Meetings!

Recent research on the subject found that on average, each working person in the UK attends about two meetings every week, about eight meetings every month, and about 100 every year…


Some of my colleagues would argue that meetings are vital for the business in a huge number of ways; establishing relationships, creating partnerships, saving time, motivating staff and developing new ideas. But I would argue that we have gone too far with the number of face-to-face meetings we all attend. People keep asking me what I will miss about the day to day of work and I know that one thing I won't miss is the meetings. As we all know, meetings don't get things done and they are at the heart of the most ineffective organisations. Anyone who is interested in organisational effectiveness, and who isn't at the moment, should be on a tireless campaign to abolish meetings whenever and wherever possible. If the public sector abolished it's meetings culture, it would revolutionise the way it works and create more effective and more efficient services for it's customers.I have argued for years that meetings stop people from doing their jobs and if you cut out the meetings, you could probably also cut out huge swathes of your middle management. You can always find out which are the worst parts of any organisation; it will quite simply be the ones where the meetings culture is greatest. Just look around to see if I am right!
Chris