Meetings Are Costing You: 3 Questions Leaders Need to Ask Before They RSVP to Every Calendar Invite
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
How the right meeting framework reclaims your time and transforms your team
You've just looked at your calendar for the week and it is over 50% full of meetings - and you can see that they are back-to-back meetings as well.
You're already thinking about when you'll actually get your work done and feeling overwhelmed about how you are going to get through the week.
This is the reality for too many leaders. Meetings are taking up a lot of calendar space, and it's the bane of their professional lives. Add to this the frustration that far too many of these meetings are inefficient and ineffective and probably could have been an email or Trello board, and it won't surprise you that this is one of the biggest frustrations I hear from the people I work with.
Every meeting has a cost. Time. Energy. Money.
And if you're not getting a return on that investment, you're wasting all three.
The Shift: From Default Meeting Culture to Intentional Leadership
I have been running my own business for nearly 10 years so when I was last in employment, it was pre-COVID.
As a senior leader, meetings had to be considered very carefully. You had to book a room. You had to consider how people were getting to the meeting room. The logistics were a significant factor.
This meant you were very intentional about who needed to be there. If you couldn't get the big conference room, you had to whittle down the numbers and work out who absolutely needed to be in the room. You had to consider conference call options for those who were a further distance away, (this was pre-conference video!) You had to consider who needed to be in the room, and who was okay to sit this one out.
Since COVID, the advance of technology, and hybrid working it has become very easy to simply arrange a Teams call and add people to it.
There's less thought and less intention going into who needs to be in the room, how long that meeting needs to be and what needs to happen for the meeting to be a success.
The responsibility for meetings now sits with both the meeting organiser and the attendees. Both parties need to ask better questions so that organisations can reduce the hidden costs and make sure meetings are more intentional, more efficient and also more effective.
Why Ineffective Meetings Fail - And How to Lead Meetings That Actually Work
You've probably been in that position. Sitting in a meeting room looking around thinking: why are there so many people here? Why is this an hour when it could be 20 minutes?
You've got people turning up late. Sometimes the chair is turning up late because they are also in back-to-back meetings. People are showing up unprepared, so the meeting doesn't move forward.
It becomes a waste of everyone's time.
It is an hour you will never get back.
It is the meeting that could have been an email.
There is a cost to the organisation. There's a cost to your time. There's a cost to your energy. There's a cost of what the organisation is paying for all of those people to sit around the table - regardless of how little or often they engage and contribute.
Efficient and effective meetings have the right people for the right amount of time. They have people who are ready to go; they show up switched on and prepared.
They know exactly what the purpose of the meeting is, what the outcome needs to be and what they need to bring into the room to make that happen.
When that is done well, there is a high return on that investment for both the individuals in the room and the business as well.
What the Research Shows: Meeting Reduction as a Leadership Strategy
Meetings are good when they're good. When they're not, the impact is pretty significant.
If your calendar is full of meetings that are inefficient and ineffective every single week then you have more than one problem to tackle. Firstly, you don't have time to do all of the work you need to do, and secondly, you also lose that protected time you need.
You can't sit down and work on long tasks that need uninterrupted focus time, and these are often your priority and strategic tasks.
The data supports this. Harvard Business Review studied 76 companies and found that reducing meetings by just 40% had these results:
78% improvement in autonomy
Over 70% increase in productivity
Over 50% reduction in micromanaging
43% reduction in stress
These aren't just productivity metrics. Stress, engagement, autonomy, micromanaging, and productivity are all themes that leaders can and should influence.
If you can reduce your meeting time with your teams and make sure the meetings you are in are efficient and effective, then it has a huge positive impact for both you, your team and the organisation.
The Connection Between Meetings and 'Self Determination Theory'
There are three key elements for people to feel fulfilled at work: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Meetings impact all three when they work.
They undermine all three when they don't.
There's the autonomy of being able to ask questions, find out the information you need to go away and make those decisions. Great meetings give people the opportunity to show and prove their competency and also improve their competency by being in the room and learning from other people.
And then there's relatedness. Sitting around the table, especially in person, you get to connect with the humans you work with. Not just on that transactional level of what you're working on, you have the opportunity to deepen those connections when you collaborate and when you work in partnership.
Meetings done well not only have a positive impact on the business, they also have a positive impact on how people feel and how fulfilled they feel within their team.
Three Questions Every Leader Should Ask Before Every Meeting
Before you accept a meeting invite or send a meeting invite, ask yourself three questions.
Why are we meeting?
This has two angles. What's the purpose of the meeting? And also, why are we meeting - us specifically?
This points to the people in the room. Are we checking that we have the right people in the room? Sometimes you need the decision maker. Sometimes you need the subject matter expert. Sometimes you need both - make sure this is a conscious decision.
What decisions need to be made?
What does the outcome of the meeting need to be? What will success look like? Every meeting invite needs to be very clear on the purpose and the outcome that those in the meeting need to walk away with so that those attending come prepared to make the decisions that need to be made.
What do people need to bring?
Do they need to bring ideas? Answers? Decisions? Resources or information? You need to know who needs to be in the room and why. What is the decision or outcome?
These three questions will help you determine what meetings you need to be in. If you are arranging a meeting, include this information; it gives people a clear indication as to the purpose and how they can best prepare. This ensures that when they show up, you get the best out of them and that it's a good, positive, efficient and effective meeting to be in.
The Fruit Bowl Analogy: Inclusive Leadership Drives Better Meeting Outcomes
Picture the meeting room. There's a bowl of fruit on the table.
You, as the chair of that meeting, have all these people who have a different viewpoint and perspective of that fruit bowl. The only way you can find out exactly what is in that fruit bowl is if you ask each person in the room for their viewpoint and perspective.
Intentional leaders ensure that everybody in that meeting room has a say.
Otherwise, you have to ask the question - why are they there?
If someone isn't speaking, ask yourself why: is it because they don't have anything to contribute? In which case you probably don't need them in the meeting in the first place. However, if they're not contributing because they lack confidence or you haven't created a space for them to feel they can share their different perspectives, then you need to work on providing that psychological safety.
When leaders do this well, when the chair makes an effort to include all those perspectives in the room, you get a really good, clear view.
You get different perspectives. Different viewpoints. It reduces the risk of blind spots.
As a chair, you don't have all the answers. You don't have all the information. The reason you're bringing people into a meeting is to gather that information so you need to make sure that everybody in the room has a say and shares their perspective.
When you lead a meeting well, you get:
Much more inclusive perspectives
More ideas in the discussion
A healthy debate because people can offer challenges with different viewpoints
Better decisions because you have more information to work with
Shared ownership because everybody gets involved
People feel included, part of that discussion, part of the decision
An increase in engagement and momentum
Not everyone needs to be everywhere; however, if you're inviting people into the room, you need to give them a voice. Give them the opportunity to share.
People feel valued when their presence matters.
Making Your Calendar Work For You: The Leadership Reality Check
There's legitimate research to support reducing meetings. I'm sure if you had similar conversations in your workplace, you'd get similar answers.
People want fewer meetings in general, and the meetings they do have, they want to be more efficient and more effective.
If you're drowning in meetings. If your calendar feels like it's running your life, let alone running your week. Try those two frameworks:
The three questions before every invite.
The fruit bowl analogy for inclusion.
I would love to hear how they help.
Ready to transform from reactive to intentional leadership?
I'm Zoë Thompson, leadership and performance specialist, and I help overwhelmed leaders transform from reactive to intentional leadership in 8 weeks, so you finish work on time, take The Big Week Off with zero work, zero stress and zero guilt, and create success that feels as good as it looks.
The Elevate Your Efficiency Blueprint addresses the root cause – the habits, behaviours and identity keeping you stuck – not just the symptoms in just 8 weeks.
The Leadership Community helps you keep the momentum of progress going.
Free Time Audit: www.zoethompson.uk/quick-links
YouTube Channel: Intentional Leadership with Zoë Thompson
Podcast: The Lightbulb: Weekly Insights for Intentional Leaders
