Intelligent Meetings

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

Coach Colle Davis, Executive Mentoring and Coaching, Inc, http://www.mycoach.com/meetings.shtml

Here’s a quick exercise to see what a 'meeting' costs your company. This formula depends on your industry’s averages so be creative and use your own company’s numbers to come to your own conclusions.

1) Let’s use the nice round figure of $100,000 as the salary of each attendee (yes, I know, that's not even close, but it's an easy number to work with) and each employee averages 50 hours of work per week. That means that each person makes about $38.50 per hour.

2) Now, let's be generous and round that number up to $50.00 to include each employee’s benefits package.

3) Now multiply that $50.00 by the number of attendees in a meeting using a meeting of 8 employees: 8 attendees x $50.00 per hour = $400.00/hr.

4) Add the length of the average meeting of 2.5 hours - 2.5 hours x $400.00 = $1,000. Surprised? Many meetings are much longer and many have more attendees so start to see each meeting as a cost item to your company in excess of $1,000.


Now, how many meetings are you or your people in each week?

You can play with the numbers as much as you'd like and you will be shocked at the cost it takes to create a meeting. Having worked for several decades in the corporate arena, I've come to the conclusion that the vast majority of meetings are unnecessary and can even be counterproductive. The main complaint I hear regarding meetings is, “Meeting are too frequent and too unproductive.” I've had clients (when they first started working with me) who were working 70 hour weeks and at least 40 of those hours were spent in meetings. Within a couple of months of coaching, two changes took place.

1. They shortened their work week to around 50 hours

2. They reduced their meeting time to less than half their original time. So, their weekly reduction came at the expense of meeting time. Their biggest surprise was that they could easily document their time was far more productive and they began to receive higher evaluations and larger bonuses and raises. It was clear that meetings did not appear to help their career.

Here are fool proof guide lines that will help you create productive meetings with greater buy-in for all concerned.

1. The announcement notice for departmental meetings must be sent to participants one day prior to the meeting. Announcements for meetings that include those outside of a department require a full week’s notice. Announcements for meetings that include those in other branch offices, requires a two-week’s notice.

2. When setting the time for a meeting, the meeting facilitator should indicate the exact start and end times for the meeting so people can devote that time solely to the meeting. Effective meeting leaders are now inviting participants to arrive 15 minutes early in order to get their coffee or snacks prior to the start-time of the meeting to avoid interruptions. Offering coffee or snacks are great enticements to draw early attendance.

3. A written agenda (email) is sent to each participant at least 24 hours in advance of a meeting.

4. If someone requests time on the meeting’s agenda, they must notify the person facilitating the meeting immediately upon receipt of the announcement that they'd like to be included in the meeting’s agenda.

5. Any subject that’s not on the agenda has no place in a meeting. No exceptions.

6. Only people who are asked to contribute to the outcome of the meeting should be invited. Do NOT invite people who are not necessary to the outcomes of the meeting.

7. If the meeting is over 70 minutes, a fifteen minute biological-needs break is mandatory. This break also gives people a chance to check their voice mail messages.

8. If those who are invited to the meeting do not make contributions to the agenda, they should not be invited to subsequent meetings (which is tantamount to professional suicide).

9. A designated person should take detailed notes that are sent (by email) to those in the meeting and others who ‘need to know’ the outcome of the meting within 24 hours after the meeting ends.

10. If possible, tasks are given to those who volunteer for them in each meeting. If no one volunteers, then tasks should be assigned by the meeting facilitator.

11. All action items have a specific person designated for them before the meeting ends. These action items should include a time-frame for completion.

12. After tasks and action items are complete, it’s not necessary but it’s beneficial to send a follow-up email to those who attended the meeting to let them know the outcome of the meeting.

13. If a meeting needs to be moved to a different time or location, participants should be notified within 24 hours or canceled.

14. No phones, no Blackberries, and no pagers are allowed in meetings. Period.

Notice that these guide lines are common sense, courteous, and take everyone into consideration. Using these steps will give all of the participants a greater sense of ownership, accomplishment, enhance their productivity, greatly reduce their time away from their real job and give them a much greater sense that the company has some idea where it’s going.

There are a few red flags to watch out for when beginning to implement these within your company. Severe push back from the ‘leaders’ is a way to bring to the forefront the black hole nature of meetings. You know you’re dealing with an insecure person in a power play when they attempt to go around any of these guide lines. These guide lines allow much greater participation and productivity of the group when adhered to by everyone.

For more information see www.mycoach.com/meetings.shtml For some help in implementing a sane and reasonable meeting format within your group or company, contact me today.
- Coach Colle
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