The CEO can increase productivity through improved meetings
Usually the Human Resources Department is charged with ensuring employee productivity. The CEO, however, is a prime mover behind culture change and is ultimately responsible for productivity. Culture is the key to executing a strategy and building an engaged, motivated and dynamic workforce. Unnecessary and ineffective meetings depress productivity, and even the CEO can be affected. In the “Executive Time Use Project”, a team from The London School of Economics and Harvard Business School performed detailed analysis of time spent by 65 CEOs. Their findings revealed that on average, one third of a CEO’s time was spent in meetings. Although, much of the meeting time was viewed to be productive, these CEOs felt a portion of the meetings they attended were either “ineffective” or “very ineffective”. Establishing the right culture can change this.
The problem worsens at other levels of management. Various studies indicate that at least 30 percent of management time spent in meetings is wasted. Employee time is one of the organization’s most valuable resources. Since meetings represent such a significant portion of a company’s time, making meetings more effective and productive can have a huge impact on achieving strategic results and financial returns. Harvard Business Review studies have shown that the best-performing companies in terms of return on capital, operating margin and revenue growth are those companies where employees utilized their time most effectively. Saving time in unproductive meetings, opens up greater time for understanding customer needs, continuous learning and innovation.
Meetings are essential for fostering collaboration and making critical decisions. With the CEO leading the charge, the organizational culture can change so that effective meetings become the norm. The art of effective meetings can be learned. Organizations can establish common language and common practices for conducting productive meetings. Programs exist to “teach” the desired new meeting norms and there are a variety of effective approaches. Senior executives who facilitate meetings can receive in person training through short seminars and then share learning with their teams and model this behavior for them. Another approach uses the organization’s intranet based learning system, either on a stand-alone basis or in conjunction with senior in-person training. With this approach all managers learn the norms of effective meetings. On-line courses, which can go company-wide, can assure that every person in the organization understands the common norms, language and practices.
Learning programs can teach ground rules. Each meeting should have a defined purpose, use a focused agenda, start on time and end on time and have clear next steps for follow up and accountability. Only essential people should attend. During the meeting, behaviors that respect the use of human capital are the standard. Participants are asked to eliminate dysfunctional behaviors, unless absolutely necessary, such as checking phones, texting, emailing, grandstanding, endless repetition and side conversations. By establishing these respectful ground rules, meetings generate more participant energy and collaboration.
The CEO is ultimately responsible for creating a productive and effective culture that makes decisions faster and fosters innovation to meet customer and member needs. A culture of effective meeting management is an important part of creating that focused and productive culture.
