It might be a symptom of a deeper issue.
Our big-company clients all complain about too many meetings. Their calendars are packed. Trying to schedule a meeting with two or three leaders at a time? Get ready for a game of Calendar Battleship!
But the actual problem isn’t all the meetings. Except in the rare case where somebody just scheduled a bunch of unnecessary meetings, canceling half the meetings wouldn’t really fix anything. There’s an underlying problem that needs to be addressed. If you address the root cause, you not only reduce the number of meetings, you clean up other symptoms at the same time and become more effective overall.
“Too many meetings” can be a symptom of a lot of different things. Here are some of the most common…
Let’s start with the underlying problems that are easier for an individual to address and work up to the larger systemic issues.
Ineffective meetings (that spill into more meetings)
How many times have you gotten to the end of a meeting only for someone to say, “I’ll schedule some time so we can finish this discussion”?
Ineffective meetings spawn more meetings.
Assuming the original meeting had a compelling reason to exist, typically a decision a group needs to make together, getting to the end of the time on the calendar doesn’t mean you’re done. The meeting will extend until it achieves its purpose (or everyone gives in). Sometimes, it’ll just run over. For a group with full calendars, it’ll turn into a new meeting to finish the work later.
The fix? Design and facilitate meetings that achieve their purpose more often. We teach how to do this in our half-day facilitation workshop, but you can get the quick version in this Humanizing Work Show episode
FOMO
Sometimes people’s calendars fill up because they don’t want to miss anything. Every meeting looks like an opportunity to keep a project from going in the wrong direction, a chance to be helpful, a way to avoid being left out of an important decision.
The fix? Review your calendar and look for meetings that’ll be fine without you. Ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I wasn’t there? How likely is that? How might I make it less likely (still without attending)? What good things might happen if I wasn’t there?”
This can work in the other direction too. A clear agenda, purpose, and roles can help others know it’s ok to miss the meeting, keeping them from experiencing FOMO for your meetings.
Broken systems for delegation
Better delegation is the holy grail for freeing up leaders’ calendars. If individuals and teams can operate without detailed oversight, leaders are freed up to stay out of the weeds of the work.
But delegation without sufficient clarity, capability, and systems for communication and visibility leads to more meetings to make sure things are going ok.
The fix? If you’re a leader who’s trying to delegate but still ending up in meetings about the details of the work, check out this Humanizing Work Show episode on the conditions for productive empowerment.
Too much WIP
Active projects demand coordination. Quite simply, more projects running at once means more coordination.
But the effects are non-linear. The more projects in-flight simultaneously, the more individuals and teams are scattered across them. And the busier your collaborators are, the harder it is to schedule time with each other.
The fix? Identify something to pause for now. Reduce your work-in-progress by one. Use the extra capacity to focus on finishing your most important commitment. Only then, start (or resume) something else.
Multitasking across teams
Sometimes, there really are a lot of different things that need to move forward little-by-little. We see this with, for example, IT groups that serve many different stakeholders by keeping many systems up-to-date and functional.
When individuals are assigned to those different work streams, they end up with full calendars for coordination on all the different things. One project requires syncing with these people. Another project requires syncing with a different set of people.
The fix? Aggregate supply and demand for skills into teams and bring the work to the team instead of the individuals to the work. Organize the work so the team can have small but meaningful impact on one initiative before turning their attention to another.
What’s your meeting overload root cause?
Which of these root causes for “too many meetings” resonated with you? Is there another one that fills up your calendar? Reach out and let us know!
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