Supermanagers TLDR - Meeting Bloat

What is causing this problem across organizations?

Manuela Barcenas
September 19, 2024

In recent years, especially after the pandemic and the rise of remote work, the frequency of meetings has increased across organizations, leading to what’s referred to "meeting bloat."

This problem has caught the attention of most leaders and C-suite executives due to its negative impact on productivity.

What is causing meeting bloat across organizations? The convenience of scheduling virtual meetings has led to their overuse, often hindering real work from getting done.

“Back when everybody was in offices and that was the main way of working, there was this artificial limit on how many meetings could happen within a company because there are only so many meeting rooms.

Since that limit was taken away, everybody has the power to begin a meeting anywhere and usurp time from different people within the organization. If you think about that, that's a really dangerous thing.”

Aydin Mirzaee, CEO at Fellow

At Fellow, we care about helping organizations improve productivity. That’s why we recently hosted a C-suite panel discussion where a group of executives shared their strategies and insights on reducing meeting bloat and creating more effective meeting policies.

If you missed it, you can watch the full roundtable discussion here. 🍿

In today’s newsletter, we’ll share key takeaways from the panel and a meeting policy template for organization leaders who are ready to make a change.

5 Tactics to tackle meeting bloat, according to our C-suite panelists

Adopt a Pre-Read Policy: Ensure that all attendees read the necessary materials before the meeting. This not only makes meetings more productive but also reduces the time spent catching everyone up.
Use Structured Frameworks: Implement meeting templates to keep meetings focused and outcome-driven.
Limit Attendees: Avoid inviting too many people to meetings. Focus on those who are essential to the discussion to keep the meeting efficient and to avoid the distraction of multitasking.
Embrace Asynchronous Work: For globally distributed teams, asynchronous communication is key. Consider using project management tools with written records to track team progress.
Evaluate and Iterate: Regularly assess the effectiveness of your meeting policies. Use surveys and feedback loops to identify areas of improvement and adapt as necessary.

Developing an org-wide meeting policy

Leaders in our roundtable had one thing in common––they all created meeting policies as the first step to combat org-wide meeting bloat.

A strong meeting policy not only sets guidelines for when and why meetings should occur, but also establishes best practices like setting agendas, limiting attendees, and ensuring that decisions are made efficiently.

By introducing these structured approaches, organizations can streamline their communication, reduce meeting overload, and allow employees to focus on meaningful work.

“You've got people at various levels of maturity around how to operate meetings and how to interact with people, and you want to give them the right toolkit so they can be more effective.”

Jeffrey Sullivan, CTO at Consensus

Inspired by this discussion, we’ve developed a meeting policy template to help leaders implement meaningful change:

🎙️ Supermanagers Podcast Episode – Steven Rogelberg, author of The Surprising Science of Meetings

This episode with Steven Rogelberg, is packed with valuable insights to help you level up. Tune in to hear practical advice on improving meeting dynamics and reducing unnecessary meeting overload.

Here are some key moments you won’t want to miss:

07:30 – An agenda is a story: Steven explains why your agenda should tell a story and how structuring it correctly can keep participants engaged from the start.
11:00 – Fake inclusion in meetings: Learn about the pitfalls of inviting too many attendees and how “social loafing” can hinder participation.
25:30 – You aren’t a good meeting host: Steven reveals the surprising truth that many meeting leaders aren’t as effective as they think—and how to fix it.

Listen to the full episode here and start turning your meetings into a competitive advantage.

Fellow tip of the week

This week’s tip comes from Marquis Murray, CEO at Cirface

“If you've ever felt like your calendar is packed with unnecessary meetings, you're not alone. One of my favorite features in Fellow is the Meeting Guidelines feature set. It helps me keep meetings on track with built-in prompts like the meeting cost calculator, attendee limits, and even no-meeting days.

One feature I find especially useful is the meeting cost calculator. It’s a quick way to see how much time and money meetings are costing—and it makes you think twice about whether everyone really needs to be there.

If you're looking to run more efficient meetings and give your team more time for actual work, setting up Meeting Guidelines is a great place to start.”

Watch Marquis’s walkthrough of the Meeting Guidelines feature set here.

And that’s it for this new issue of the Supermanagers TLDR Newsletter. We hope that the content we curated inspires you to continue growing as a leader.

If you're interested in connecting with like-minded CEOs, COOs, and Executives, send an email to [email protected] to join our exclusive Supermanagers Slack group.

If you enjoyed this issue, share it with a colleague or friend
If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here

Thanks for being part of our community,

Manuela and the Fellow team