How to create effective and productive meetings in Singapore

Companies around the world agree. If their key systems were as ineffective as their meetings they would be out of business!

 A US$3 trillion global challenge.

Yes, we all know meetings are essential for every business function, and that they are often frustrating, wasteful and unproductive - regardless of geography, culture or industry. But are you aware of the estimated global cost of poor meetings? 1) Meeting travel and logistics: US$50 billion per year. 2) Wasted people-timecaused byinefficientmeetings: US$500 billion per year. And the largest, least recognized cost - lost or under-capitalised opportunitiesdue to ineffective decision-making and follow-up: a staggering US$2-3 trillion per year! Ouch!

Improving meetings is today’s biggest business opportunity.

With executives spending 50-80 hours a week in meetings (face-to-face and virtual - including phone calls) few disagree meetings are the most unproductive business process in every organization, and the biggest drain on the bottom line. And the growing trend of virtual meetings is making matters worse. On the plus side, improving meetings is the biggest opportunity for increasing business productivity today.

Putting meetings in perspective.

To illustrate this opportunity, we open every meeting we run with the same question: “how much is this meeting costing your company?” (Think about your most recent off-site).

1) Add the tangible costs of travel, accommodation, venue, expenses, materials etc. 2) The cost of each person per day – travelling, subsistence and attending the meeting - plus support staff who plan and organize, 3) The opportunity costs – while participants are away from colleagues and clients.

Typically, a team of 25-30 executives come up with a cost of US$250,000+ for a 2-day strategy meeting. It’s a major eye-opener prompting the switching off of cell phones and a heightened sense of focus! Especially when they add up the cost of every meeting in the company over the year…

Our second question: “How effective are your meetings in achieving objectives and delivering on decisions made?” Cue uncomfortable smiles, shuffling in seats and a response of “25-50% if we’re lucky”. (Imagine what it would mean to the bottom line if this increased to 70-80%). The Board of a major bank recently told us their meeting effectiveness is 15%: consider their return on investment!

Transforming the meeting process.

Making meetings creative, stimulating and productive requires a fresh look at the process. Meetings don’t start when people enter the room or finish when they leave: what gets done before and after is equally important. That’s why in our consulting work and in our meeting software, meeting-eXpert, we break the meeting process into 3 key phases:  1) Before (planning and preparation) 2) During (collaborating, solving problems and making decisions) and 3)After (following-up and executing) to make sure clients get more done at every stage.

Market trends are raising expectations and driving the transformation.

1.       More meetings, and more time spent in meetings: increasing the demand for more effective and efficient processes to increase productivity.

2.       Doing More With Less: achieving optimum results from existing human resources is increasing the need for all participants to engage, collaborate and contribute.

3.       Explosive growth in Virtual Meetings: the challenge of having an effective meeting with participants spread across the country or the world is increasing the need for cloud computing solutions like meeting-eXpert, use of tablet PCs and more efficient communication and data flows.

Five steps to significantly improve your meetings and save you millions!

1.       Ask the right questions

The other day we asked a CEO why he was running a regional meeting for 50 people. His reply: “We always hold one in March”. Not good enough! It’s amazing how many meetings are held with no clear purpose because the meeting owner never asked: “Do we really need this meeting?” “What are the objectives?” “What are the key discussion topics?” “Are the right people invited?” etc. 

2.       Distribute relevant pre-work

A well-structured questionnaire before the meeting provides major benefits:

·         Participants are engaged early on, have time to think about key issues and contribute ideas without being put ‘on the spot’.

·         Feedback enables the meeting owner to adjust the agenda, and address any individual concerns off-line. (We’ve had many cases of clients postponing a meeting based on issues raised in pre-work).

·         Consolidated responses are used in the meeting to “hit the ground running”, providing plenty of material to process and discuss immediately - saving literally days of face-to-face meeting time.

3.       Address limiting beliefs

Our Results Tree, (see graphic) shows the bottom-up impact of values & beliefs and thinking & feelings on business results. Beliefs are what we accept to be true (real or perceived), and before tackling complex business issues, we ask “What are the limiting beliefs that are preventing you from being successful?” Last year we ran a meeting in Eastern Europe for 16 country heads to roll-out a new global strategy. 12 of them believed “nothing good comes out of head office!”  Without addressing the reasons (most were perceptions) the meeting would have been an expensive failure – diluting business results for the next 3 years!

4.       Get people involved – ditch the presentations

Why waste valuable meeting time reading out business plans and budgets from endless PowerPoint presentations? Don’t. Great meetings are about people collaborating to generate ideas, solve problems, build relationships, make decisions and develop plans. To engage everyone we use a process called MindMaxxing: round table discussion groups with strict time limits to maintain focus, and someone consolidating key points at each table. Involvement leads to commitment and accountability: essential for effective follow-up.

5.       Document key topics and issues real-time

Execution often fails because there is no record of what was said or agreed. If there is, it’s often interpreted and written up after the meeting by someone who didn’t even attend. No good! Using meeting-eXpert or other software to collate and prioritise key topics real-time, and print them out during the meeting, ensures everyone has the same reference for follow-up and a powerful communication tool to share outcomes with other colleagues.

So, some conclusions…

·         Let your colleagues know that inefficient meetings have a far bigger cost impact on the business than they realise.

·         Ask them for suggestions on how to improve meetings.

·         Ask them what makes a great meeting.

·         Stop doing all the things that don’t work - there are lots of them!

·         Try the five steps above.

And most importantly, start saving millions today!