By: MJ Gonzales | Executive Chronicles
Collaborative effort is vital in any company’s progress. This is also why meetings with colleagues and bosses are always part of most organizations’ weekly or monthly schedules. In contrast to common notion, some reports claim that meetings could be a waste of time and slowdown employees’ productivity.
According to Online Course Report, meetings are one of the snatchers of concentration in the offices. In their research, 45% executives believe that if they don’t have meetings their employees maybe more productive, while 70% employees share meetings hamper their work flow. On the other hand, 67% of employees reveal they allot four hours each week in preparing their reports and only 16% of companies address this issue by reducing their number of meetings.
Even in executive level and well-prepared appointments, discussing agendas can be hard since clashing of ideas is possible. Apart from this, prejudice and chitchats while someone’s talking also affect the efficiency of discussion. Some experts suggest meetings should be conducted in proper and right way to garner positive outcomes and maximize time.
Meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review’s report cited that there possible ingredients of a time-wasting meeting like talking about not so important unrelated topics and having unfocused or ad hoc agendas. To solve these and other issues, they recommended to “focus on decisions, not on discussions,” “measure the real value of every item on the agenda,” and “get issues off the agenda as quickly as possible.”
HBR emphasized the importance of quick and quality decision-making in the meetings, as well as, following what’s the final decision. It make sense that especially in a session with fickle-minded people who likes follow-up discussion even all the necessary information was already explained and given. On the other hand, adding a bit of twist would change the ambiance from strict to engaging. For American Express vice president and author Christopher Frank , a direct and quick question and answer portion that’s answerable by only five or fewer words is good. According to him, it helps to determine if a participant is in the zone with everyone.
