Sustainable Excellence Shorts #78 - Decentralized Leadership with Bill O'Brien

How many hours do you spend in meetings each week?

We've all heard the term, "Death by meeting, " but what do meetings cost a company in terms of money and productivity?

According to an article by the career development company, Zippia (Flynn 2/13/2023), here are some interesting statistics about meetings:

 - In the United States, there are 55 million meetings held each week, which means there are over 1 billion meetings held each year.

 - The average worker reports they spend 3 hours per week in meetings, with 30% of workers saying they spend over 5 hours per week in meetings.

 - Organizations spend roughly 15% of their time in meetings, with surveys showing 71% of those meetings are considered unproductive. Only 11% of meetings are considered beneficial.

 - Workers spend an average of 31 hours per month in unproductive meetings.

 - An estimated $37 billion is lost each year to unproductive meetings.    

 - 65% of employees agree that meetings keep them from completing their work. 

 - From 2020 to 2021, the number of meetings attended by workers has increased by almost 13%, while the average length of time of those meetings has decreased by over 20%.

According to Zippia, a "good" meeting should last no more than 15 minutes and should have no more than 10 people at the table or online.

Please check out the video below to learn what one CEO observed about meetings in his company and what he did to decentralize leadership so not as many meetings were necessary.

Also, please leave me a comment about your thoughts on what makes for a productive meeting.