One trend has become unmistakably clear after facilitating employee listening sessions, corporate retreats, strategic planning sessions, and analyzing countless workplace culture surveys.
People are spending far too much time in meetings.
Meetings, which have their place for facilitating meaningful connection and critical communication, have increasingly become a default replacement for conversations and information-sharing that could be handled more efficiently through digital channels.
I often ask my clients, with a bit of humor,“Could this meeting have been an email?”
To their surprise, they actually consider the question and realize what they planned to do or discuss could have been handled on Slack or in an email.
The reality is that we often lack intentionality in our meetings. People are too often unclear:
why we are meeting,
how we will gather,
and how long these gatherings should last.
And those standings meetings that were created for convenience have had the unintentional negative impact of aiding in the elimination of intentionality and purpose.
Frankly, many of us are meeting, well, because it’s on the calendar and because they always meet on Tuesday at 3. And that's the only reason.
As someone who has audited hundreds of meetings for clients using our P.O.P.P. meeting design framework, I can tell you this: most meetings aren’t structured to achieve specific results and most meetings don’t utilize an inclusive mix of participation methods that make meetings engaging.
A Troubling Shift Away From Creativity and Facilitation Best Practices
Given I’ve facilitated over 10,000 hours of meetings and retreats, I was particularly struck by an article I saw in the July 2024 edition of The Atlantic which noted: “white-collar work is just meetings now.”
The article highlights a troubling shift: the amount of time we are spending in meetings is depleting our creativity. As the Atlantic put it: “communication has eclipsed creativity as the central skill of modern work.”
And, if you have your copy of our Build a Great Culture Guide, you'll know one of the 12 Essential Elements of Great Culture (Element #8 Innovation) is directly tied to our need to be creative at work.
[Get the guide here: Build a Great Company Culture With These 12 Essential Elements LeadershipGuideAugust2024_share.pdf]
We are also shifting away from decades of Facilitation best practices. The creativity of meeting design has also disappeared, it would seem. Rarely do I see leaders designing agendas, creatively considering the goals of the agenda balanced against time considerations. Or creatively considering the various participation methods that could be used to get the highest engagement from meeting attendees.
This Shift Is Leading To Burnout and Culture Depletion
One of my clients recently shared that they don't start their "actual work" until after 4pm because their day is consumed by meetings.
Technically their workday is supposed to end at 5pm, but they said that they work until well after 6pm every day because there "isn't enough time in the day."
Does this sound familiar?
This comment of not starting actual work until the end of the day is more common than it should be. And, it should be deeply concerning for every leader for several reasons:
Burnout Acceleration: Constant meetings with little time for focused work can lead to burnout and job dissatisfaction, as employees feel overwhelmed and unable to complete their tasks during normal working hours.
Productivity and Performance Depletors: When meetings dominate the workday, employees struggle to find uninterrupted time for deep work, leading to decreased productivity and a backlog of critical tasks that spill over into personal time.
Culture Deterioration: A company culture that prioritizes meetings over quality time to complete meaningful work can create an environment where employees feel undervalued because their creative and productive contributions are sidelined by meetings and nonessential discussions.
Overcoming the Meeting-Industrial Complex with Facilitation Design and Strategy
The author of the Atlantic article named this phenomenon the "meeting industrial complex."
So, how do we overcome this meeting-industrial complex, where so much of the workday is spent in meetings? Here are 4 recommendations I can share. of my favorite strategies:
Audit Your Meetings: Evaluate each meeting for its necessity. Ask yourself if the meeting’s objective could be achieved through another communication method. Set Clear Intentions: Before scheduling a meeting, define the purpose and the desired outcomes for the gathering.
Choose Appropriate Meeting Durations:
Analyze what needs to be accomplished in your inclusive, results-focused meeting. Then choose your meeting time accordingly. Consider if your meeting time can be reduced.
Give Unapologetic Permission:
Give yourself permission to end the meeting early or cancel the meeting altogether. No one ever complained that they got extra time back.
Create Meeting-Free Blocks:
One of the things I’ve personally done is this and blocked out hours in the day, and days of the month where I just don’t have meetings. It allows me time and space to thing, to write, and to not have to dedicate the energy to
How Wilson and Associates Coaching and Consulting Can Help with Facilitation Services
My firm is a certified expert in meeting design and meeting facilitation.
With me as your senior consultant, we can help you audit your meetings and recommend how to make them more inclusive, engaging, and effective using our results-focused POPP facilitation framework.
We are also available to facilitate your next all-staff meeting, corporate retreat, and more.
Visit us at: wilson-and-associates.com/facilitation to read more about our P.O.P.P. Framework and see answers to some of the most common Facilitation Q&As we receive each week.
You can hire us for a variety of facilitation services that include:
Auditing your existing meeting processes to identify opportunities for efficiencies and inclusion boosts.
Designing and facilitating your next meeting, retreat, or strategy session,
Training your managers on the foundational facilitation skills and tools that create inclusive meeting spaces.
You can email us (or click here) today to schedule an alignment call to explore a custom-tailored support based on your unique needs. We can help you start reclaiming your time and developing fabulous meetings and meeting design skills.