How to Escape from Our Meeting Addiction

A four-step approach to cut back dependence

A four-step approach to cut back meeting dependence

The more we run away from meeting, the more we crave for them.— Pic by Luke Stackpoole

We have a love-hate relationship with meetings.

Most of us want to get rid of them — they drive frustration and waste our time. However, when we don’t invite someone to a meeting, that person feels left out. Sounds familiar? It feels hard to overcome this addiction though— the more we run away from meetings, the more we crave for them.

Meetings are a necessary evil.

Teams thrive when they work well together — collectively, people generate better solutions, make better decisions, and improve performance. Conversely, executives spend between 25–30% of their working hours in meetings — that’s a lot of time that can easily be wasted when meetings become purposeless.

A prune-and-crop approach can help cut back meeting dependence.

You might not get rid of the addiction, but you can turn it into a healthier habit. This four-step approach will help you: cut, shor…