Making the most of meetings
Hanah Cho

We have all been there.

The boss calls yet another staff meeting, where your mind quickly wanders. You start to zone out. So you doodle to keep busy. Even the clock seems to be ticking slower.

Employees love to hate meetings, which have developed a bad reputation in the workplace for eating up valuable time. That’s no surprise given that most managers don’t know how to run productive and useful meetings, business and organizational experts say. When handled properly, however, meetings can be a way to motivate and include workers in decision-making, according to several business leaders.

"Most meetings are a waste of time because they’re ill-structured, ill-defined, and there are no boundaries and nobody runs them," says Helen Rothberg, associate professor of strategic management who trains companies to run effective meetings. "They either become an open feast for people to dump stuff or a meandering, boring dissertation on what people are doing."

But managers love them because "it’s what they’re supposed to do," she says. If done right, meetings can play a crucial role in the workplace by promoting communications skills, fostering common goals and helping management make decisions, experts say.

"Meetings are needed to share information and create social connections and brainstorm and resolve things," Rothberg says. "Sometimes, there are situations where it’s much better to meet and talk about stuff, instead of e-mailing and telephoning. The problem is they don’t know how to distinguish when they should be meeting face-to-face."

Of the 660 people in a recent survey who kept a two-week diary to record their meeting behaviour and attitudes, 91 percent admitted to daydreaming, while 39 percent said they dozed off.

Whether meeting in person, or via video or teleconferencing, an agenda is a must-have item, because that means the manager calling the meeting thought about its purpose and intended outcomes, experts say.

It also helps to distribute the agenda a day or so before the gathering so that "everyone is on the same page," says Paul Tesluk, an associate professor of organisational behavior at Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park.

"That makes things run much more efficiently and cuts down on frustration," he says.

With that in mind, managers need to closely follow the agenda and set a time limit. Designate a timekeeper and never run late, experts advise.

While there’s no hard rule on meeting times, "nowadays, sitting longer than two hours is pushing one’s limits," says Scott Cohen, a leader of talent management at a global consulting company.

A well-run meeting, experts say, will leave employees feeling empowered about their role in the meeting’s outcomes. Equally important for managers is following up with meeting minutes and an evaluation.

Harry Bosk, who heads a public relations business., says nothing is a worse waste of time than going to a pointless meeting.

Or as he put it, "It’s like when someone says, `We’re here to talk about the weather."