The CBS Sunday Morning show led off with a feature on business meetings.
Shopify was the primary business featured and the CEO outlined huge changes the company made at the beginning of this year. In effect they eliminated almost all meetings wiht more than 2 people in attendance.
Shopify reported that they will save 300,000 hours in this calendar year, and have a 25% increase in productivity!
Is there a lesson here for us in the small business world? Yes.
Besides the financial impact of bad meetings, the employees are also negatively impacted by a bad meeting.
Meeting Recovery Syndrome (MRS) is an actual thing. people are hurt, drained, and fatigued by bad meetings. Haven’t we all been there at one time or another?
Perhaps worst of all is that people experiencing MRS have to talk to others about the experience.
This is not the outcome we want from our meetings.
What can we do to make our meetings less damaging and costly?
- First, we need to cut way back on our meetings.
- Second, ask a lot of questions in meetings.
- Third, calculate the actual cost of each meeting by adding up the hourly rate of everyone in attendance. It will likely shock you.
Some years ago I eliminated chairs in my meetings to shorten our meeting time. It was not well received, but we did come away from that meeting with a new sensitivity as to how we ran our meetings.
This was not my best decision, and I do not recommend it. However, I do recommend that you have a conversation with your team and eliminate most of your meetings.
Remember, you only get results when you take immediate action on your ideas.
