Have you ever felt mentally or physically exhausted from attending so many meetings? Some days it can feel like all you do is attend meetings and if we are being honest, some of them seem to be a waste of time. It has been found that an excessive amount of meetings can take away from employee morale, decrease employee engagement, and make a company less proactive. Not only can those meetings make your employees exhausted, it also loses your business a lot of money! How much money you ask? Well, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that United States businesses lose around $37 BILLION dollars in meetings every year! So, what can be done to kick meeting fatigue to the curb and save your company some money? Keep reading to find out.
Reflect
Reflect on yourself and take note: are you the change you want to see in your company? Employees tend to take their cues from the boss, so are the meetings you are having each week actually necessary? If they are not, you can easily cancel the meetings and start turning them into emails, chat messages, or informal face-to-face conversations.
Think Before Attending
Before you click “accept” on your next meeting invitation, consider your return on investment. By attending this meeting will it help you to achieve your goals? If not, then kindly decline the meeting request. When you decline, it might unnerve people at first but that is okay! If the meeting being hosted doesn’t add time or value to your business, there is no reason to attend. However, if it does, you should attend but pay attention to the length of time. Rather than it being a sixty-minute meeting, can it be done in thirty with less sidebar conversations?
Find the Requestor
One of the most useful things you can do to minimize meetings is figure out who at your business requests them most often? You may not be surprised to find that one or two people seem to request meetings the most. Have a conversation with this person and ask them to engage in less structured conversations. Let them know that it’s okay to send out large emails containing information. Also, let them know the importance of minimizing meetings, because it is maximizing employee productivity and time.
By minimizing your meetings each week, not only will it help you personally, it will help your company financially. By reducing the amount of meetings your employees must attend each week, it should increase company morale and productivity which is an overall win for everyone.
MG (Retired) Mike Diamond is CEO and founder of Diamond Strategy Group. Diamond Strategy Group is a leadership development and consulting company. We focus on improving the quality of leadership within organizations by utilizing the same methods Mike and his consultants have used in both military and civilian sectors.
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