Do Meetings Make us Dumber? Thoughts on calendars and the Tyranny of Outlook
Happy New Year!
This is the time of Resolutions and new goals for the year ahead. Lose
some weight. Exercise more. Spend more time with family. Take up a new hobby.
Only the truly dedicated make it past the Super Bowl in keeping their
commitments.
One of my constant resolutions is to have fewer meetings. Not that all
meetings are bad – many move things forward in a way that email just can’t do.
Yet we have all experienced what I call the “Tyranny of Outlook.” I have mentioned
this topic in this blog and elsewhere in the past. It isn’t that Outlook is
inherently a bad tool. Outlook doesn’t schedule meetings, people schedule
meetings.
In January 2007, I had a unique experience in my professional career. I
was a senior executive leading the technology and product development teams for
The Members Group and our executive team agreed we needed to move quickly on our
strategy for the agent-issuing credit card market (for those not in our
business this is where one financial institution issues a credit card for
another financial institution or association – think your university alumni
card). I was leading the initiative to develop the strategy but many things
were getting in the way. There were always day-to-day responsibilities to attend
to before I could spend time digging into the business plan. In what was a
pretty radical move for us, our team agreed that I would give up my day-to-day
responsibilities for 90 days and finish the plan – either it was a go or no-go
at the end of March. We called it a Sprint Project. We announced this to the
entire organization and I turned over all but a few minor responsibilities and
devoted my entire focus to this project. In the end, the business plan led to the
creation of TMG Financial Services, the company that I helped to found and led
since 2007.
As I was working on the project, I had an insight that led me to write
something for our internal company blog. It was titled “Meeting Make us
Dumber.” MSNBC was citing a study that concluded that meetings actually cloud
decision making rather than enhance it. I don’t know whether the conclusion was
true, but I noticed during my Sprint Project that it was difficult to get help from
others to build the business plan. I was totally freed up, but no one else was.
They were all in back-to-back-to-back meetings. I wrote this for the blog:
I have uncovered a
Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO) – we have lots of meetings around
here. I call it “the Tyranny of
Outlook.” The calendar tools make it really easy to schedule meetings because I
can see everyone’s calendar and with a few clicks of my mouse convene them all
in a one-hour meeting in a conference room named after a tree (side note: many
of our conference rooms are named after trees). With a few such clicks, I can
monopolize someone’s entire day, even if there is not clear reason to meet. And
this is on top of our already scheduled standing meetings, status meetings,
client meetings, pre-client meetings and other such gatherings.
It’s nearly five years later and I’m not sure I have gotten any better
at managing this environment for myself. A colleague the other day suggested
that he only schedules meetings from five-after until five-til the hour (:05 to
:55) rather than a full hour. After all, even in junior high you had a few
minutes to move from room to room. Not a
bad suggestion. I previously have suggested that we default meetings in Outlook
to ½ hour blocks and only schedule more if we absolutely need more time (as it
turns out it is apparently difficult to configure Outlook to default to ½ hour
blocks for an entire company).
In my estimation, the burden of the meetings and a packed calendar is
the albatross of corporate America. I know that I have been amazed at how
refreshed I am with just a few hours of uninterrupted work, accomplishing that
one project that has been looming on my to-do list.
As I write this blog, I usually try to offer some solutions to issue I
am writing about. The thing is, I am not anywhere close to having a solution
for this. I have tried many systems. I was an avid Franklin Planner user and
managed my daily planning with the A1, A2, B1, B2 priority system. Outlook killed
that as the software was initially pretty bad and meetings were easier to
schedule electronically than when people had to call to see if I was free. I
have migrated to David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system, but can’t
quite get my arms around 42 folders and the In-box sorting. I have blocked time
on my Outlook calendar for “work time” only to not have the discipline to keep
it when something urgent comes along. I have worked outside the office at a
local coffee shop (which worked better in the days before Wi-Fi and “always on”
connectivity). In the end I have a modified listing-type system with a calendar
separate. Even as I write this on a plane, I find that may be the last refuge
of solitude (if you resist Gogo In-flight Wi-Fi).
When I talk about this issue with friends, colleagues and random
strangers, it seems to resonate. Maybe a radical solution is needed. Declaring
email bankruptcy (deleting all of your email and telling everyone if their
email was important to resend it) or turning off access to your electronic calendar
are two of my favorites. But they seem impractical for most in today’s world.
So what I think we need is a crowd-sourced resolution for this tyranny.
An “Outlook Spring” of sorts. A new Tea Party, Occupy My Calendar, or whatever your
mass-movement of choice is – let’s figure this out. So post your best thoughts
in the comment section below or send me an email (if you must). I will award
special prizes and comment on what I believe are the best solutions.
Above all, let’s see if 2012 can be the year of throwing off the yoke
of calendar oppression.
Come on, now... Post your thoughts on how to gain control of meetings, calendars, to-do lists and Outlook!
ReplyDeleteJeff: Why not have people stand for the meeting instead of sitting in comfy chairs around a board room table. It will keep them attentive and also speed up the meeting!
DeleteWell stated, Jeff. I like the "30 minutes and you're up" philosophy. Anything longer than a half-hour is usually a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteBut your take reminded me of a humorous Seth Godin post a while back talking about a faux invention of a "Killer iPad App: Fixing Meetings". I have pasted Seth's post below for anyone's reading pleasure... (link: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/05/ipad-killer-app-2-fixing-meetings.html)
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iPad killer app #2: fixing meetings
Here's an app that pays for 12 iPads the very first time you use it. Buy one iPad for every single chair in your meeting room... like the projector and the table, it's part of the room.
I recently sat through a 17 hour meeting with 40 people in it (there were actually 40 people, but it only felt like 17 hours.). That's a huge waste of attention and resources.
Here's what the app does (I hope someone will build it): (I know some of these features require a lot of work, and some might require preparation before the meeting. Great! Perhaps then the only meetings we have will be meetings worth having, meetings with an intent to produce an outcome). I can dream...
1. There's an agenda, distributed by the host, visible to everyone, with time of start and stop, and it updates as the meeting progresses.
2. There's a timer, keeping things moving because it sits next to the agenda.
3. The host or presenter can push an image or spreadsheet to each device whenever she chooses.
4. There's an internal back channel that the host can turn on, permitting people in the room to chat privately with each other. (And the whole thing works on internal wifi, so no internet surfing to distract!)
5. There's a big red 'bored' button that each attendee can push anonymously. The presenter can see how many red lights are lighting up at any give time.
6. There's a bigger green 'GO!' button that each attendee can push anonymously. It lets the host or presenter see areas where more depth is wanted.
7. There's a queue for asking questions, so they just don't go to the loudest, bravest or most powerful.
8. There's a voting mechanism.
9. There's a whiteboard so anyone can draw an idea and push it to the group.
10. There's a written record of all activity created, so at the end, everyone who attended can get an email digest of what just occurred. Hey, it could even include who participated the most, who asked questions that others thought were useful, who got the most 'boring' button presses while speaking...
11. There's even a way the host can see who isn't using it actively.
Can you imagine how an hour flies by when everyone has one of these in a meeting? How focused and exhausting it would all be?
$500 each, you'll sell 50,000...
PS no one built the first one yet. Sigh.
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An anonymous comment from an email I received: "I suggested a default 25-minute meeting for the org but the 2 senior staff members I was talking to didn't think meeting overload was a challenge. I would offer a different opinion ..."
ReplyDeletePosting via email from Jim Reichert, doctor (and my brother-in-law)... Jeff, interesting subject. I actually have this problem all the time. Maybe my solution isn't the best one for the business world, but as a surgeon it works for me. I just renamed my calendar-"my suggestion box" I look at it all the time. I think it is full of pretty good ideas for the day, and if I don't have any real surgeon work going on I might actually participate in one of those suggestions. Sometimes it is beneficial. I have just figured out if my time is really needed somewhere, some robinhood figure will come and take it from me and hopefully that stolen time will be used for the greater good.... I hope I win a prize!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Jeff. Meetings have taken over our work lives.
ReplyDeleteIf most of you are like me, the majority of meetings are internal in nature. I worked for a company where every Friday was declared "meeting less Friday". No one could hold an internal meeting on Fridays - only client facing meetings.A meeting was defined as a gathering of 3 or more individuals.
It was amazing how much work was accomplished on that day and you could leave the week feeling like you really got something done.
HA! Had to laugh because I'm trying to get your time! As a lifer in sales, I see the solution as this: 1)Meet, set the 1/2 hour max limit and come to an agreement as to next step(s). You either move forward or part as a connection made 2) Be honest! If I can help someone I will tell them, if not I will tell them and possibly refer them.
ReplyDeleteIn my world, meetings, or connecting is key! What I want to focus on is honesty in the meeting, way too much time is wasted on the fluff.
Now, let's meet tomorrow!