How to reduce time - consuming business meetings

Premakumar FERNANDO

MEETINGS: There are many people who think that holding or attending a continuous string of meetings is a sign of their power and importance. The exact opposite is true. If meetings are merely routine or unnecessary, they are, in fact, a sure sign of bad management.

In Sri Lanka in the Public Sector enterprises, meetings after meetings are held and those at the hierarchy feels dim if they are not summoned for meetings and those who convene the meetings also do think only the important people need to attend the meetings.

Meetings, whether they are one-on-one discussions or gatherings of five, ten, or twenty people, are an important part of working life- but they are time - consuming.

And often they are criticised for being unproductive, costly, boring, and sometimes unnecessary. Are they always needed? And all of them? Check out these points, and one may find you'll be holding fewer meetings in the future.

* Be fully aware of the cost of meetings. Meetings consume valuable time. Often in the public sector, the Secretary of the Ministry chairs the meeting and is participated by the Chairman, Vice Chairman, CEO, Deputy General Managers of the enterprise and the gathering may be about 35-40.

Often, time is wasted on rambling discussions, excessive socialising, political manoeuvring, and special- interest conflicts.

When the meeting is held at the Ministry premises at least 25 vehicles will go to the Ministry from the enterprise taking all these participants.

When did one last find out the true cost for the organisation's meeting by costing the salaries alone of those participants?

* Consider why one should hold so many meetings. Meetings can be very useful tools for communicating ideas, clarifying information, solving problems, making decisions, and building teams. But they can also be held for the wrong reasons:

Do you meet simply because the day of the week traditionally calls for it? (Monday meetings, Friday meetings etc;). Do you meet (but primarily socialise) in the guise of work? Does one division meet once a week - only because another division does?

Do you hold many meetings because you believe volume indicates 'busy-ness' and productivity? Do you hold a meeting simply because you haven't the courage to make a decision yourself?

In many public sector enterprises when meeting the Trade Unions the entire senior management is called to the forum.

The Chairman or CEO should have taken the right decision with courage without getting all those into these meetings.

Do you hold a meeting to decide something even though you've already made up your mind?

Spend some time thinking about why you hold regular or once only meetings before considering the following strategies aimed at reducing unproductive meeting time...

* Establish a workable review process. Often, regular meetings outlive their usefulness. Try to set a termination date whenever you establish a committee- or, at least, review a committee's progress periodically and disband if it is no longer productive.

* Consolidate meeting procedures. One manager found she was spending hours each month in separate meetings with individual departmental heads, covering more or less the same topics. She decided to hold a monthly group meeting- which helps the department heads keep abreast of one another's activities and forges an spirit de corps.

* Limit the number of participants. The larger the crowd, the greater the discussion and longer the meeting. Limit attendance to those concerned with topics on the agenda. Try scheduling some participants to attend only that part of the meeting to which they can contribute. Make sure key people are present at the relevant times.

* Define clearly the purpose of every meeting. Have a definite reason for every meeting. Think 'reason' first, then 'meeting'.

Legitimate reasons might include solving a problem or making a decision where group expertise is essential; obtaining information from participants before group discussion and clarification; motivating people with common goals; generating new ideas through brain storming; exchanging view points; announcing new policies or programs followed by a Q&A session to clarify issues.

Meetings are generally not an efficient way to dispense information; if meetings are summoned to dispense information one should rethink the need for calling the meeting.

* Consider an alternative to meeting. Once the need for a meeting is identified, consider whether another alternative might not be a more efficient form of communication, e.g.

* Want a feed back on new proposal? Try a short survey or some quick phone calls.

* Need to disseminate information? Consider a memo, poster or news sheet.

* Want some ideas on an issue? Put a large magi board in the staff room.

* Need to hear about problems? Try ten-minute one-on-one meetings rather than tie up all staff for two hours.

If one can achieve some outcomes without calling meetings, you can save much time and the meetings you do call will become powerful, special events. To achieve this...

* Occasionally cancel a regular meeting to test the need for it.

* Keep a folder of agenda items and, instead of having regularly scheduled meetings, call a meeting when your folder has sufficient items.

* Question every item on the agenda. Could they be handled in other ways?

* To avoid losing production and time, work hard to make every meeting a very good one. As Peter Drucker reminds us, 'One either meets or one works- one cannot do both at the same time.'

"If you had to identify in one word the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be 'Meetings!'."

- Jim MULLEN