Welcome to another Wednesday Wisdom. Every week, I share with you what I’m thinking about life, work, and leadership. This week we’re talking about how to stop wasting time together.
When we came out of our first lockdown in New Zealand last year, I had some starry-eyed optimism. After being isolated for so long, and reaping the benefits of more time with our family, I thought… this could be it. This could be the catalyst we need to start really valuing people’s presence, and putting a premium on our time.
Finally, we might start shifting the dial on how we work and spend time together, now that we appreciate how important that is. We won’t take it for granted anymore.
…I was wrong.
How many meetings do you have in a week?
How many meetings do you have in a day?
Stop for a minute and tally up how much of your time is spent talking and trying to solve problems with others.
If you’re like many professionals, it could be more than 50% of your working hours. More of your time might be spent working out what you need to do, than actually doing it.
HOW DID WE GET BACK HERE?!
We don’t even skip a beat anymore. We just pop all those meetings straight onto Zoom and ram decision fatigue right down people’s screens, until they resort to putting on fake backgrounds as they try not to stick pencils in their eyes.
I feel like we’re missing the point, when it comes to meetings – and this is coming from a career facilitator. I’m not anti-meeting or anti-collaboration (though there are many days that I’d rather not interact with another living soul) – but I get extremely frustrated with wasted time.
The reason we get together is to make things happen outside of the meeting. To build understanding, shape choices and make decisions that will get the wheels of progress turning. If we’re wasting time, we’re also wasting energy, money and opportunity – none of which is OK.
If you’re baffled as to why so many of your meetings and workshops suck, check out this free booklet. It’s a brief overview to the work we do in our Meetings that Matter training, which provides a helpful diagnostic tool to work out what’s missing with your team.
Maybe you don’t trust each other, so you hold things back. Maybe you aren’t focused on the same thing, so you’re too scattered to make clear decisions. Maybe you’re lacking commitment because there’s too many other things going on. I don’t know what your specific problem is – but you probably do.
So check it out.
Til next week,
– A
