There's a special kind of silence that falls over a meeting room when somebody asks:

“So, what have we actually decided?”

Everyone looks at the person taking notes.

The person taking notes looks at the agenda.

The agenda offers no assistance whatsoever.

After forty-five minutes, six coffees and a detailed discussion about something that happened last Thursday, the team reaches a conclusion.

They need another meeting.

Excellent work, everyone.

Same time next week?

The calendar invitation nobody wanted

It begins innocently.

Someone has a question.

Instead of asking the person who knows the answer, they arrange a meeting.

Naturally, they invite everybody who might possibly have an opinion.

The manager.

The assistant manager.

Someone from accounts.

Two colleagues who attended a similar meeting last month.

And Dave, because Dave was copied into the original email.

Dave has no idea why he's there.

But he's brought a notebook, so at least he looks committed.

Twenty minutes later, the group is still discussing the background.

Nobody has reached the actual question.

And Dave is wondering whether anyone would notice if he left.

The £300 conversation

Let's do some hypothetical maths.

Imagine six people attend a one-hour meeting.

For illustration, suppose their average total employment cost to the business is £50 per hour, including relevant employer costs.

That's £300 of staff time devoted to the meeting.

It doesn't mean the company has written a separate £300 cheque.

 And the actual cost will depend on the people involved.

But it does illustrate something important.

Meetings consume resources.

A £300 meeting that resolves a major customer problem could be excellent value.

A £300 meeting that ends with everyone agreeing to think about the problem some more.

Less impressive.

The question isn't whether meetings cost money.

It's whether the outcome justifies the time.

Some meetings are worth every minute

Before we abolish meetings entirely and communicate exclusively through increasingly alarming email chains, there's something worth remembering.

Good meetings can be enormously valuable.

A difficult customer situation may need several people working together.

A new employee might benefit from a proper conversation rather than a collection of instructions.

A complicated project may require discussion, disagreement and a decision.

And sometimes bringing people together is exactly what prevents misunderstandings.

The problem isn't meetings.

It's treating every question as though it deserves one.

There's a difference between collaboration and assembling an audience.

The three-question meeting test

Before sending the next calendar invitation, try asking three questions.

1. What decision needs to be made?

If you can't explain the purpose in one sentence, the meeting may not be ready to happen.

2. Who genuinely needs to contribute?

Invite the people who can provide essential information or make the decision.

Everybody else can receive a short update afterwards.

3. What should exist when the meeting ends?

A decision?

An agreed plan?

A resolved problem?

A clear owner for the next action?

If the intended outcome is simply “have a discussion”, ask whether a discussion is really necessary.

Sometimes it is.

But at least know why you're having it.

Twenty-five minutes is a perfectly respectable meeting

Somewhere along the way, businesses developed a peculiar attachment to thirty-minute and sixty-minute calendar slots.

As though every subject naturally requires exactly half an hour or a full hour.

It doesn't.

A quick decision might take ten minutes.

A focused project update could take twenty.

A complex discussion might genuinely need ninety.

The duration should follow the work, not the default setting on the calendar.

Try scheduling a twenty-five-minute meeting instead of thirty.

Or fifty instead of sixty.

Give people time to prepare for whatever comes next.

And when the decision has been made, finish.

You don't receive extra points for using every minute.

The person who never gets a word in

Here's another reason to rethink how meetings work.

The loudest person isn't necessarily the one with the best idea.

Some people think aloud.

Others prefer a little time to consider a question.

Some employees are comfortable disagreeing with the boss in front of colleagues.

Others would rather discuss a difficult point privately.

A well-run meeting makes room for useful contributions without forcing everyone to perform.

Sharing a clear question beforehand can help.

So can asking quieter participants for their views without putting them on the spot.

And if someone has nothing relevant to contribute, perhaps they didn't need to attend in the first place.

Dave would certainly appreciate that.

The meeting that finally earns its keep

Imagine a small Cambridgeshire business trying a different approach.

Instead of holding its usual weekly meeting because it's Tuesday, the team starts with a clear purpose.

What needs deciding?

What problems require help?

What information does everyone genuinely need?

Routine updates are shared separately.

The people responsible for decisions make them.

Actions are recorded clearly.

And when there's nothing that requires a meeting, nobody holds one.

The calendar suddenly contains something unusual.

Time to do the work everyone has been talking about.

That doesn't mean meetings disappear.

It means the ones that remain have a reason to exist.

One small rebellion for next week

Look at your calendar.

Find one recurring meeting.

Ask whether it still serves the purpose it was created for.

Could it be shorter?

Could fewer people attend?

Could routine updates be shared another way?

Could it happen less often?

Or and here's a radical thought - could you cancel it when there's nothing important to discuss?

You don't need to launch a company-wide productivity initiative.

You just need one meeting that's better than it was last week.

And if that works, perhaps try another.

Just don't organise a meeting to celebrate.