How much did that meeting cost you (in time)?
I once had a job where I averaged 25-30 hours of meetings a week. Every week. Needless to say, I worked a lot of evenings and weekends to catch up on the work generated at the meetings … or recapping the meeting, or preparing for the next meeting. And I often felt like I’d wasted a large portion of my week inside a room talking about working instead of actually working.
I always suspected that those meetings were costly, but I never could figure out exactly how much we were wasting. Now the “Meeting Cost Calculator” from Harvard Business Review can tell me exactly how much is “spent” on a meeting. All I need to know is how many people are attending, how long the meeting is, and (an estimate) of how much money each person makes. Enter it all in and the tool tells you how costly the meeting was.
For example, a meeting of one hour between four people who all make $50K a year actually “costs” $140. So … do you really need to hold that meeting? Or will a well-written email be enough? Can you hold a 30-minute meeting to resolve the issue instead of a 60-minute meeting? Can your organization continue to offset limitless meetings?
The other benefit of reducing meetings is that you’ll also see an improvement in morale. Think about it.
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TRY IT: “Meeting Cost Calculator” | Harvard Business Review
Sandra Fernandez is a professional communicator, tech enthusiast, book lover, and blogger. You can find her main blog at SandraSays.com and more of her writing at HispanicHouston.com.