Steps to Make Your Meetings More Effective, with the Surprising Science Behind Meetings

According to the world’s leading expert on meetings, Dr. Steven Rogelberg, more than 55 million meetings are hosted each day, and there is no sign that these meetings are decreasing in the coronavirus global pandemic. Some estimates also indicate that 65 percent of remote meeting attendees spend their time multitasking — meaning that they are not as present to engage in the meeting content.

So what can be done about this problem? How can we make meetings more effective — especially in our new remote meetings environment?

On April 7, 2020, I interviewed Dr. Steven Rogelberg, chancellor’s professor at UNC Charlotte and the world’s leading expert on meeting effectiveness. We’ve profiled Dr. Rogelberg’s latest book, The Surprising Science of Meetings, before (read the article here). This conversation centered on strategies to lead more effective remote meetings — especially in the wake of stay-at-home orders amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Although Dr. Rogelberg has many evidence-based strategies he discusses, here are three example strategies to increase the effectiveness of your remote meetings:

1. Be a good steward of time. Parkinson’s Law — translated for meetings — suggests that meetings will expand to fill the time they are scheduled. So, if you schedule a meeting for an hour when it really should take just 35 minutes, it is likely to miraculously fill the hour. To combat this, schedule meetings for slightly less time than what you think it will take to accomplish your objectives. Creating positive pressure will focus attendees on content and decisions and decrease wasted time.
2. Engage in ‘silent brainstorming.’ To increase positive engagement across all remote meeting participants, pose a few critical questions in a shared document. Set a time (either before or during the meeting) for all participants to input their ideas, and then summarize responses from the group. This will allow all meeting participants to be engaged while surfacing common themes and new ideas from the group.
3. Ask for feedback. Although you may not be able to improve all meetings you attend, you can improve the effectiveness of your meetings by asking for feedback. Send a survey or a plain ol’ email to your colleagues asking how you can improve your meetings — ask what’s going well, what could be improved and for any other suggestions they may have. Then, actually implement the feedback you receive.

What’s the takeaway? You have the power to make a difference in your workplace. Use the ideas above to make better meetings.

Your colleagues will thank you!

Read more of Dr. Steven Rogelberg’s insights at https://www.stevenrogelberg.com/.

Rogelberg, S. (2019). The surprising science of meetings: How you can lead your team to peak performance. New York, NY: Oxford University