“Meetings: the practical alternative to work,” as the saying goes. No self-respecting business wants to advertise that it’s inefficient, unfocused, lacks a clear direction or purpose or that they regularly waste tens of thousands of dollars for no tangible reason. And yet, that’s exactly what happens every day in meetings. “Meetings rarely result in actionable work. Workers spend on average six to seven hours per week in meetings and are then forced to do the real work they were hired to do on the margins of their day,” says Carson Tate, the founder and principal of Working Simply, a management consultancy, and the author of “Work Simply.”
When your workforce spends the majority of its time in meetings, it’s not producing anything — except more meetings and that can become the entire culture of your business.
Take concrete steps to ensure the right people are attending meetings, and that tangible action is taken after a meeting to avoid wasting time, energy and money.