Ashley Stahl* says long, drawn-out meetings are the bane of many busy workers — but there are ways of making them more productive.
“Don’t say anything but…all the meetings we have feel like a waste of my time and everyone else’s.”
This was a statement I overheard before stepping on stage to speak to a corporation’s staff about making their meetings count — and this employee isn’t alone.
Nine out of 10 people daydream during meetings, and 73 per cent of employees admit to multitasking during meetings.
When you walk from meeting to meeting all day, it becomes difficult to stay present and focused, especially when the meeting isn’t effective or pertinent to your role.
The staff I spoke to were no different. The majority often spent their entire day in meetings, and felt there was no time to actually get work accomplished.
For executives, who spend upwards of 23 hours a week in meetings, it became exhausting to make difficult and large decisions.
This meeting madness is clearly taking its toll on organisations and their employees’ wellbeing. Here are three things you can do to make your meetings more productive.
Host walking meetings
According to Stanford University research, walking sparks creative thinking while moving and even for a period after you return to your desk.
When you consider that the majority of meetings are held with only two or three people, this group is small enough to step outside and walk, be it to a park or cafe.
If your office is not in a nice neighbourhood, or it is raining, that is totally fine.
The research revealed that walking indoors, even on a treadmill staring at a blank wall, sparked far more creative solutions and thoughts compared to sitting down.
If you have a gym on-site, hop on the treadmills and talk it out.
Not only are you getting your creative juices flowing, but also you are actively staying healthy.
When you sit for prolonged periods you increase your risk for high blood pressure, excess body fat, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Make an agenda
This might sound like a trite and obvious insight, but apparently not.
Only 37 per cent of meetings today use an agenda — and a meeting without an agenda is like a taxi ride without a destination.
Start by sharing the objective of the meeting on the agenda.
When you can outline the intention and goal of the time spent together, it will give you and everyone else a clearer purpose.
If you can’t think of an objective, perhaps you shouldn’t be having the meeting, so don’t be afraid to cancel it or push it to later.
Pose the agenda topics as questions, instead of statements, to spark ideas from your team.
For example, if you need to discuss a marketing campaign for a new product, instead of listing ‘marketing campaign’, try this:
“What ideas can we pull from past product launches to create a new successful marketing campaign?”
When you send the agenda out prior to the meeting, this tactic gets attendees already brainstorming ideas to hop right into a dynamic and effective conversation.
Include in the agenda the expected duration of time for each talking point and who the key players are in order to have an effective conversation.
This way, employees that might have a double-booked schedule know whether they really need to be present.
Save time on the agenda for rounding things up, a quick review of what progress was made, and what decisions and future actions are assigned to whom.
A meeting left without action steps is usually nothing but a time suck.
Ban bullet point slides from meetings
The brain processes images 60,000 times faster than words.
This means when you are hosting a meeting, video and images are far more memorable than audibly describing things or presenting visual text.
We have all been in countless meetings or attended presentations where the presenter shares a PowerPoint slide filled with bullet points, then reads directly from the slide.
Boring! It’s safe to say, everyone in the room knows how to read, and if this isn’t a waste of people’s time I don’t know what is.
Instead, transition this content into the notes section of the presentation and share it out via email either before or after the meeting ends.
Replace this content with images, pictures or demonstrations.
Since 65 per cent of the population are predominantly visual learners, this method will quickly grasp the majority’s attention.
Research indicates that a meeting longer than 50 minutes will become difficult for even the most focused people to stay present.
If you can get through the agenda in under an hour, don’t drag it out just for the sake of having a room for the hour.
Give your employees time back to take a break and prepare for the next meeting or task at hand.
I shared these tips and more with the corporation I spoke to earlier this year, and they have reported back with happier, healthier and more focused teams.
*Ashley Stahl is a career coach, keynote speaker, podcast host (You Turn Podcast) and author. In a previous life she was an award-winning counter-terrorism professional. She can be contacted at Home – Ashley Stahl.
This article first appeared at forbes.com.
