It seems that many of the clients I am working with at the moment are saying they need to be doing more with less.
The positive application of this thinking to meetings is, the investment of time and effort in effective preparation of meetings. This means they make the most of the time and brainpower in them.
The downside of this approach can be holding virtual meetings, when the results needed from the meeting are critical, and would be more likely achieved in a face to face meeting.
An agile, well run business, needs people to come together in face to face meetings to make decisions, share wisdom and create new futures. So, in my opinion, it is a false economy to not have face to face meetings, when dealing with important matters. If businesses want to cut down on the cost of time wasted in meetings I would recommend
- Challenge whether meetings are needed at all! By getting clear about how decisions need to be made, and not involving people for the sake of involving people, a lot of time wasting meetings could be eliminated entirely.
- Make the most of the face to face time. Most meetings suffer from lack of preparation and when preparation is done, it is focussed on the wrong things, usually the Powerpoint deck! By doing the right preparation for meetings, you can make them highly productive working environments that get the most from the brainpower in them and deliver results.