Calculate Before You Call A Meeting

Published: Jan 15, 2004

Application

This calculation method is so simple you can do it in your head.

(No. of attendees) X (meeting duration) X (average wage cost of participants)
= Cost of meeting*

*Add such factors as travel time, opportunities foregone, grandstanding probabilities, etc

Make this a mandatory thought process for anyone saying, "We should have a meeting."

Alternative Cost Savers:

Precede and/or follow a plenary core with fewer vested interests. Not unlike flextime work scheduling. e.g. Input'ers meet with key persons before and need-to-know persons after core meeting
Separate mandatory decision-makers from need-to-know persons. Can the latter operate from a quick circulation of the minutes?
Search for ways to exclude persons invited to meetings for political reasons.
Don't even call a meeting? Search for alternatives such as conference calling, intranet chat room, circulating emails or a system for cancelling regularly scheduled meetings.
Post your calculation formula prominently and strategically.
Have all participants remain standing. Get rid of the chairs and apply extenders to the table legs.
Use a noisy stop watch or timer.

Include impromptu ad hoc meetings (often referred to as water-cooler-encounters) in the above alternatives.

Stories

1979 Hiring Campaign

An intensive campaign I was conducting required meeting many organizations to find, at least, ten where I could set in motion an executive decision. Over 500 executives were contacted by mail. An assistant sorted the replies to find those which had an invitation to arrange a face-to-face meeting.

To avoid meeting with groups that could include people who were saboteurs rather than decision makers I would ask about the people attending the meeting; how many would be in the room, what were their positions or functions and were these the people involved in making the final decision. My criteria was there should be a maximum of three persons with all three being involved in a final decision.

In one case, I was misled about the nature of the meeting. When I arrived I was ushered into a boardroom filled with about a dozen people. I did not feel comfortable with the handshake or the eye contact with most. My seat was at the narrow end of the table opposite the chairman who began to ask some questions. I stopped him by asking permission to ask a few questions of each of the others which was granted quizzically. All but two could not give a plausible reason for being present nor could they be definite about their involvement in the final decision.

I folded my case, stood to thank them for the interview and as I strode to the door the chairman said, "What's going on? We have scheduled a whole hour to hear your presentation and the next people will not be here for another fifty minutes?" I turned to face the group and replied, "May I suggest you use that fifty minutes to ponder why I left."

As I drove home I pondered about my brutal treatment of these nice people. Years later I met a man who had been a senior executive in that organization and when I related this story to him he remarked, "That was the smartest thing to do. I spent five years in that place banging my head against the wall trying to get things done." He went on to bombard me with his frustrations with hidden agendas, sabotage to his efforts and the turmoil caused by people not trusting each other.

This unit advises to calculate. Don't forget belief in your intuition.

Submitted by: Nephew Gerry

Outcomes

Greater control over communications.
Fewer opportunities for groupthink.
Forces you to consider other methods for disseminating information and reaching a consensus.