Unnecessary meetings can take up large amounts of time that you and your team could be using to get work done. The problem compounds when you consider that multiple team members are at each meeting, it takes time for them to switch back and forth from other tasks, and many meetings take too long because they are poorly planned. 78% of U.S. workers surveyed in 2020 said that the amount of meetings they have is out of control7.
So, before you schedule your next team meeting, should it really be an email?
Here are 5 meetings that are probably better served as emails. And, keep reading for 4 meetings that should stay meetings.
5 Meetings that Should be an Email
- Announcements
If the purpose of your meeting is to make an announcement, then there is a good chance you’d be better served sending it by email. There are some exceptions of course, but most announcements don’t warrant interrupting your whole team. It takes a lot of time and energy for people to switch tasks, and every meeting costs more in labor than even just the time allotted on the calendar.
- Status updates
Do you have a weekly status meeting scheduled even if there aren’t any updates or the updates don’t affect most of the team? Make sure only the people who need the updates get them, and even then, if they aren’t going to change the direction of the project, they can probably be sent by email.
- Asking follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are for clarification and they are important to making sure everyone is working on the same page. However, unless the questions will lead to heated discussion, it can be most productive to clarify in writing, via email or other method, to allow team members to reference it later.
- Early-stage brainstorming
If your team participates in brainstorming, some of the most successful methods include getting everyone to brainstorm individually on their own and then bringing their ideas together later as a group. This gives all members a chance to come up with ideas and might results in new, better ideas from team members who don’t perform as well in a group.
- Any meeting without a clear goal or outcome, or isn’t relevant for everyone in attendance
If your meeting doesn’t have a clear goal, then why are you meeting? If everyone can’t walk away from the meeting saying ‘yes, now I know what to do next’, then you might just be wasting time that would be better spent on other activities.
4 Meetings that Should Stay Meetings
- Discussing complex topics and problem solving
For complicated, multi-faceted topics or issues that might get into heated debate between team members, a meeting can be a great way for you to facilitate and get everyone on the same page. If you’re trying to solve a tricky problem, having the relevant team members all together can help by allowing them to bounce ideas off each other and find a unique solution that fits your needs.
- Starting new projects
If your team is starting a new project, it is important to get everyone together to give them the details, expectations, and time frame. It also gives them an opportunity to ask some questions and understand their part of the project.
- Group brainstorming
Once your team members have had a chance to brainstorm individually, now it’s time to bring them together. There are many brainstorming techniques and some might fit your group better than others. By bringing the group together for this step, you can keep the team on track, remembering there are no bad ideas at the brainstorming stage, because you never know where a good idea will come from!
- Teambuilding opportunities
One meeting type that is an exception to many of these other guidelines is any meeting that can be a teambuilding opportunity. It is important to build cohesion with your team members to help them work together. It could mean that you have meetings specifically for the purpose of team building or there could be other goals to accomplish at the same meeting. Either way, there is still a place for meetings that help your team work better together.
Conclusion
Hopefully this list can help you reduce the number of meetings you and your team must attend, giving you more time to get the real work of your business done. In a survey of workers, most employees preferred meetings early in the week7. Monday and Tuesday were the top choices, which leaves the rest of the week free for you and your team to focus on projects uninterrupted.
By reducing the number of meetings and scheduling them earlier in the week, you can help your team be more productive and spend more time on the tasks you’ve hired them to accomplish. Be sure to check out the further reading below for even more ideas about optimizing your communication flow to suit your organization.
Have you implemented any of these changes? How did it affect your business? Let us know in the comments!
Resources and Further Reading
- Kane, B. (n.d.). Should This Meeting Be an Email? A Handy Flowchart to Help You Decide. Doist. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://blog.doist.com/meeting-vs-email/.
- Harmon, S. (2019, May 16). To Meet Or Email – That Is The Question. Forbes. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/harmoncullinan/2019/05/16/to-meet-or-email-that-is-the-question/?sh=70fd12d250dc.
- Espy, L. (2021, January 5). 5 Common Meetings That Could Have Been an Email. Project Bliss. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://projectbliss.net/meetings-that-could-have-been-an-email/.
- Ellis, C. (2021, March 30). Does That Message Really Need to Be an Email? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2021/03/stop-does-that-message-really-need-to-be-an-email.
- ReclaimAI. (2022, June 10). This Meeting Could Have Been an Email: 9 Examples to Avoid. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://reclaim.ai/blog/this-meeting-could-have-been-an-email.
- Overby, S. (2021, June 18). Hybrid work: 7 signs that meeting should be an email. The Enterprisers Project. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2021/6/hybrid-work-7-signs-meeting-should-be-email.
- Martin, M. (n.d.). The State of Meetings in 2020. Clockwise. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://www.getclockwise.com/blog/the-state-of-meetings-in-2020.
- ReclaimAI. (2021, August 19). No-Meeting Days: Top 4 Advantages & How to Start at Your Company. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://reclaim.ai/blog/no-meeting-day.
