Meeting stats to help you save billions

The clock is ticking with poorly run meetings…

It makes me sad that businesses around the world are throwing away billions of dollars by running ineffective meetings. Think of all the people in a 1-hour poorly-run meeting. Let’s just go with 20 people at their average hourly billing rate. Now multiply that by at least 4 of these poorly-run meetings a month. And then multiply that figure again by 12 months. Staggering amount isn’t it? 

In my “Run meetings like a pro” interactive masterclass, I asked participants, what are their pet peeves when it comes to meetings.

Here is their list of the top 30 meeting pet peeves.

1. Lack of engagement
2. Silence from participants
3. Meetings running over
4. No meeting structure or agenda
5. No cameras on
6. Meetings not starting on time
7. Always the same people talking
8. No planning for a meeting
9. People being late
10. Being in a meeting where I have nothing to add and no idea why I am there
11. Bad signal
12. No clear facilitator
13. Meetings that could have been emails or quick phone calls
14. Going around in circles
15. No decisions getting made
16. Participants leaving more confused
17. When people haven’t read what they were supposed to for the meeting
18. Ending a meeting as relevant people weren’t there
19. Really long meetings
20. Meeting hijackers, people wanting to add other topics to the meeting at hand
21. Rubber stamp meetings
22. No value to a meeting
23. No outcomes
24. Seeing fatigue on people’s faces by their expressions
25. People multi-tasking and not focusing
26. People not replying if they are attending
27. Being dialed into a meeting randomly
28. People accepting but not pitching up
29. Last minute declines
30. One person talking over everyone else

Yikes, just imagine the time and money wasted knowing this is what is unfolding in a lot of meetings today.

The good news is that meetings can matter again.

Covid certainly made it harder for some businesses to adjust to the remote world of working. The water cooler conversations were replaced by meetings and employees around the world find themselves exhausted being in back-to-back meetings and little time to get through their actual work.

How can you make meetings matter again?

1. Ensure there is a purpose to the meeting
2. Ensure you have the right people in the meeting
3. Drive participation in the meeting

How can I help?

I’ve created a 1-hour interactive meeting masterclass showing you how to drive purpose and participation in your meetings. 

Meetings today should allow for great ideas to surface & germinate