The list below is based on Geimer et al.’s 2015 paper “Meetings at work: Perceived effectiveness and recommended improvements”.
PEOPLE SIDE: 🚫 Late arrive 🚫 Unprepared attendees 🚫 One-way (top-down) communication 🚫 Lack of open-mindedness & empathy 🚫 Self-promotion, people talk just to appear to add value, and hidden agenda 🚫 People interrupt/talk during meeting 🚫 Interpersonal conflicts, incivility, and disrespect
MEETING ORGANIZATION SIDE: ✅ Agenda ✅ Distribution of agenda in advance 🚫 Lack of direction/goals ✅ Chaired effectively 🚫 Meetings held just to have them, just a routine with no real purpose 🚫 Appropriate parties are not invited and inappropriate parties are invited 🚫 Too many attendees 🚫 Time conflicts 🚫 Meet at inappropriate intervals 🚫 Meetings take too long 🚫 Takes time to travel to meeting
MEETING ACTIVITIES SIDE: 🚫 Insufficient interaction, meeting activities are monotonous and boring 🚫 No new information 🚫 Discussion gets off target 🚫 Core issues not discussed 🚫 Lack of clarity about what the attendee is supposed to do
MEETING OUTCOMES SIDE: 🚫 Inaction post-meeting 🚫 Decisions have already been made, just a rubber stamp
Do you identify with the above reasons? Is there anything that you think is missing from the list, particularly as the workplaces have been operating more remotely/hybrid way since 2015?
P.S. In the next post let’s check what suggestions people have for improving the effectiveness of meetings.
Related notes
- How to improve effectiveness of meetings?
- Fighting meeting overload
- Where to look first when considering meeting reset?
- Eisenhower matrix for meetings
- Are back-to-back meetings for good or bad?
📄 Read the original post with full outputs on my blog.