Deb Calvert's Blog

When scheduling business meetings, there are two prevalent approaches: comparing calendars to select a time when everyone is available or announcing the meeting time and expecting invitees to make scheduling adjustments so they can attend.   

Too many cooks spoil the broth. This proverb aptly conveys what happens when too many people are involved, all at once, in a project or discussion. Conversely, if the right people aren’t there, meetings are unproductive. One of the worst mistakes you can make is failing to think through who should attend a business meeting.  

Let’s start with a shocker: you may not need a meeting agenda.

Not every type of meeting requires an agenda. A one-topic briefing, for example, doesn’t need a formal agenda. The calendar invitation, with topic included, likely provides sufficient information. Since no one who’s invited will need to prepare or participate in simply receiving the information, an agenda is pointless.

If you’re constantly trying to shoehorn essential tasks, deep thinking time, and your “real work” between meetings, it’s only fair to ask “do we really need a meeting” every time you’re invited to one.

In part one of the Top 10 Fixes for Miserable Meetings series, we ran the numbers to calculate the cost of wasted time in meetings. In one study, Doodle concluded that $399 billion is lost annually in bad meetings that waste time, drain morale, and impair productivity.

The chief complaint employees have about meetings is that they’re disorganized. The lack of organization and purpose in results in miserable meetings that are soul-sucking, time-wasting, and unproductive. By routinely assigning meeting roles and responsibilities, your meetings will instantly become more productive and organized.

Miserable meetings are a soul-sucking, time-wasting blight in the workplace. If people in your organization are wondering “why am I here?” or “what’s the point?” during meetings, you’re suffering from meeting mistake #1: the purpose of your meetings are not clear. Shifting to outcome-based meetings will be a game-changer that saves time, increases productivity, and improves morale. 

If the mere mention of “meetings” makes you recoil, your organization may be making these common mistakes in meetings. They don’t have to be something you dread! Meetings shouldn’t be soul-sucking, time-wasting, pointless, or unproductive.   

Over the next 12 weeks, the CONNECT2Lead Blog will bring you fixes for the problems that make your meetings miserable. Be sure to subscribe so you won’t miss a single one of these posts in the series, The Top 10 Fixes for Miserable Meetings. 

The answer may surprise you. When it comes to inclusion in the workplace, it’s not just the latest initiative from HR… not just the tone set at the top… not just the policies and lip service… Everyone, including YOU, is responsible for full inclusion in the workplace.

Bosses behaving badly in the workplace has some new additions to the list of employee grievances. Executive etiquette standards for remote settings and virtual meetings need to be updated, so move over Emily Post!