….is apparently because you’re a high perfoming individual..(score!!)..
For those driven employees who are focused on completing tasks and achieving goals, meetings are an annoying interruption to their work and productivity; job satisfaction decreases as the number of meetings they attend increases. The study did find, however, that employees who are low in accomplishment striving have a more flexible orientation to work and actually liked meetings, presumably because meetings are seen as a welcome interruption, something that adds a chance to be social.
Via CioLeader.com
A 2005 Microsoft survey of 38,000 people worldwide found that the average worker feels productive only three days a week. What scored as one of the top three time-wasters? Ineffective meetings. (Unclear objectives and lack of team communication were also in the top three, which suggests the common use of meetings as a communication tool is ill-founded.) According to the survey, people spend 5.6 hours each week in meetings, yet 69 percent of them feel that meetings aren’t productive. Looking strictly at the United States, the number of employees who feel meetings aren’t productive climbs to 71 percent.
I don’t think all meetings are useless or unimportant. I just feel like people sometimes book meetings for the hell of it. You also have to consider who you’re asking to attend these meetings – if they’re busy on the IT side trying to code, they may NOT need to be there for all of those meetings when you’re discussing business processes and business requirements.
They care, but they don’t care because they normally just want to know what the final decision is so they can begin coding. They don’t want to go to meetings, figure out a strategy, only to have it change a week later because the meeting missed a department in the blueprinting phases.
Here’s CIO’s model for a better meeting.
1. Schedule only necessary meetings.
2. Eliminate status meetings or reduce their frequency. (I hate these ones the most.)
3. Create an agenda (and stick to it).
4. Prepare for how you want to run the meeting, not just what you want to cover.
5. Review agenda and objectives at the beginning of the meeting. (I find no one listens to the real objectives and if there are too many people, it veers off tangent A LOT)
6. Encourage participation with active listening.
7. Give a recap at the end of the meeting.
8. Deliver meeting minutes in a reasonable time.
My own personal tip? Keep the meetings small, like 5-10 people. Don’t make it 15 or 20, it’s just too much. Just one rep from each department should be sufficient, not ALL of them – that’s what meeting minutes and debriefing is for.
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Valley Girl
on Oct 8th, 2007
@ 9:29 PM:
I hear ya!!! I hate meetings where people just schedule them to hear themselves talk, and basically, nothing is accomplished.
Fabulously Broke in the City
on Oct 9th, 2007
@ 8:51 PM:
I was ready to walk out of a couple.. I usually just go “I have other commitments”. LOL!!