The Real Effectiveness Of Meeting

In an era of continuous technological change and disruption, the traditional face to face meeting model of the 19th century becomes archaic when compared to the potential benefits realised through effective team meetings in virtual settings.

Writing for the BRW, D'Angelo Fisher claims that often in today's tedious organizations, meetings are held as a 'matter of habit and not because action is required or outcome desired'. This begs the question as to the rationale behind meetings, their operational effectiveness and whether transending physical meetings to the intranet, internal knowledge mangement portals or even SMS texting is an effective way to challenge the status quo.

Fisher proclaims that "government is the meeting junkie's nirvana" and that "rarely is the focus on questioning the meetings culture that pervades business". By saying this, he is imparting that in todays converging world, meetings are more of a capitulation to small talk rather than getting things done - as traditional management texts would call it.

For this very reason - its often without much surprise that meetings "that occur for the sake of it are a drain on time, productivity and morale" and that management of todays organistions need to break the "nexus of meetings".


To counteract this paradigm, management of today's organisations need to break the "nexus of meetings" by contemplating the use of virtually supported technologies that facilitate the purpose of a meeting and keeps it simple stupid. Rarely do complicated face to face meetings result in fruitful activities or organistional imperatives that sustain the business in the first place. For this very reason, its acceptable to assert that the key to the network economy of today is to adopt new technologies in the web and mobile space so as to effectively disseminate information through the right chaneels and right people. Even Fisher agrees that "even mildly interesting information imparted in these meetings be distributed by alternative means, such as email or intranet".

With this in context, we came across an excellent article in the UK Guardian titled "Do We Have To Meet This Way" that identities that "businesses waste an average of 20% of their payroll on bad meetings". Obviously, its important to rub flesh here and there but the new paradigm in meetings will be virtual.