Episode 179 - Making Meetings Great

<h2 data-pm-slice="0 0 []"><strong>Summary</strong></h2> <p class="">Over the past few years meetings have become worse than ever. Here’s what meeting science teaches us about how to make meetings great.</p> <p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true"> </p> <h2><strong>Transcript</strong></h2> <p class="">Welcome to episode 179 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore making meetings great. </p> <p class="">The pandemic saw a rapid shift to working from home. This was associated with significant changes in meeting habits according to research by Microsoft and others, including:</p> <ul data-rte-list="default"> <li> <p class="">13% increase in the number of meetings</p> </li> <li> <p class="">14% increase in the number of people attending each meeting</p> </li> <li> <p class="">More multitasking doing meetings with around 42% of people working on other things such as email</p> </li> <li> <p class="">Shorter meetings but more likely to run over time</p> </li> <li> <p class="">Meetings across a longer work day, particularly for managers</p> </li> <li> <p class="">People having fewer meetings with their direct manager</p> </li> </ul> <p class="">Now, each of these are interesting in their own way, but the flow on impact of working remotely on work performance can be significant. For example:</p> <ul data-rte-list="default"> <li> <p class="">57% of people reported a reduction in their ability to brainstorm with colleagues</p> </li> <li> <p class="">32% reported a reduction in their opportunities to collaborate</p> </li> <li> <p class="">26% reported a decrease in opportunities to discuss dissenting positions</p> </li> </ul> <p class="">So the way we’re approaching meetings currently clearly isn’t working, and is only getting worse with the shift to online. Something needs to change. </p> <p class="">Fortunately there are people who specialise in researching how to make meetings better. Here are six rules for meetings from those who specialise in