Why are meetings in/effective?

If you are a regular organiser or attendee of meetings, you may be interested in what people think about the reasons why the meetings they attend are in/effective, as this can give you a better chance of contributing to making your meetings more effective and meaningful for you and others.

The list below is based on Geimer et al.’s 2015 paper “Meetings at work: Perceived effectiveness and recommended improvements”.

PEOPLE SIDE: 🚫 Late arrive 🚫 Unprepared attendees 🚫 One-way (top-down) communication 🚫 Lack of open-mindedness & empathy 🚫 Self-promotion, people talk just to appear to add value, and hidden agenda 🚫 People interrupt/talk during meeting 🚫 Interpersonal conflicts, incivility, and disrespect

MEETING ORGANIZATION SIDE: ✅ Agenda ✅ Distribution of agenda in advance 🚫 Lack of direction/goals ✅ Chaired effectively 🚫 Meetings held just to have them, just a routine with no real purpose 🚫 Appropriate parties are not invited and inappropriate parties are invited 🚫 Too many attendees 🚫 Time conflicts 🚫 Meet at inappropriate intervals 🚫 Meetings take too long 🚫 Takes time to travel to meeting

MEETING ACTIVITIES SIDE: 🚫 Insufficient interaction, meeting activities are monotonous and boring 🚫 No new information 🚫 Discussion gets off target 🚫 Core issues not discussed 🚫 Lack of clarity about what the attendee is supposed to do

MEETING OUTCOMES SIDE: 🚫 Inaction post-meeting 🚫 Decisions have already been made, just a rubber stamp

Do you identify with the above reasons? Is there anything that you think is missing from the list, particularly as the workplaces have been operating more remotely/hybrid way since 2015?

P.S. In the next post let’s check what suggestions people have for improving the effectiveness of meetings.