I’ve written a few posts over the years Evaluating Meetings, Planning a meeting using PPO and Leading Meetings Effectively. Meetings are a fundamental part of business life, whether you are a small company or a large international organisation, meetings are intended as a way of communicating, sharing information, decision making and as a vehicle for perhaps delegating tasks that need to be done. This post is meant to go some way to answer the question; What’s causing unproductive meetings in our working environment today?

Meetings take up a considerable amount of our time, but for most organisations the actual ‘cost’ of meetings is simply lost or never thought about in real terms. Have you ever stopped to work out the actual cost to the organisation of a meeting? The next time you’re sitting in a meeting, take a moment to work out an estimate of the cost to the organisation. Think about how much time is being spent. Think about the average salary sitting round the table or “on the call”. Think about the loss of productivity whilst people are in the meeting. Or maybe think about the “loss of potential customer contact” whilst you’re in the meeting. In this technological age where teleconferences and video conferencing is becoming more prevalent, providing new distractions and opportunities to not focus on the task at hand.

The truth is that many meetings that you attend are about as useful as a chocolate teapot is for making tea. (Mind you, you can always eat it!)

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