Don't Blame the Meetings

Meetings are critical for business. Good meetings play an important role in the success of a company. On the contrary, bad meetings are bad for business and can have a huge toll on its productivity, employees’ morale, and costs due to meeting inefficiencies. At least 15% of organizational time is spent in meetings and 50% of the time spent in meetings is unproductive. In this blog we will zoom into the current state of the meetings by reviewing some of the research findings from academic and commercial entities.

 

Meeting problems are worsening

Meeting numbers are on the rise-the duration, frequency, cost, and number of participants are all increasing. Recent report by Deloitte states that employees are spending 250% more time in meetings today compared with pre-pandemic day. With tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, it is easier to have meetings. Quantity does not mean quality and in the case of meetings, it also comes with side effects like employees burning out, reduced efficiency, and higher costs. Based on Microsoft's research, back-to-back meetings increased stress and decreased focus and engagement. According to Harvard Business Review, 65% of Senior Managers said meetings kept them from completing their work.

 

Meeting design is lacking

There is very little attention given to designing a good meeting. According to research by UNC Charlotte, only about 20% of the leaders receive any training on meetings. Since most people are not formally trained for designing and running efficient meetings, oftentimes meetings are poorly designed. Participant frustrations are understandable when meeting goals are ambiguous and agenda items are unclear. The absence of good meeting design may result in poor execution of meetings and can cause low engagement and productivity, higher costs, and potentially, even more meetings. 

 

Collaboration in meetings can be dysfunctional

During meetings, participants may experience dysfunctional collaboration due to a variety of factors, including (but not limited to), late arrivals in meetings, background noise, absences (due to schedule conflicts or are out of office); Some participants are distracted because they are multitasking or are not fully attentive, as examples. Based on Salary.com, too many meetings is the number one time-waster in the workplace and based on Microsoft's findings, 2+ emails are sent every 30 minutes of a meeting.

 

The meeting process needs a refresh

The current meeting experience can be disruptive and meeting data or outcomes can be scattered across several tools like email, chatting channels, documents, calendars, videos chats, voice calls, etc. Organizations also bind themselves to a fixed time and duration to cover an ambitious list of agenda items to accomplish. People are pushed to think faster, on-the-spot and this results in shallow engagements. The current meeting process is not designed for people to do deep thinking. This impacts the quality and quantity of contributions.

 

Approach meetings as a team sport

Meetings are not a one person sport, it's a team sport. Currently, the organizer bears the burden of the meeting's planning, execution, and its outcomes. If the meeting is not optimally designed or well executed, then the meeting tend to have poor outcomes. Yaylo’s approach is inclusive, offers participants to collaborate in several stages of the meeting, and has shared accountability for meeting success.

 

Yaylo changes the game

Today, meeting mediocrity is widely accepted, therefore, there is an urgent need to push for change. If the current processes, tools, and culture were working there would not be a long list of the problems reported by Microsoft, Stanford, Harvard Business Review, etc. It's time to get out of the present and leap into the future of meetings. Use Yaylo for your meetings. It streamlines the meeting process, offers easy participation and complete data preservation in one place. It optimizes meetings and helps organizations improve efficiency and save costs. Try Yaylo today, it's the modern way of running meetings.