Too many meetings that are run poorly frustrate employees and waste millions of dollars. Here are eight common meeting management problems and suggestions for how to improve them.

Problem #1: Blended agendas

People set up agendas that blend too many different types of activity. One good example of this problem I see with some regularity is when strategic and operational activities are part of the same agenda. These types of activity require very different types of thinking and pacing, and people often have a difficult time shifting from one mode to the other.

Solutions: Try to break up meetings into different types and have the agendas be consistent. If you are having a longer meeting, break up the meeting into different segments and allow for transition time. For example, when holding a strategy-focused meeting, organize the agenda around break out time, time for brainstorming and open ended discussion. You might focus only on a few points or issues to get people thinking creatively. This type of meeting is very different from an operations review where you are basically reviewing results and problems.

Problem: #2: Unrealistic agendas

In this scenario, people set up agendas that try to accomplish too much. The actual amount of time required to do something is not calculated accurately and represents wishful thinking. The results are unfinished agendas and meetings that chronically run over the scheduled time.

Solutions: Solicit multiple viewpoints from attendees before the meeting to get estimates of time needed per issue. Be sure to recognize that different activities require different pacing. Scheduling a brainstorming activity in a project review time frame won't work. Manage the allotted time slots aggressively. Identify people who consistently run over time and coach them on how to manage their time more effectively. If you work with a team over time you should be able to get a sense of the team's pacing. Set the agenda to their pace, not yours. Finally, you can cut the proposed agenda in half. No one will complain about getting out early.

Problem #3: Lack of awareness around the true cost of a meeting

If attendees are fellow employees, their actual cost often gets taken for granted. We just don't think about our co-workers in terms of cost. We also labor under some false assumptions about what the actual employee hourly cost is which contributes to inefficient use of time. The result is that companies are wasting millions of dollars a year on unproductive meetings.

Solutions: As a rule of thumb, most industries can expect that for mid-level management on up, adding 100% of their salary more accurately reflects the true cost of an employee (Doerr, 12/09). Based on that assumption, a $100,000 per year employee total costs are roughly $200,000 per year or roughly $96.00 per hour (52 weeks times 40 hours per week = 2,080 hours per year. If you have 10 people in this salary range in a two hour long meeting, you have just spent $1,920 worth of employee time. You can tighten up the meeting management discipline in your organization by utilizing a cost calculator to measure the true cost of a meeting. Then evaluate whether or not the agenda justifies its ROI. If the calculation is not a good investment, either cancel the meeting or improve the agenda to increase its return.

Problem #4: Attendee bad behavior

Not coming prepared, expecting to be educated in the meeting, being disruptive, or expecting to being entertained are all forms of attendee bad behavior. Meeting management is made much more difficult when these types of behavior are present.

Solutions: Evaluate how these behaviors have come to be tolerated. Determine what you are doing that may be contributing to the behavior (i.e., not distributing information ahead of time so that people can review it) and change it. Bring it to the attention of the individuals displaying the behavior that they are demonstrating ineffective behavior during the actual meeting or immediately afterwards. Give them clear feedback on how you want to see their behavior change. Attach consequences to the behavior to encourage ownership and positive participation.

Problem #5: Discipline degrades over time

What was once a well organized meeting gets sloppier over time. People start taking short cuts and meeting discipline gets worse. Meeting fatigue sets in and the leader has a harder time getting people to attend. People increasingly question the purpose of the meeting.

Solutions: This is a clear example of a meeting that needs to be revitalized or stopped. If the issue that drove the initial formation of the meeting is still active, look at refreshing the membership to get new perspectives. Look at transferring the leadership of the meeting to someone else. Holding periodic meeting check up audits to get feedback from participants about the meetings purpose, how it is conducted, and how to make it better will help the meeting maintain its momentum.

Problem #6: Meetings take on a life of their own

We are good at starting meetings but not ending them. They become a habit and their charter can creep into other areas outside of the original scope. New members replace original members and still the meeting chugs along. At some point it becomes difficult to remember who started the meeting and what it was supposed to do. As a consequence, meetings pile up like weight on a dogsled, eventually decreasing productivity to a dangerous level.

Solutions: I have found that two basic meeting management disciplines are useful in combating this problem. First, institute a rule that basically says that for any meeting that is started another needs to be ended. This will force people to be more discriminating about the meetings they start and will put pressure on existing meetings to be useful. The second rule is that every meeting needs to have an end/evaluation date. Don't let meetings be open ended, instead set a closure date at the very beginning. Manage the meeting to that date. A meeting can always be reinstated if there is demand for it. For meetings that are truly ongoing or mandated (i.e., safety, management reviews) establish an evaluation date where the overall effectiveness of the meeting is assessed. Be sure to evaluate the meetings at least yearly.

Problem #7: Lack of continuity between meetings

Meetings are seen as isolated events that are not connected to the flow of work. Conversations do not occur about meeting themes between meetings.

Solutions: Meetings should be seen as part of an overall conversation about an issue, not as the only place where discussions about the issue take place. As you manage the meeting think about activities and actions you can encourage members to engage in between the meetings. Assign actions, create homework, set up informal gatherings with subsets of the membership, and post communications about meeting activities as they are completed. Encourage members to interact directly to solve issues rather than waiting for the meeting to solve them.

Problem #8: No transit time allowed between meetings

When back to back meetings get scheduled there is often no time allowed for getting to your next meeting on time. The problem snowballs as the day progresses and you get progressively later. Meetings towards the end of the day end up having the worst attendance problem as a result. In part this is a problem due to scheduling software (i.e., Outlook®), that only allows things to be scheduled on the hour or half hour.

Solutions: One very simple way of dealing with this problem is to set all meetings to a 50 minute hour cycle. This allows for transit and transition time.

The ultimate goal for a management leader to have regarding meetings is that they are seen as useful, productive, and engaging. By making sure people see that their time is respected and valued, and tangible results occur, the leader creates an environment where people want to attend meetings, not dread them.