The 25 Minute Meeting

Half the Time, Double the Impact

Donna McGeorge

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780730359258
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Skills
• Index: Business

Sharpen your focus and tighten your time frames to get more done in less time

The 25 Minute Meeting goes beyond "cut to the chase" and shows you how to take back your work day with smarter planning and more productive action. Meetings have become a de facto way of working, and as they pile up and stretch to interminable lengths, they eat up our days and sink productivity—if they are poorly planned and run. Done well, meetings are short, sharp, productive affairs that provide critical time and space for the interactions that drive business forward. This book shows you how to effectively and efficiently recover your time with a roadmap to the 25-minute meeting.

A clear framework walks you through the entire meeting process, with emphasis on timing and focus, with illustrative case studies showing how real-world meetings have transformed from painful to purposeful with a few simple changes. From purging the invite list, to shutting down irrelevant tangents and facilitating more efficient communication, this book can help you reclaim your lost hours without sacrificing collaboration.

• Learn the art and science of conducting short, useful, purposeful meetings
• Follow a clear framework for meeting planning, preparation, and participation
• Assess your meetings' effectiveness using helpful checkpoints in each chapter
• Boost your meetings' impact with variety and visuals—without adding unnecessary time

A well-run meeting is a goldmine of opportunity for Getting Things Done; it is where the diverse set of talents on your team come together into a whole of achievement—it is your most valuable commodity. It's time to leave dusty, boring, time-sucking meetings in the past and revolutionize the way we come together. The 25 Minute Meeting shows you a fresh, more productive approach to working, cooperating, collaborating, and communicating the 21 st century way. The 25-Minute Meeting is the first book in Donna McGeorge's It's About Time series. With The 25-Minute Meeting, you'll learn to give your meetings purpose and stop them wasting your time; with The First 2 Hours, you'll find the best time of the day to do your most productive work; and with The 1-Day Refund, you'll discover how to give yourself the extra capacity to think, breathe, live and work.

PART I
WHY MEET IN 25 MINUTES

Imagine a world where, as you walk down a corridor, you think to yourself, ‘Gosh I’m looking forward to this meeting’.

I know, you might chuckle now, but soon you’ll be grinning from ear to ear.

The 25-minute meeting method promises to halve the amount of time you spend in a meeting while doubling the value of that time.

But the first step is to understand why what you are doing now is not working, and what you need to do to change things. Only then will you be able to transform from running painful meetings to purposeful meetings; to switch from being on autopilot to being an action hero.

As you’ll soon see, 25 minutes is not some arbitrary number conjured up from the heavens. There is both an art and a science to this.

So get ready, because in part I, we change your current meeting mindset from 60 minutes or more to just 25.

CHAPTER 1
Meetings are painful

Think of the last meeting you ran or attended.

Would you say it was purposeful, mindful or even useful?

Did you leave feeling energised?

Could you say it was a good use of your time?

If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions, then you are among the lucky 10 per cent of those who say meetings make a positive difference to their work — but wait! Before you throw away this book with a satisfied smile, let me ask you: Why did you pick it up in the first place?

If you’re reading a book on how to improve your meetings then I’d say those meetings you say are useful may still not be up to scratch.

Most of us will find ourselves in with the other 90 per cent who say that meetings are frequently wasteful, woeful and painful. One study by Clarizen, a software company, even found that people would rather take a trip to the department of motor vehicles (DMV) or watch paint dry than attend a workplace meeting. Apparently, 8 per cent of responders said they’d rather endure a root canal!

The status quo

I once heard a very senior leader in a global organisation remark, ‘You can have a long career here by going from one meeting to another and never actually doing any real work’.

In most organisations, an employee’s success (or failure) is measured against key performance indicators (KPIs). I have yet to see a KPI that says, ‘attend heaps of boring and ineffective meetings’.

And yet there is an expectation that people will do just that, on top of getting their task-driven KPIs done.

This requirement to attend poorly executed meetings while also managing to get stuff done is what drives down employee engagement scores and drives up feelings of discouragement.

Much of the data available says that between 25 and 67 per cent of us say meetings are a waste of time.

For example, a Harvard survey of 182 senior managers in a range of industries found:

• 65 per cent said meetings keep them from completing their own work
• 71 per cent said meetings are unproductive and inefficient
• 64 per cent said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking
• 62 per cent said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.

We sit through meetings, wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else.

A meagre 33 per cent of meetings are actually useful, mindful or purposeful.

What kind of meetings are you having now?

Let’s do a quick check-in on the kinds of meetings people have. Figure 1.1 on page 7 shows how often each kind occurs.

Figure 1.1: the kinds of meetings

1. PAINFUL

I don’t even know why I am going.

There is rarely anything useful accomplished; participation is constrained by lack of purpose and/or process. I don’t think I should even be in the meeting because nothing relates to me.

2. WOEFUL

I only go because I feel obliged.

These meetings are destructive and counterproductive to getting any work done. They have a negative return on the investment of attending, yet still I feel like it’s my job to go.

3. WASTEFUL

I go even though I know it will be a waste of time.

There is wanton and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Epigraph
• Title page
• Copyright
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• How to use this book
• PART I WHY MEET IN 25 MINUTES
• PART II HOW TO CONDUCT 25 MINUTE MEETINGS
• PART III ADD VALUE TO YOUR 25 MINUTE MEETINGS
• Your 25-minute meeting roadmap
• Work with me
• Sources
• Index
• Wiley End User License Agreement