One day I noticed a flock of rainbow lorikeets outside my window. They looked for all the world as though they were having a meeting. Why? Was it to debate the quality of their breakfast or compare notes about the wet weekend? Perhaps, like so many of their human counterparts, they were congregating because the boss had ordered a meeting every Monday.
Did they have an agenda? One bossy lorikeet seemed to make most of the noise. Was he pushing his own barrow, talking on and on without good reason?
A late bird flew in. Will someone spend time bringing the latecomer up to speed, I thought, or had the meeting been held up awaiting the tardy arrival?
Do these questions sound familiar? How often do you end up in meetings that steal time, with no clear outcomes? They meander through topics with no attention on the clock and no apparent progress? How often have you walked out of a room with no clear actions?
Time isn't just wasted with unproductive and poorly run meetings-it is literally stolen. With a finite number of minutes available to us each day, spending time in meetings that go nowhere should be a crime. When we account for pay rates and compute the amount of money sitting there yawning and staring into space, the high cost of ineffective meetings is undeniable!
The solution to time theft isn't meeting avoidance. A well-run, on-target meeting is a key form of business communication. The key is good planning and follow through.
