Gosia Leitch’s Post

Things absorbed from the below article 1. Only necessary meetings to ensure tasks are completed within deadlines 2. Agenda is specific to task execution, technical or managerial challenges and other bottlenecks. 3. All meetings must have action items and fixed timeline for their execution

A simple formula to more effective meetings: 1) articulate the purpose, 2) set the right cadence, 3) invite the right people. I believe the new year is a great time to pare the lists of participants!

We’ve all felt this and it continues to big a significant issue in many organisations. As the headline suggests, certain meetings just shouldn’t take place no matter what improvements can be made. Without the right governance, these become meetings as a source of power or meetings as bottleneck. Have you seen this in previous organisations you’ve worked in? What tangible actions improved the situation if any? Comment below 👇

Meetings become unnecessary when they cover topics or decisions that could have been resolved without gathering. This often happens when the purpose of the meeting is unclear, or the meeting lacks a focused agenda, leading to discussions that don't require everyone's presence. Prioritizing meetings that genuinely need collaboration and decision making can help in reducing the number of unnecessary meetings.

Leaders can make meetings very productive or vice versa when organising and presiding over meetings/reviews. Apart from the very relevant points mentioned in this article, I’m taking the liberty to add a few more from my experience. 1. Need to attend vs good to attend from the attendees POV. 2. ‘All hand on deck’ can’t be a regular BAU meeting, they loose their impact over a period of time. 3. Avoid power display / ‘Durbar’ syndrome. 4. Share data in advance; if attendees are not prepared they will waste everyone’s time in absorbing the information. 5. Attendees end up giving unrealistic commitments as they do not have the time to process the data shared(point 4), nobody wants to upset the boss! 5. Differentiate and adhere to strategic and tactical(operational) agenda of the meeting.

Why have a meeting when an email will do? Meetings need purpose and have the right people participating. This article gives some additional insights.

Roughly 15% of an organization's collective time goes in "meetings". About 50% of these meetings are agenda-less and a waste of time.  And even in the ones that matter Babble effect kicks in and extroverted louder voices with minimal quality tend to hijack the discussions.  As long as the forum values quantity over quality or there's no entry barrier for setting meetings up (preparation, documentation etc), the only antidote to this meeting mayhem is to "Reject" meetings and use alternatives for decision making. Productivity over Visibility. #RandomWeekendMusings #meetings

Great article discussing how to break the monotony of back to back meetings. The walk and talk is a great idea for non-intensive meetings. #meetingoverload #innovation #meetings

$37 billion dollars is spent annually in the United States on MEETINGS!!! - And 70% senior management say " meetings are unproductive". - Talk about burning money. Wasting time. And causing a lot of frustration for everyone. - Do you ever attend a meeting knowning damn right, this could have been an email or a quick video chat? - Do you ever attend a meeting wondering the entire time what the intention or purpose of the meeting actually is? - Do you ever walk out of a meeting more confused, overwhelmed and lost than when you walked in? - You and many other people are feeling the same way. - Are you ready to STOP this in your team? - We need to chat - seriously. Because I am here to enlighten you with better tools and solutions that actually provide you and your team with a positive return on your investment when it comes to meeting.