Whack-a-Meeting – những cuộc họp không thể nào biến mất. Liệu có thể?

I have a confession to make. There’s not a single day that I’m free of meetings. I also admit that my meetings often drag on for much longer than expected, oops!

Too many lengthy meetings have led me to implement a mechanism to tackle the issue – a clearly defined agenda and a timekeeper (my PA). Still, I’m lucky if I can end a meeting on time. It’s not like I haven’t come up with innovative solutions to jazz up a meeting. My concern, and also what I’m deliberately working on, is to avoid unnecessary appointments so I can focus on what truly matters.

Did you know that meeting times have significantly increased from 10 hours a week in 1960 to 23 hours a week? The shift from traditional work arrangements to a remote and hybrid model seems to make matters worse as people are trying to compensate for the loss of in-person interactions.

Today, meetings are like a whack-a-mole game. No matter how many times you whack at it, the “mole” just keeps popping up.

It’s such a dreaded activity. Why are we still doing it?

The notion of leaders leading from the front has been romanticised to the point where we tend to sacrifice our valuable time and well-being for meetings, assuming that’s what’s best for the company. Even if we want to take a breather, we can’t, because others rely on us to approve documents, give feedforward, or make critical decisions.

Fixing this meeting menace requires you to tackle the root cause head-on—the reason for calling a meeting in the first place—which cannot be fully expressed through a few words via emails or chats.

I am by no means denying the benefits of meetings. They are essential for collaboration, creativity, and innovation. However, in today’s business-as-unusual world, it’s no longer an effective way as collaboration, creativity, and innovation can still be found otherwise, through different methods other than a meeting.

Take audio and video recording as an example. We can record ourselves presenting and send it to all stakeholders. Everyone can watch the recording anytime without worrying about mishearing a word.

If we remove all elements from the equation, meetings are then left with nothing but an unproductive and time-consuming activity. At best, they help clarify issues that would otherwise be impossible to clarify through writing.

There have been more than a handful of companies that have enforced a “no meeting day“. And some like living on the edge and eradicating the activity entirely. Individuals in these companies can operate and collaborate at their own pace, whenever that is most convenient for them.

When there are matters that don’t require me to instantly respond, I’ll encourage my staff to seek other means of communication instead of real-time. The good thing about conversations that don’t happen at the same time, a.k.a., asynchronous communication, is that they are automatically saved and can be looked up years later.

Of course, asynchronous communication does not cancel out in-person and virtual meetings. For instance, our Talent Acquisition team here at TRG International is testing out video recruiting to shorten our hiring cycle. We’re growing fast, and thus, we need to fill vacant positions with the right talents quickly. However, this does not mean we’ll completely replace traditional interviewing with videos, but it can save us valuable time and effort.

At the end of the day, the meeting menace arises from a much deeper problem: failure to delegate and empower.

Think for a moment, what is stopping you from delegating more to your subordinates? Is it because you:

• feel guilty for adding more tasks to their workloads?
• lack confidence in the individual?
• think it would take the individual much longer to complete the task so you just do it yourself?

If any of the above reasons resonate with you, you should start considering how to address them. Not only will it add more weight to your already heavy workload, but failure to delegate also results in your employees missing out on valuable learning and growth opportunities.

All in all, cutting down on your meeting time is the right thing to do for yourself, your employees, and your organisation.