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Leppik's Law of Meetings
Thursday - March 30, 2006 02:56 PM in
After participating in many too many useless meetings, a number of years ago I formulated Leppik's Law of Meetings:
Any meeting with more than five participants and lasting more than 15 minutes is a waste of time.
This, of course, sealed my reputation as a corporate curmudgeon. But here's the logic:
Meetings have one of three purposes: to disseminate information, to allow people to share their opinions, or to reach a decision.
If the purpose is to disseminate information, then there are more efficient ways than making 50 people carve out an hour of their time to sit in a room. E-mail, for example, or printed documents. Of course, many people tend to ignore stuff they're supposed to read, but that's a different issue.
If the meeting is to allow people to share their opinions, then my experience has been that there are usually only a few people in the room who dominate the conversation. Better to lock those three or four people in a small conference room, let them argue it out, and summarize the main points for everyone else through a more efficient medium. Most hour-long debates can usually be boiled down to a handful of bullet points.
If the meeting is to reach a decision, then if everyone has prepared (that is, they've read the background information and seen the summarized arguments for each side), then actually voting on a decision should not take more than a few minutes. Of course, many people don't prepare, but that's a different issue.
All this ignores the real reason for most meetings: as social primates, we like to meet people and socialize face-to-face. And there's nothing wrong with that.
In fact, we're such clever creatures that we've figured out a way to take something we want to do for enjoyment--meet and interact with other people--and make it tax-deductible.
Posted by Peter Leppik
This, of course, sealed my reputation as a corporate curmudgeon. But here's the logic:
Meetings have one of three purposes: to disseminate information, to allow people to share their opinions, or to reach a decision.
If the purpose is to disseminate information, then there are more efficient ways than making 50 people carve out an hour of their time to sit in a room. E-mail, for example, or printed documents. Of course, many people tend to ignore stuff they're supposed to read, but that's a different issue.
If the meeting is to allow people to share their opinions, then my experience has been that there are usually only a few people in the room who dominate the conversation. Better to lock those three or four people in a small conference room, let them argue it out, and summarize the main points for everyone else through a more efficient medium. Most hour-long debates can usually be boiled down to a handful of bullet points.
If the meeting is to reach a decision, then if everyone has prepared (that is, they've read the background information and seen the summarized arguments for each side), then actually voting on a decision should not take more than a few minutes. Of course, many people don't prepare, but that's a different issue.
All this ignores the real reason for most meetings: as social primates, we like to meet people and socialize face-to-face. And there's nothing wrong with that.
In fact, we're such clever creatures that we've figured out a way to take something we want to do for enjoyment--meet and interact with other people--and make it tax-deductible.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 02:56 PM by | | | |