art by looking at your regularly scheduled meetings. What is the objective? Are they really necessary? Can most of the agenda be covered via paper or email? Do you need all the people there for every meeting? Or can some attend only occasionally?

Once you know this meeting must be held with these (fewer, I hope) people, then set a meeting objective for each time. And shar

Meetings can be like mythical vampires – sucking the life out of intelligent and creative people. And sucking the funds out of businesses. Unfortunately, there are too many of these meetings in business today.

A UCLA study said the “typical” meeting includes nine people. If you have nine people in a meeting room for one hour, you have consumed one entire workday – plus some.

What about the dollars associated with this? Say the average salary of meeting attendees is $40,000. Their hourly pay is about $20.00. Nine people for one hour costs $180.00. Not bad, right?

But consider the implications. People don’t spend just one hour a year in meetings. In a 3-M online survey in 1998, people reported spending between one and 1.5 days per week in meetings. They also said 25% to 50% of those meetings was wasted. Being conservative, let’s think 25% of one day’s worth of meetings…that’s two hours. Per week. Times nine people. 18 hours a week. Times $20.00 an hour. 18 times 20 times 48 weeks = $17,280.00.

This is a conservative number. For only nine people. How many people are in your company? And how much time do they spend in meetings each week? These figures do not include the preparation and debriefing time, their benefits, meeting and travel expense or, worst of all, opportunity cost. Really, what could these people have been doing for your business if they weren’t tied up in ineffective meetings week after week?

So, what can we do about these vampire meetings?

Start by looking at your regularly scheduled meetings. What is the objective? Are they really necessary? Can most of the agenda be covered via paper or email? Do you need all the people there for every meeting? Or can some attend only occasionally?

Once you know this meeting must be held with these (fewer, I hope) people, then set a meeting objective for each time. And share

e.

What about the dollars associated with this? Say the average salary of meeting attendees is $40,000. Their hourly pay is about $20.00. Nine people for one hour costs $180.00. Not bad, right?

But consider the implications. People don’t spend just one hour a year in meetings. In a 3-M online survey in 1998, people reported spending between one and 1.5 days per week in meetings. They also said 25% to 50% of those meetings was wasted. Being conservative, let’s think 25% of one day’s worth of meetings…that’s two hours. Per week. Times nine people. 18 hours a week. Times $20.00 an hour. 18 times 20 times 48 weeks = $17,280.00.

This is a conservative number. For only nine people. How many people are in your company? And how much time do they spend in meetings each week? These figures do not include the preparation and debriefing time, their benefits, meeting and travel expense or, worst of all, opportunity cost. Really, what could these people have been doing for your business if they weren’t tied up in ineffective meetings week after week?

So, what can we do about these vampire meetings?

Start by looking at your regularly scheduled meetings. What is the objective? Are they really necessary? Can most of the agenda be covered via paper or email? Do you need all the people there for every meeting? Or can some attend only occasionally?

Once you know this meeting must be held with these (fewer, I hope) people, then set a meeting objective for each time. And shar

k in meetings. They also said 25% to 50% of those meetings was wasted. Being conservative, let’s think 25% of one day’s worth of meetings…that’s two hours. Per week. Times nine people. 18 hours a week. Times $20.00 an hour. 18 times 20 times 48 weeks = $17,280.00.

This is a conservative number. For only nine people. How many people are in your company? And how much time do they spend in meetings each week? These figures do not include the preparation and debriefing time, their benefits, meeting and travel expense or, worst of all, opportunity cost. Really, what could these people have been doing for your business if they weren’t tied up in ineffective meetings week after week?

So, what can we do about these vampire meetings?

Start by looking at your regularly scheduled meetings. What is the objective? Are they really necessary? Can most of the agenda be covered via paper or email? Do you need all the people there for every meeting? Or can some attend only occasionally?

Once you know this meeting must be held with these (fewer, I hope) people, then set a meeting objective for each time. And shar

time do they spend in meetings each week? These figures do not include the preparation and debriefing time, their benefits, meeting and travel expense or, worst of all, opportunity cost. Really, what could these people have been doing for your business if they weren’t tied up in ineffective meetings week after week?

So, what can we do about these vampire meetings?

Start by looking at your regularly scheduled meetings. What is the objective? Are they really necessary? Can most of the agenda be covered via paper or email? Do you need all the people there for every meeting? Or can some attend only occasionally?

Once you know this meeting must be held with these (fewer, I hope) people, then set a meeting objective for each time. And shar

art by looking at your regularly scheduled meetings. What is the objective? Are they really necessary? Can most of the agenda be covered via paper or email? Do you need all the people there for every meeting? Or can some attend only occasionally?

Once you know this meeting must be held with these (fewer, I hope) people, then set a meeting objective for each time. And share it with people before and at the start of the meeting. Post it on a flipchart if possible. Typical meeting objectives include: Generate ideas to overcome our funding problem, Find innovative ways to cut the budget without cutting service, Gain understanding of our new retirement plan, Get updates on three key projects, etc. The advantage of having a clear objective for your time together is that people will police themselves and stay on-topic. And if they don’t, you can point to the objective and say something like, “We have 30 minutes left and still have to achieve this goal for this meeting.” Knowing and sharing the objective is a wonderful way to manage the group’s energy and focus.

Another way to keep your meetings productive and efficient is to manage the people dynamics. One of the most common meeting problems is when one person talks and talks and others never get to say a word. If possible, have a meeting facilitator whose job is, among other things, to make sure everyone gets appropriate airtime. When you do not have the luxury of a content-neutral facilitator, then the chairperson must assume responsibility for managing the group. It’s easier than it may seem. In this situation of one dominant personality, the chairperson can enforce brevity for all. Explain that you want everyone to give his or her thoughts in a sentence first and then elaborate on it. So, when that individual starts his/her comments with an unfocused beginning (“20 years ago, I worked at a company and we had something similar happen,