Leadership Lesson: How to kill a business with meaningless meetings

You fell asleep in another meeting. You're tired of unstructured talks. There were too many slides, with too much data and unclear graphs. The presenter also read the information from the slides. No interaction with the audience. No time for Q&A. I wasted an hour on nothing. Zero.

There is also a financial cost. For example, if an organisation holds 8 hours of meaningless meetings a day with 8 participants each, then the cost per year is approximately $1.5 million. This cost is much higher in larger companies.

Double the loss, because these employees don't work on anything else of greater value.

New playbook for Meetings

It is easy to understand how to run a successful meeting by following the more obvious steps:

Close each meeting with a few notes, including any action items. These should be published, thanking all attendees.

For good meetings, you need good visuals to support them.

Keep slides simple and clutter-free. These slides are easy to read and do not distract. Text should be limited to five lines per slide, plus a heading. Limit text to 3 to 5 words per line. Make graphs simple, clear, and easy-to-see. Use sound and motion sparingly. Do not read the slides. Instead, point out items and discuss them. Hand out copies of the slides - they are ideal notepads to help your audience take notes.

Bottom Line

Organise meaningful meetings that produce valuable results. Slide decks are a great way to support presentations. Publication of meeting notes and actions items. Save money and time, and get the results you need.