Why is the richest man in the world reinventing how meetings work? Because they are bad. Like really bad.
Pointless meetings cost businesses $156 million a year. Yep, that’s not a typo, millions and millions. Astronomic numbers. And most of the time? The answer is obvious.
After spending the last 7 years in corporate meetings, I’ve learned 6 key critical factors to make a worthwhile meeting.
Let’s talk about meetings
The first point to note is that not everything needs a meeting, on the contrary, a few things do.
- 90% of meetings could be emails
- 90% of emails could be a Teams message
So how do you know if you need a meeting?
A general rule of thumb: you need more than 2 people to discuss, the matter is complex and needs talking through, there is a decision to be made, and there is agreement or sign-off that’s needed.
In the last 7 years, I’ve noticed that 80% of bad meetings come down to the fact that they aren’t needed.
The first question should be: could this be communicated in a different way and still have the same impact?
But let’s say you need a meeting, here are some things that make a meeting a success.