Part and parcel of any business organization are the meetings that we all hold and/or attend during which we share and impart information deemed important to our day, week or business life in general. This is a very normal occurrence regardless of there being 5 or 5000 people involved in the company. I came across a video that does a very entertaining job of relating what today’s meetings are like. I’m quite confident that you’ll easily relate to it and even smile … perhaps with tears in your eyes. My guess is that many of us will see a reenactment of a situation that we have experienced too often. Look for yourself HERE.
Did you find yourself laughing or crying? What you have just seen points to one of the top complaints we hear in moving from one organization to another … the gross waste of valuable time that takes place during the mandatory and often numerous meetings. And the number one culprit accounting for this is the uninvited guests in the form of those mini-computer ‘gadgets … call them the likes of cell phones, laptops, iPads, etc.
Rather than being respectful guests – did I say they were uninvited? – they tend to dominate in terms of taking attention of their ‘host’ from whatever is being discussed or presented to whatever email or text or call arrives. And of course, in any form they too often command first priority. Simply viewed, what this creates at any given time is a meeting that lacks 100% participation of attendees pretty much 100% of the time. Some of the potential costs to the organization both collectively and individually are these:
- The BIG one … rarely is every attendee focused on the moment and especially prevalent where there are several to many in attendance
- A lot of things need to be repeated because someone key to the discussion is attending to an email or text that is URGENT! (aren’t they all?)
- Meetings take much longer than the agenda content requires because of the waiting time involved with the revolving door of participation
Wasted time = lost productivity = lost $$$$ and how many companies can afford that? One has to wonder when and how the same technology that brought with it conveniences to the workplace and those in it, took over and tends to rule the roost? What would it take to take back control? What would you rather be doing with the reclaimed time? Would this be a good topic to bring up at your next meeting? I bet yes and you’ll probably be joined by many other nodding heads in the process!
Mike Dorman
