Invest in Accountable Meetings

Life sure can be funny sometimes. Here we are, shouting from the rooftops about how we hate meetings oh so much, while this hatred simultaneously inspires us to bring you the meetings binge we’re calling 30 Days of Better Meetings!

All of this anger has been accumulating within us as we increasingly realize that the time we have wasted in unproductive meetings could have been turned into that much more personal and family time. Those late nights and long weekends wouldn’t be as necessary if we were getting the most out of our meetings, yet as a society it really does seem like we are all culturally desensitized to how much time we are wasting in bad meetings.

It’s not that we are angry people by nature, either. No, in fact, we are honing our hatred in a positive direction, as our goal is to help you love meetings even as they remain the object of our disdain. It’s because we recognize the great value realized when a meeting goes right that we become so upset when the very opposite occurs, and it’s why we are doing something about it for that matter as well.

Meetings Worth Loving

A meeting should be a place where ideas and dreams alike can flourish, and the group can strategize about the actions to be taken to try to turn them into a reality.

In a meeting worth loving, the group time spent together towards these ends will build stronger and more meaningful business relationships. Moreover, as exhibited by international business journalist Dalia Fahmy, the added trust and transparency directly leads to better decision making, and the deeper relationships have a measurable impact on a company’s bottom line.

A Revitalized Perspective on Meetings

When the economic crisis came crashing in 2009, however, meetings at large took quite the hit. Budgets were being cut across the board, and who knows, maybe even meeting-hatred subconsciously bubbled over the top. Yet, as Bruce MacMillan, the President & CEO of Meeting Professionals International, explains, 2010 bodes for a very different environment for meetings:

American businesses are now planning for the future and looking to grow amidst a significantly shifted business landscape. It’s no secret that one of the first budget casualties of many businesses in 2009 was meetings and events. If customers are not in a buying mood, why have sales meetings or product launches? If employees are being laid-off, why invest in client or staff training classes? Or so the thinking went.

Enter 2010. The budget cuts and lay-offs have been made and it’s time to get back to a focus of reviving our businesses. It’s time to reconnect with customers and learn from their newly shaped perspectives. It’s time to share the story of your latest product innovation with the world. It’s time to recognize the performance and support of those team members who delivered for you in the most difficult of business times.

…Many American businesses spent 2009 looking at themselves and inside their organizations to save money. In 2010, successful businesses are returning to a growth imperative by recommitting to those vital human connections that power all of our enterprises.

The changing landscape does not mean that the value from human connections is to be assumed once again, though, and budgets remain tight even for the companies trying to progress after surviving some trying times. This can be easily recognized through Fahmy’s presentation of an array of research showing the increasing demand for a measurable return on investment. She provides the particularly daunting survey from MPI’s FutureWatch 2010, and finds that, for the second consecutive year, “more than 70 percent of organizations are using objective benchmarks to track the value of their meetings and events—a sure sign that event ROI measurement as a trend is here to stay.”

This change in affairs is further exhibited by the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI), as they explain how “industry professionals are paying more attention to ROI and outcome measurement, especially now that budgets are tighter and meetings are coming under continued scrutiny,” and that they are feeling a substantial increase in pressure to tangibly attest for an event’s success.

Accountability to Innovation

This is fantastic news for any hater of meetings, as added accountability will bring about better meetings on its own as companies increasingly analyze and assess what they are getting out of them. Furthermore, as Fahmy argues in a separate post, this environment of increasing pressure is a powerful harbinger for innovation. Obsolete barriers will be exposed and broken down, and planners will further experiment with how they can best yield the maximum return on the investment from the time and energy of so many people.

Better meetings focus the collective time and energy of the group into rewards to be reaped, whereas far too many meetings seem to only lead to patience shot and resentment springing from the wasted time and added aggravation. There is a great opportunity cost from this, both for companies with employees inefficiently using time as well as for the employees themselves who put so much stress on their sanity as they grit and bear a never ending string of poorly run meetings.

Our 30 Days of Better Meetings campaign is but part of our effort to eliminate ‘unproductive’ meetings, and to do this, we’re focusing on arming you with facts, statistics, and insights that will help you take back your weekend. If you can successfully take back your time through better meetings, your company will be in a much better position to leverage your ideas and dreams into concrete value, and we are aiming to lead on this quest to innovate better ways to do so.

Now, doesn’t that sound like quite the project for a company striving to outlive, outsmart, and outdream?