The pow-wow factor: an unwritten rule of corporate life is that the length of a meeting is inversely proportional to its usefulness. Scott Payton considers how we can make meetings more efficient.
| Author | Payton, Scott |
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Unproductive meetings cost UK business 27.5bn [pounds sterling] every year, according to a recent research report by VisitBritain. Its survey also found that the average British worker spends eight weeks a year in meetings--more than two weeks of which are a waste of time. Are we really squandering so many resources on pointless discussions? And if so, what can be done about it?
Charles Lindsey, assistant professor of marketing at the State University of New York, has some surprising news for people who believe that group brainstorming sessions are the ideal forum for creating new ideas. "There is a quarter of a century of research in psychology that shows that groups generate fewer responses than the combined responses of the same number of individuals tested separately," he says.
Such findings don't render the whole concept of meetings redundant, of course. First, as Lindsey admits, they prove only that people come up with more ideas in isolation--not necessarily better ones. Second, not all meetings are designed to produce lots of ideas.
David Sims, professor of organisational behaviour at Cass Business School, has little time for those who declare that most meetings are ineffective. "There is a huge prejudice at play," he says. "People don't actually waste any more time in meetings than they would waste on aggregate if they were working alone in their offices. People waste time throughout the workplace--it's just that you can see it happening in a meeting."
So what are meetings actually good for? "The reason for having them is that different people have different skills and levels of knowledge, and many of the things people work on are too complicated to be comprehended fully by any one person," Sims says. Meetings work best, therefore, when they are "a jigsaw pattern of people putting ideas together".
The reason why so many people believe that meetings are a waste of time is a reflection of the way in which some are chaired rather than the events themselves, according to Joss Croft, head of business visits and events at VisitBritain. "It is worth pointing out that our survey also indicates that 71 per cent of meetings are not a waste of time," he says.
Conventional wisdom
So how can you ensure that your meeting falls into this 71 per cent? "It's generally accepted that 20 minutes is the optimal concentration span for any human," says Martin Lewis, managing editor of Meetings & Incentive Travel. "So, if you have anyone speaking for an hour, 40 minutes of that will go straight over the attendees' heads."
But some organisations err the other way by making their meetings too short, according to Sims. "Quite a lot of things will always need discussing at some length. The idea that speed...
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