Meeting overload often has psychological reasons: the time guzzlers at work

FOMO, selfishness, busyness, habits - all lead to unnecessary meetings. Meeting norms can reduce the time wasted and bring the organization's goals into focus.

An Editorial of the FOM Magazine

The fact that meetings can be an enormous time eater is something we all experience again and again in our everyday professional lives.

But why is that actually the case?

A study published in the Harvard Business Review titled "The psychology behind meeting overload" analyzed this issue from a psychological perspective and identified six major reasons for the high meeting load in many organizations:

Time Eater 1: Meeting FOMO

Meeting FOMO ("Fearof Missing out") means that colleagues are often present in meetings who are not actually needed there.

FOMO drives people not to turn down meeting invitations. After all, something important could be decided during the meeting. And what would colleagues - and especially superiors - think if you were not present at the meeting?

The result is too many meeting participants who waste their time and unnecessarily drag out the meeting.

Time Eater 2: Selfish Urgency

People tend to prioritize their own concerns.

As a result, meetings are often called for topics that are not currently a priority and therefore unnecessarily take up resources from the perspective of the overall organization.

However, the view of the meeting organizers themselves is different: They think their meeting has priority over other concerns.

An example: The whole department is working on a project deadline and now, of all times, a planning meeting for the summer party is to take place.

Presumably, the meeting is a waste of time for 95 percent of the meeting participants! But not for the organizers of the summer party.

HR managers should then ask themselves what is more important at that moment: the project or the summer party?

Time Eater 3: Deadline Meetings

Project managers often call meetings to set deadlines.

Their logic: if a deadline is agreed upon face-to-face, all parties involved feel more committed to the deadline.

In fact, an email would absolutely suffice!

Time eater 4: Busyness

A day full of meetings feels productive to many people. After all, people meet and discuss.

But if meetings are called solely to create this feeling of busyness, they are a waste of time. Because busyness does not equal business!

Time eater 5: Review meetings

When review meetings are used to discuss improvements for future projects or agree on next steps, they can be quite productive and move the organization forward.

But that's exactly what doesn't happen in many of the so-called review meetings. Instead, they often serve the sole purpose of telling others about our successes.

They are then a mere show stage for one's own ego gratification - and thus a waste of time!

Time eater 6: Habit

When regular meetings become a habit, eventually no one questions their real usefulness.

Do you really need the daily sales meeting or is a weekly meeting enough?

The benefits of a regular meeting can change over time. For example, it may make sense for a new sales team to meet every day. But do they still need it after a month of training?

If meetings become obsolete over time, don't stick with them out of habit.

FOMs establish meeting norms and prevent wasted time

The study shows that meetings are often called for psychological reasons rather than organizational necessity.

Managers should stop such meetings for time and cost reasons.

But managers, too, are just people who are ultimately also driven by psychological tendencies.

That's why standards and tools are needed! FOMs were sometimes developed to keep the human psyche in check:

Attendee management: FOMs force organizers to think carefully about who should attend the meeting and why when organizing the meeting. This reduces meeting FOMO because everyone present is there for a clearly defined reason. Those who are not needed are not invited in the first place.

Meeting objectives: Because each FOM has a clear objective, managers can either completely prevent or postpone redundant meetings such as deadline meetings, review meetings, or low-priority meetings.

Minutes: The results of a FOM are documented. So if it is found that meetings are not producing concrete results, they are eliminated. This reduces busyness and habit meetings in particular.

Agenda templates: Each FOM has a pre-agreed agenda that defines the content of the meeting, sets the time frame, and communicates expectations to participants. The agenda thus also gives participants the opportunity to prepare specifically for meetings. And it gives managers the opportunity to stop meetings without clear objectives.

The basic idea behind the FOMs addresses precisely the problem described in the study: Meetings are often called for psychological rather than practical reasons and are thus often superfluous.

FOMs therefore set organizational meeting norms, giving meetings clear objectives and a defined framework.

How do you avoid unnecessary meetings in your organization? Do you use FOM software for this? We look forward to your input. Write to us at contact@fom-magazin.de.