When I was working for a large software company, I once stopped going to meetings as a test. The Product Management team had meetings scheduled all week and sometimes 8 full hours a day… meeting with clients, sales, marketing, development, and support. It was insane. It was insane because the organization loved to meet but never actually held their employees accountable to accomplish anything with the meeting.
So, for 2 weeks I did not attend a single meeting. People who did would comment that I wasn't there, some co-workers would joke or get angry about it… but in the end, my boss at the time didn't care. He didn't care because my productivity dramatically increased. The problem was that meetings were paralyzing the organization… and paralyzed me. Why? Simply put – people were never educated on when to run a meeting or how to have a productive meeting. Unfortunately, it's not something they teach in college.
I've written about meetings quite a bit… they're a pet peeve of mine. I even did a presentation that meetings were responsible for the death of American productivity. It's also another reason why I love a Results Only Work Environment. If meetings aren't properly planned and scheduled, they're an incredible waste of everyone's time. If you have 5 people in the room at a company, chances are that your meetings are costing $500 an hour. Would you have as many if you thought about it that way?
Now there may be some technology that can assist your organization. AgreeDo is a free software as a service (SaaS) application that enables you to ensure your meetings are properly scheduled, results-oriented, collaborative and most of all – productive.
- Before the meeting: AgreeDo helps you to create meeting agendas. Let all participants collaborate on the agenda before the meeting, so that everyone is prepared.
- During the meeting: Whether it's a regular meeting, or an ad-hoc discussion, take your meeting minutes using AgreeDo. It helps you to easily capture all important issues like tasks, decisions, or just notes.
- After the meeting: Send out the meeting minutes to all attendees and collaborate on the results. AgreeDo helps you track tasks and to easily schedule follow-up meetings.
The interface of AgreeDo is result-oriented:
And you can check your meeting tasks at any time within the interface:
If your company is suffering from meetingitus and needs some help, pushing your employees to utilize AgreeDo could turn your organization around! Register for AgreeDo for free.
