DOES YOUR FIRM HAVE TOO MANY MEETINGS?

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Are you just trying to get some work done, return some phone calls and answer a few emails but you can’t find time because you have to go to ANOTHER meeting? Sounds like you are caught in meeting madness.

Yes, in a CPA firm, you need to be inclusive. But, that does not mean that everyone has to be involved in everything. I find that firm leaders include too many people because it is just an easy thing to do.

Your managers and staff want to know everything that is going on (I hear this directly from them in my workshops). However, most management issues and all HR issues should not be the topics discussed at the water cooler.

If you see signs of meeting madness and your team members are bogged down with meetings, here are a few tips for meetings.

Are all attendees key to the discussion? Do they have input on every agenda item? Focus the agenda and eliminate people who are not needed.
Start on time. If some people are late, cancel the meeting. Waiting around for someone wastes every one’s time. If you agree to “start without” them – why were they invited in the first place?
If it is a one-hour meeting, start at ten past the hour. Stay true to the ending time. Starting at ten after allows people to check messages, etc.
If it is a long meeting, split it into two parts with a long break. It gives people a chance to deal with messages and with their direct reports.

Here’s an interesting finding from an actual scientific study:

Too Many Meetings Make You Grumpy
The Study: “The relationship between meeting load and . . . well-being of employees,” Group Dynamics, March 2005

The Findings: Ever get the feeling that you’d get more work done if you weren’t constantly attending meetings to discuss all the work to be done? Two social scientists from the universities of Minnesota and North Carolina hypothesized that meetings are analogous to “hassles,” defined in stress-research literature as “annoying episodes in which daily tasks become more difficult or demanding than anticipated.” The psychologists analyzed diary entries from 37 meeting-prone mid level university workers over one week. They found that days chock-full of meetings left employees feeling stressed, exhausted and burned out.

Why Bother? Employers take heed: Since beleaguered workers may perform poorly, be tardy, or quit, the authors suggest that “organizations be sensitive to the number of meetings employees are required to attend.” Managers could create “formal guidelines” for meeting necessity (presumably not drafted at a meeting).

“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”