REAL WORLD FOUNDER LESSON #2:
Meeting overload is not productivity.
At one stage as a founder, my diary had become ridiculous. Meeting after long meeting. And so many people. Everyone who might conceivably need to know what was happening had been invited.
For my own sanity, I started questioning it. How much were all these meetings actually costing us - time is money right?. And what were we getting back?
Try this calculation yourself. It will shock you:
Meetings per week × duration × people attending × average hourly cost.
10 meetings × 45 minutes × 6 people × R500/hour =
R22,500 a week
R97, 425 a month
R1.17m a year!
And that excludes preparation, follow-up and the disruption of repeatedly stopping productive work. Research supports the concern. Atlassian found 72% of meetings are ineffective, while 78% of workers say meeting volume makes it difficult to get their work done.
So I started pushing back for meeting discipline.
No clear purpose? Then why are we meeting? No agenda - send one before I accept. Does everyone invited actually need to be there? Could this be a short team update instead? What decision needs to be made?
And one of my personal irritants - being late. If a meeting starts at 10h00, it starts at 10h00. A suggestion - if it starts at 10am, the door closes at 10am. Harsh? Maybe. But six people sitting around waiting five minutes for one late person isn't five minutes wasted. It's 30 minutes of company time.
It doesn't take long for people to avoid the embarrassment of being locked out.
Do you think this cost is factored into your management accounts?)
Learn the rules — and respecting everybody else's time is part of meeting discipline. A meeting should finish with decisions, actions, ownership and deadlines. Otherwise its wasted time.
Being permanently booked does not mean someone is productive. Atlassian framed this nicely: "productivity theatre" - appearing busy without making progress on important work.
Sometimes one of the most productive things you can say is: "No. I don't need to be in that meeting".
Some guardrails against meeting overload:
More than four meetings in one day? Review your diary
More than 1.5 - 3 hours of meetings in a normal day = red flag
Protect at least one meeting-free half day (better still - full day) - every week
Default meetings to 25 and 50 minutes - not 30 or 60
No stated purpose or agenda? Decline and request one
Status reporting should normally be asynchronous
Invite only people needed to decide, contribute or own an action
Every meeting ends with decisions, actions, owners and dates
Regular recurring meetings should periodically have to re-earn their place in the calendar
Links of interest:
Atlassian.com: Workplace Woes
HBR Ideacast: "We all hate meetings..."
Comments