Meeting mania hinders growth
Article Date: Nov 23 2006
UK entrepreneurs are increasingly frustrated by excessive amounts of meetings and poor time management. As for the price of this wasted time, new research has found over two million hours annually are being squandered, costing the UK small- and medium-sized business economy around £25 million a year.
Based on the findings by Bibby Financial Services, the top factor that business owners and managers found most irritating about meetings was people not sticking to the agenda (22 per cent), followed closely by unprepared colleagues (15 per cent) and disruptions caused by intrusions and people using their mobile phones (11 per cent).
The reseach put forward some key tips to avoid time wasting:
- Stick to the agenda – circulate a proposed agenda a couple of days beforehand, allowing those who will be present to add their items. Once in the meeting, make it clear that any items not on the agenda will not be dealt with until the end, under the ‘any other business’ section. This will help to keep things moving during the meeting.
- Take minutes and monitor them – Go through the minutes at the end of the meeting to ensure clear objectives and deadlines have been set and understood. Ensure detailed minutes, including all actions, are circulated no more than 24 hours after the meeting.
- Don’t meet for meetings’ sake – Many new and cost-effective technologies now exist that allow telephone or web conferencing which can eliminate the need to travel to face to face meetings. Is it really essential you’re there in person?
David Robertson, chief executive of Bibby, notes: ‘Adding the wasted time spent in meetings to all the HR, financial and regulatory issues UK owners and managers have to deal with, it’s amazing they find the time to focus on their business at all.’
