How many times have you found yourself sitting in a team meeting wondering what the hell am I here for? Sitting there not contributing, listening to someone presenting information who is droning on and on and running over the allotted time for the meeting… sound familiar?!

Meetings are an essential fact of life for teams. They are necessary for good reasons, and yet most of the time, they are not as efficient as they could be. Sadly, all too frequently they become a complete waste of time.

There are many reasons for this. And yet we just keep running them, because they have become a habitual rhythm for the team, and no one is able to challenge and say ‘Why are we doing this meeting this way’? If teams can take a step back and recognize some of the following issues that might be plaguing their meetings, then perhaps they can do things to help fix them. 

Here are some of the common problems that make team meetings ineffective:

Time Wasting

Time is precious for everyone, and meetings often are seen as an unnecessary use of our time. People being late to meetings, preventing the meeting from starting on time is one issue, as is canceling at the last minute. Also, the arbitrary allocation of time is an issue. Why do we habitually set them for an hour? That’s only because that’s how long the hands take to go once round the clock. Can’t we shorten the meeting?

Meeting Content is Wrong

I have sat in countless meetings where we spent most of the time looking at slides as someone presented data to us. It is important that we absorb information and data – this helps inform and allows us to make educated decisions – but is this something we have to be doing communally during the precious and rare time we have to meet together? 

Presenting and processing data is one of the common issues we get wrong in meetings. This is something that we could distribute to attendees beforehand, for them to absorb and come informed to the meeting. We can then use the time together to go straight to debate and discussion about the data we have all already taken on, and get to decisions quicker. 

People also absorb data at different speeds. Some who go quicker are frustrated by waiting for the ones who go slower and need explanation. 

The ‘Look At Me’ Show

Some people treat the meeting as the ‘look at me’ show. They end up going on and on about their or their team’s achievements, showing off and hogging the limelight. Often this is also the leader doing this, so it becomes hard to challenge and try to get them to move on.

Inequality of Talking and Listening

Studies prove that one of the strongest indicators of a team’s ability to achieve results is the equality of conversational turn taking in the team – people talk and listen in equal measure. Team leaders in particular are often guilty of doing most of the talking, but it’s not just them. People sometimes talk too much in defensive mode, showing off, or because they are a stronger personality or an extrovert – there’s many reasons why it happens, but equalizing the sharing is important.

Are The Right People Present?

How often are you in a meeting wondering why you are there? You don’t contribute any information, and you are not asked to share your opinion. Or, is the team unable to get a decision made because a key stakeholder is not present. Having the wrong people present, or not present, often makes the meeting inefficient or even pointless.

These are some of the common issues we face in team meetings. So here are some of the things that you can do to help improve team meeting efficiency:

Meeting Protocol Agreement

Get everyone together to have an honest conversation about your team’s meeting efficiency and work out how to do it better. A strong set up to this conversation will be necessary. If you are the leader who instigates the conversation, do so with humility and permit people to speak openly about what’s not working.

Make sure everyone understands that this conversation should be held without blame or anger. People should feel able to be honest about what happens in team meetings, with the intention that this is done with positive intent for growth and improved efficiency. Once you have got all the problems on the table, you can then agree together what to do to improve things. It’s important you have everyone involved in this so they have a chance to buy into the new rules of how you will meet. Get everyone to agree and understand the consequences of not sticking to the agreement. 

This agreement is going to be different for different teams and situations, but decide what works for you. This protocol can include time keeping, meeting length, content, and also what happens if things aren’t going according to plan. Seek everyone’s input and commitment, agreeing to the protocol so you can hold everyone accountable to not doing the right things.

The Challenger

Your meeting protocol should make people comfortable to be the challenger. What happens if someone is going on too long, or is always late? Do people feel able to put their hand up and challenge the behaviour that is making the meeting inefficient? Empowering everyone to feel comfortable challenging things is very important. It doesn’t have to be negative or triggering and therefore scary to do. Having a healthy ability to challenge what’s going on is central to efficient meetings.

How to Equalize Speaking and Listening

Liz Wiseman shares a great tip in her excellent book on leadership, ‘Multipliers’. Her tip is for leaders but you could use a version of this thinking for everyone. She says for leaders who speak to much, give them three ‘chips’ or tokens – one for 2 minutes, one for 1 minute, and one for 30 seconds. They can only speak in a meeting when they play their chips, and they can play them only once. 

This ‘forces’ them to think carefully about what they say and when and makes them speak with quality rather than quantity. Some version of this for a whole team can help manage the over talkers but also encourage the quiet types to also speak and contribute their ideas and opinions. 

Meeting Length

There’s a concept called Parkinson’s Law that you can apply to meeting time. When time is precious – as it is for everybody! – making meetings shorter would help. We arbitrarily choose meeting times based around the time it takes for the hands of the clock to go around. 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours. Parkinson’s Law states that you will use the resources you allocate to a task to their fullest, but you can still get the same things done with fewer resources. So why not reduce your meeting time from 1 hour to 45 minutes? If you are disciplined about finishing on time (see below) then you find your meetings can be shorter and more efficient, and you have some spare time – perhaps to have a quick conversation on how efficient the meeting was, and is there anything you need to do to improve things?

Time Discipline

Starting and finishing meetings on time is important. It’s a habit that you need to get serious about, and have consequences if you don’t. Get agreement (see above about meeting protocols) from everyone beforehand. It’s not OK to arrive late and finish late. Get disciplined about time checking and finishing – even if things are not fully resolved. It may take a few meetings to get it right but once you start getting into the rhythm of the new ‘on time’ habit, it will help.

Focus the Meeting

Pay close attention to what happens right before the meeting and just after it starts. People arrive at different times, have an informal chat, get a coffee, check their phones… and the meeting sometimes gradually starts. This can lead to a lack of focus on what you are there for.

I recommend that as soon as everyone has gathered and the door closes for the meeting to begin, someone says ‘what’s the purpose of this meeting’? This question focuses everyone on the task ahead, brings the meeting formally to order, and prevents prevarication and meandering down unimportant side paths. 

If the meeting begins to derail, having had that quick focus question means you have permission to say ‘hang on, this isn’t what we said we are here for, let’s stop this and get back on to what we are here to do’. You can also have a ‘parking lot’ piece of paper where that sidebar conversation can be noted for discussion outside the meeting. 

Meetings will always be a part of every team’s life. They are an important and necessary behaviour that affects team building and just needs a bit of focused attention and practice to get right. If your meetings are not going well, I hope the above tips will help you get them back on track.