Today's status meetings destroy productivity and could be fixed!

Here at Mars, I am running a rapid pilot of a service that allows quick video recording, publishing and sharing. The intent is to see if we can use video updates to create more engagement, be more respectful of work/life balance, go faster and reduce or eliminate the meetings that are draining our people and impacting mental wellness.

One of the pilot participants asked how these quick videos are going to save time in meetings and I thought it was an excellent question that was more obvious to me, but I'm not sure had been described.

Introducing the most disengaging and impactful schedule killer... the status meeting.

First, let's remember how a business meeting is literally defined:

A business meeting is a gathering of two or more people to discuss business-related matters and take decisions. It is a verbal form of communication among people.

• discuss: "the action or process of talking about something in order to reach a decision or to exchange ideas"
• decide: "come to a resolution in the mind as a result of consideration"

By definition a business meeting is a gathering where we talk to each other about one or more subjects and then make a decision based on that discussion.

Any meeting that doesn't engage people in discussion and doesn't result in a decision is therefore not really a meeting at all and an inefficient use of time. The infamous 'status meeting' that many of us recognize is where people gather together for 30, 60 or more minutes to hear what others are doing. There may be some commentary but largely the meeting ends thanking everyone for the information and people continue with the things they were already doing. Most of these are filled with people off camera, multi-tasking, half listening (if at all) or just waiting to give their part and be done.

What if all those 'status' updates were videos.

1. As the status presenter, you can compose your update and make sure it hits the right tone and time
2. Updates can be shared when they are done and not wait for a weekly meeting
3. Updates are available to the team when they have time to review them
4. Team doesn't have to depend upon being at the meeting
5. Non time zone friendly (global peers) do not have to impact work/life balance merely to receive information that is not immediately actionable
6. Updates can be shared to 'other' interested parties rather than rely on secondhand recall and reference (wider engagement, recognition and involvement)
7. Team can compose thoughts, reply with clarifying questions or input if necessary

You don't necessarily eliminate the meeting but if all of the above happened, you could reduce a standard 'status meeting' and turn it into an 'engagement meeting' which might go something like:

Hello everyone, assuming you've all had time to review the teams update videos, I have noted that there are three pressing questions that the team needs to address which are (points them out). Does anyone have any other items they wish to raise? (add or continue).

The first question... (discussion on the matter... followed by a decision on the matter, and repeats for each point.)

Thank you for your attention, if anything else comes up please post in the channel

Such a meeting is more than likely to be faster than a standard meeting and since the meeting is based on an active discussion and decision process, members attending the meeting remain focused (vs drifting off, multi-tasking etc.) and a much more respectful, time boxed discussion/decision engagement results.

Why this matters for decision making leadership

For leaders who hop from meeting to meeting near continuously, a short, direct and decisive engagement respect everyone's time and energy. Even a recording of such a meeting would allow someone who was not involved to hear the salient points, debate on those points and the outcome of the decision.