STEVEN Broomhead on the disease of meeting delays

“WE will continue to have lots of meetings until we find out that no work is getting done” – this was a recent comment made to me outside of my working environment about business meetings.

Frequent meetings with a lack of clear objectives, poor meeting management and a lack of tangible outcomes which are not properly communicated are one of the most talked about aspects of work these days.

The ‘let’s have a meeting’ disease is one aspect that is potentially ruining UK productivity.

‘Cool’ in phases like ‘keep in touch’, ‘touch base’, and let’s do some ‘blue sky thinking’ are now part of everyday work life.

A recent national study of more than 1,000 workers suggested that the epidemic of meetings each day shows an average worker spends 26 days per year in ‘team talk’.

Twenty million people attend at least one meeting a day with an average time of four hours per each working week.

The survey found that an average 20 minutes of every 60-minute meeting was simply wasted with aimless discussion.

Other time wasting examples were waiting for people to arrive, getting the technology to work, and people not paying attention as they check their phones.

I’ve tried many different techniques for meetings in my career.

These have included walking meetings, Skype and meetings without chairs and I have realised that business meetings only should be arranged with a clear purpose and decisive outcomes as well.

I think there are some simple rules – being clear on purpose, an effective and efficient chairperson, make sure everyone contributes but sticks to the purpose of the meeting, start and finish on time and record and communicate the outcomes.

I’ve also learned that you should try to avoid the ‘Deja Poo’ meeting – the feeling that you’ve heard this brown stuff before.

Some meetings (as in the public sector), need collective decision making processes and ensuring inclusion is another challenge.

While meetings encourage teamwork and team building, they are also a challenge for productivity.

I have a growing suspicion that the least productive people are also the ones most in favour of holding meetings.

So does Warrington have an increasing ‘meetings’ disease?

We really do not need a meeting to discuss and determine this – do we?