The Meeting Load Paradox
Lately I hear more and more people complaining about the burden of meetings and actually stating that meetings are the no.1 barrier to productivity.
Even worse a lot of people claim to leave a meeting without a clear idea on what to do next. The result? More follow up meetings… Adding to the frustration, many meetings are simply used to disseminate information (couldn’t it have been an email?). As a consequence, we are ending up hating them so much that they are ineffective even for social aims, like collaborating with colleagues, brain storming or decision making.
How to solve this? There are serious studies on the topic as well as more humorous ones. The reality of organizational life in contemporary organizations involves many contradictions and the meeting load paradox is one of them. People need meetings. Teams need meetings. However, there are costs associated with having more or fewer meetings. It is these costs that organizations, their leaders, and their employees need to consider. At what point does the meeting load become a burden to employees and managers rather than lift them to better heights?