Opinion | Meeting adjourned; but not before a lot of time is wasted

There is little doubt that one of the biggest time-wasters in the business world is brought about by meetings. Of course such time-wasting is hardly exclusive to the corporate world; the government bureaucracy, for example, can win any meeting-holding contest. However, they are spending other folk's money so this is unfair competition.

I've been thinking about meetings because my company's weekly management meeting last week was accomplished well within an hour despite a reasonably full agenda. No one likes a smug chronicler of these events so let me admit that others have lasted longer.

Anyway, I've always thought that one of the advantages of running your own business is that you can control the length of meetings. I am tempted to make the unscientific observation that there is a direct inverse relationship between the length of meetings and the productivity of the organisations that hold them.

This not an argument for abolishing meetings or arbitrarily curtailing their length because a great deal of good comes out of human interaction, not least when complex and controversial plans have to be defended in person. However, we humans seem to be designed to talk too much and when we are in groups we are all too easily diverted.

I used to work on a British Sunday newspaper that held two big editorial conferences per week. The first, held on a Wednesday, lasted the longest because we were under less pressure and the meeting became an opportunity for various bigwigs to display their erudition and ability to make wry remarks. Working on a daily newspaper, with far greater time pressure and far more work to be accomplished, I found editorial meetings to be briefer and more productive.

Although journalists are much mocked for their lax ways and a myriad of other faults, trust me on this: they can be exempted from accusations of rampant inefficiency in getting the job done.