One Meeting Minute Thought for Your Week
Bad meetings are burning your company’s money.
Sadly, most business leaders don’t realize this.
They focus on other areas when looking to cut costs, but overlook a significant opportunity to save time.
And, we all know this equation:
👉 Time = Money
When you’re wasting time, you’re wasting money. And this happens a lot in meetings.
So, how do you stop burning your company’s money in bad meetings?
The first step is the most important and the one too many leaders never take:
Acknowledging the negative impact bad meetings have on the financial performance of your business.
Here’s an exercise you can use to dramatically demonstrate the reality most leaders miss.
Making the cost of bad meetings painfully obvious
Consider this scenario.
You have 10 high-level executives in a 60-minute meeting.
Based on their salaries, they make about $100 an hour.
Before you start the meeting, give them each a $100 bill.
If after 6 minutes you haven’t made meaningful progress, ask one leader for the $100 bill you gave them.
Then take a lighter from your pocket and set that cash on fire.
As you and those 10 leaders watch it burn, you know you’ll never get that money back.
The harsh reality will be painfully obvious.
But what isn’t so obvious is that you already did the same thing in the 6 minutes you wasted.
That 60 minutes of cumulative time invested by those 10 executives in only 6 minutes of an unproductive meeting is as gone as that incinerated $100 bill.
Your company isn’t getting either of them back.
If you still have a job at that point and your meeting continues to be ineffective, torch another $100 bill at the 12 minute mark.
Wasting 12 minutes in a bad meeting with 10 participants doesn’t seem like such a big deal. In fact, it happens all the time in companies around the world.
But watching $200 go up in smoke gets people’s attention!
Am I serious?
Do I really recommend you burn cash and risk setting off the fire alarm just to improve the meetings in your company?
Of course not.
I described this extreme demonstration partially to make a point, but mainly to encourage you.
When you’re investing time and energy to lead productive, effective meetings, you’re doing important, valuable work.
You’re keeping others from wasting time in your meetings and effectively burning your company’s money.
Because this equation is also true:
👉 Wasting meeting time = Wasting company money.
If you get discouraged while preparing for a meeting or if you’re tired of fighting the continual battle to keep people focused and on task during your meetings, remember this over-the-top illustration.
What you’re doing is worth it.
You’re saving people’s time and your company’s money by taking your meetings seriously.
Keep it up!
And, don’t let other people unknowingly light cash on fire with their bad meetings either.
Help them learn how to improve their meetings too.
More Resources to Help You Build Your Career and Your Business
You may have done the math I used in this example already, but if you didn’t, I’ll save you some time.
Otter.ai created a handy meeting cost calculator. Click here to give it a try.
You can use it to quickly do the math to determine how much the meetings you lead and attend are really costing your company.
This free tool will show how bad meetings are burning your company’s money faster than other people in your company may realize.
Otter.ai also has an interesting article (and the data to back it up) that shows how unnecessary meetings are costing companies millions of dollars. Click here to read the article, “One-third of meetings are unnecessary, costing companies millions (and no one is happy about it)”.
And Now a Word from Our Sponsors
Growing an email list is one of the best things you can do for your business.
Now you can join forces with other creators on the Creator Network and grow your email lists together!
Click here to learn more and get started.
That’s All for this Issue
You know all too well that bad meetings waste precious time. And, everyone else knows it too.
But, they sometimes fail to see how not planning and leading meetings well directly impacts the company’s financial performance.
You know better.
That’s why you’re reading the Monday Morning Meeting Minute and continually striving to make the meetings in your business better.
To help others better understand what you already know, please take a moment to forward this email to other leaders in your business.
Maybe they’ll join with you to stop burning your company’s money by making their meetings better too!
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence!
Greg
Here are 3 ways I can help you when you’re ready:
- Get more free resources you can use today (Click here to Start)
- Improve on your own with digital courses (Click here to Improve)
- Accelerate your progress with coaching (Click here to Accelerate)
New To This Newsletter?
Subscribe here so you don’t miss what I share in the next issue.
Want To Help Others?
If this issue helped you, it will probably help someone else. Please share it with your connections to fuel the global movement to Stop Bad Meetings!