Why having too many meetings is bad for your company?

According to TED speakers David Grady and Jason Fried, there are more than 3 billion meetings every year, with executives spending 50 percent of their total working hours in meetings. It means more time is being wasted on unnecessary meetings. The loss of productivity is estimated to cost $37 billion worth of losses every year in the U.S alone.

There is an illusion that the longer the meeting the better results for the company.But data and research would beg to differ. While meetings are unavoidable, they should be kept at a minimum. An average professional spends at least 32 hours per month simply attending and listening to meetings online and offline. This means at least 15 days a year.

When it comes to increasing productivity levels-short and less meetings is the key. Meetings take a huge amount of your time, and the time of people working with you. The scheduling, note taking and the unnecessary topics hinder people from working on an already tight schedule.

Long meetings is considered as the worst business ritual, which is why CEOs and business owners have to learn how to minimize them. Make use of technology to help delegate tasks, and only set up meetings when it is absolutely essential. If you are merely delegating tasks, there is no need to call everyone in the meeting room. Learn to maximize emails and messenger chats available to you.

Scheduling a meeting frequently can disrupt the work flow of employees and co-workers. It stops their flow of thinking, instead of employees getting to the tasks and campaigns that are needed, they end up listening to long meetings that could have easily been sent through email or messenger chat. Once you have made sure that the employees know the mission of the campaign, and tasks and what is expected of them have been delegated then it is best to trust employees and keep them working on a project.

Even just a 1 hour zoom meeting is costly, it hinders workers from becoming productive and leads them to get distracted with the current goals at hand. Instead of them putting their best efforts and creativity on the project they were asked to do. They will spend more time, trying to listen to the boss, or what the manager has to day. Meeting takes the time of everybody attending. Assuming, that you conduct weekly meetings you can lose 7 hours or at least 52 hours of working time. Less meetings would also mean less politics and competition with employees to stand out in front of the boss.

With Digital marketing companies for example, if the boss or the manager conducts long meetings per week. Social media managers, copywriters and graphic artists would end up tuning in to the discussions instead of coming up with brilliant advertising campaigns. Creatives need time to think, breathe and conceptualize. Do not expect a highly creative campaign if you are constantly taking the time of your employees. Allow them to learn, collaborate and have moments to dream- so they can create quality advertisements and campaigns.

Also not everyone needs to be in the meeting all the time. And there is hardly what they call as an ideal meeting where people won’t get distracted. Conduct meetings only when it is truly essential- if a new information needs to be relayed to everyone.

Minimize time and Record Meetings

Not everyone has to attend the meeting, especially if they are not decision makers. Which is why, it is better to record meetings with key people and just ask someone to summarize the most essential parts. Other employees can simply browse through it when their important tasks are done so they can keep up with what is going on. Take note only of the essential information that you need other employees to know.

Employees feel frustrated when they are invited to meetings that they believe they are not really needed. It is a big waste of time, it is much better to let them get back to work and get things done in an orderly manner. It also helps some employees feel that their employers do not trust them. If you constantly micromanage employees and don’t allow them to create and conceptualize, it could end up hurting your company in the long run.

To avoid creating this mistake, reflect and decide which meetings are truly essential. Cut down the time of meetings per week, and avoid suffocating the life out of your employees and yourself by creating too many meetings. Hire smart people, and trust that they will do their job. Get out of their way, and maximize your time doing much more important things for your company- like finding new investors. Avoid micromanaging every decision, and remember that saving time is much more important- once you learn how to maximize your time- your business will be in better footing several years from now.

Meetings interrupt productive work, and when run poorly, meetings drain people’s energy. Keep it short, simple and focused.