easy to wing. But that’s exactly why it’s so important to have a clear agenda and to make sure participants know what’s expected of them prior to the meeting.
Without structure, virtual meetings can quickly become inefficient and a waste of time – just as a physical meeting will without preparation.
Meeting length
Another thing worth considering is meeting length. Many meetings are unnecessarily long and could easily be wrapped up faster. For many companies, most meetings are between 45 minutes and 1 hour long.
If that’s the case for you, it’s time to challenge this routine.
In many cases, 30 minutes is plenty of time for a good and effective meeting – so long as it’s well prepared. The shorter time forces you to focus and stay on topic. It also eliminates a lot of the chit-chat many meetings start off with.
It goes without saying that not all meetings can be done in 30 minutes – but a lot of them can. If you’re continually experiencing problems with keeping your meetings to 30 minutes, it may be time to take a look at how well your meetings are prepared and structured.
Participants
Finally, the participants are important. You want the right people present, but there’s no reason to waste people’s time with unnecessary meetings. That’s why you should only invite those who can actively contribute to the meeting and have the authority to make decisions following the meeting.
Think of it this way: if an individual wouldn’t lose anything by not being present, don’t invite them.
A better meeting culture isn’t just about having fewer meetings – it’s about making sure the meetings you’re having are valuable for all participants. By choosing the right format, shortening meeting length and choosing your participants carefully, you can reduce time wasted and improve participant focus.
You might also be interested in: ‘Add real value to every business meeting with these 10 tricks’
