Chapter 8: Effective Meetings

Authors: Daniel Usera, PhD & Tasha Davis, PhD

Business and professional meetings are a part of the communication climate of any business or organization. The Harvard Business Review (2017) indicates on average, executives spend nearly 23 hours a week in meetings compared with less than 10 hours in the 1960s. As we previously discussed, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about many organizational changes including an increase in work-from-home models. An increase in remote work has also led to an increase in the use of video conferencing as a means of interacting and facilitating group meetings. In fact, recent usage statistics indicate there are 300 million daily meetings via Zoom (Dean, 2022). Web conferencing has also quickly become the new standard for meeting formats replacing both standard conference room meetings and audio conference calls (Beauford, 2022).

Given the prevalence of workplace meetings, you might assume executives and employees view meetings as valuable opportunities to share information and accomplish work goals. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Statistics from a Harvard Business Review article indicate that meetings “have increased in length and frequency over the past 50 years,” while a survey of 182 senior managers resulted in the following: “65% said meetings keep them from completing their own work. 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient. 64% said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking. 62% said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.”

While it is true many professionals view meetings as unproductive, futile exercises, the Harvard Business Review (2017) found even those who resent and dread meetings the most also defend them as a “necessary evil.” Meetings can be opportunities to exchange valuable insight and information and produce results. A combination of preparation and execution makes all the difference, for both in-person and virtual meetings. This chapter will provide you with helpful tips and guidelines to help make workplace meetings more effective. First, we will outline the most common meeting types. Then, we’ll analyze the planning, execution, and facilitation of productive workplace meetings. In our discussion you will hopefully realize how the communication skills discussed in previous chapters can be used to avoid common workplace meeting pitfalls and missteps.