Addressing the Root Causes of Meeting Overload

I have too many meetings. Here are my thoughts on what is needed to reduce them and why there are so many.

When deciding to set a meeting, the goal of that meeting should be determined. Then you should decide if the goal could be met through better means. Maybe it would be better as an email, maybe fewer people are needed, maybe another option. If the meeting is recurring, then each occurrence of the meeting should be evaluated to determine if it is meeting the intended goal, if not then a change is needed.

Here are some reasons we have meetings in my organization.

• An individual or group’s attention is needed and other means of connecting are not working such as email or a stop by their office.
• Meetings lead to more meetings. In one of my previous roles, operators were supplied with gloves to do their job. Some operators took a few more than they immediately needed. This led to gloves running out before everybody received a pair. Then everybody started taking more than they needed and hoarding them in their lockers to ensure they always had a pair. This happens with meeting times, when someone’s schedule is full of meetings and others need to connect with that individual, they tend to put additional meetings on their calendar leading to a vicious cycle.
• Some people do not feel comfortable making a decision on their own so they need others to weigh in to weigh in. Sometimes this can be solved by training employees to solve as many problems at their level as possible.
• In my organization, people tend to give meetings a high priority so others take advantage of that.
• Managers like to have meetings
  • Power dynamics
  • Feeling like they need to directly fix something
  • Managers don’t trust the employees can solve the problem
  • Employees don’t have the tools to handle the situation themselves
  • To reshuffle priorities
• Lack of defined processes to get work done. Businesses need to be run on defined processes not based on an individual’s heroic efforts. The same issue occurs when processes are defined but not actually used.
• Brainstorming
• Quickly gathering information rather than drawn-out email conversation
• Management does not take an active role in removing roadblocks for their employees and there is not a working escalation process.