How to have fewer, more effective meetings

Lea Michel, a professor of chemistry and materials science at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the US, loves action-oriented meetings. ‘I feel like they’re the most productive,’ Michel says. ‘We clearly understand what needs to be done and who will do what.’ However, not all workplace meetings are as satisfying, and sometimes there are too many of them. ‘Good meetings make people more engaged with their jobs and help them perform better,’ says Joseph Allen, a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Utah, US. ‘But at the same time, more meetings can lead to fatigue and burnout.’ Allen and his colleagues have described this phenomenon as the meeting load paradox.

If you often run meetings, here are some ways to boost their effectiveness.