WITH the proliferation of apps for team collaboration, it is ironic that we are constantly bogged down with meetings which could have easily been an e-mail. In our desire for connectivity and instant results, we often forget that not all work needs to be discussed by the entire team. Your role as a people manager is to ensure everyone has visibility on what other people on your team are doing; at the same time, it is incumbent on you to check that the right people are given the right tasks. Poor resource management often results in endless meetings, confused members, and inequalities in work distribution.
To guarantee that your team’s deliverables are done efficiently, you need to know when to call for a meeting and when to e-mail so that you do not waste your team’s time. You need to avoid meetings that could take half of the day because that means your team will have to do overtime to cope with the workload, or worse, they will have to take their work home. To avoid this, you need to distinguish what can be sent as an e-mail, and when to call for a meeting.
Given that most people are already reporting to their offices, what is interesting is that people still do their meetings online. I know physical meetings are not yet allowed under certain conditions but it is a bit amusing when there is a team meeting and everybody jumps on a call even if their workstations are beside each other. The rule of thumb is that if the meeting cannot be 30 minutes or less, then do not call for a meeting whether online or physical. Limit it to half an hour to reduce Zoom fatigue which has been shown to be more mentally draining than face-to-face meetings. People seem to have forgotten that connectivity does not mean availability. We need to rest in between meetings and even more time doing actual work than being trapped in meetings.
Also consider the cost of holding the meeting. Harvard Business Review created a meeting calculator (also available via the app Meeting Cost Time/Calculator) where a meeting’s actual cost can be computed using the salary of the attendees, how long it will run, and the number of attendees. This will give you an idea of how much the meeting will cost the organization, and will help you decide if you really have to call for one. You might be surprised that some of your weekly meetings actually cost your organization more money than some of your expenditures.
If there are more than five attendees to the meeting, cancel it and then just send an e-mail. Practically speaking, the more people there are in the meeting, the higher the chances that one person or more will tune out and not significantly contribute to the meeting. Of course there are committee meetings where all members need to be there for decision-making or information, but as much as possible, limit meetings to five attendees to ensure everyone in the meeting actually contributes to the discussion. And if the meeting needs to be attended by executives and senior managers, consider the meeting cost so you can limit it to less than 30 minutes.
You need to hold a meeting when an announcement will affect the entire group. You can prepare a briefer on the changes and a frequently-asked-questions list, so you already have a ready reference for what they might have thought of in the meeting. During the meeting, provide a short introduction of the changes and then ask your team for questions that have not been answered by the documents provided previously. In similar scenarios, you can hold a meeting to gather immediate feedback on materials that need an urgent response from your team. Send the document through e-mail with instructions that you will call a meeting to consolidate comments and feedback from them. This way, everyone can prepare before joining the meeting.
Updates on specific project status can also be sent via e-mail especially if the report is detailed and comprehensive. You can call for a short meeting on updating of project status but only insofar as knowing which project you need to closely monitor so you can set a separate meeting to discuss further. It would be a waste of time meeting with your entire group when they could have been doing their work instead. Before, I would send out a weekly report of my team’s accomplishments to my manager the week before and we would meet to discuss only those that are in the red and come up with solutions to address them. This way, she was able to focus on helping those teams that actually needed her help. If you need specific information and definitive answers where people have to check their documents, send out an e-mail with a due date.
In setting a meeting, you need to have a clear agenda of why there actually needs to be a meeting in the first place, and you need to schedule it in advance so the attendees can prepare adequately. If you can, consider also that a 30-minute meeting for a manager may not have the same effect for your team members. For example, a content developer who is creating an online module will need a chunk of her time in doing the course. If you call for a meeting in the middle of her creative process, it forces her to shift focus on the meeting and what she needs to prepare for the meeting. If a meeting does not have any clear agenda, clarify first what you want to accomplish so the meeting is not wasted on tautologous discussions.
As a people manager, your role is to ensure your team continues to do their work smoothly, and with as little interruptions as possible so they can focus on what they need to do. While technology provides platforms for effective teamwork, it can only do so much. Collaboration apps should help you focus better on doing actual work, than waste your time on meetings that should have been an e-mail.
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