T I m e m a n a g e m e n t

F U L LY 2 5 P E R C E N T
to 50 percent of management time is
spent in meetings of all kinds. These may be one-on-one
meetings, brief meetings in the hallway or while going in
and out of the office, or more formal sit-down meetings in
an office or a meeting room. Unfortunately, 50 percent or
more of meeting time is wasted. Meetings consume enor-
mous amounts of time and produce little lasting value.
However, meetings are also a key management tool and
must be used effectively.
Calculate the Meeting Cost 
Make sure that you have a good reason for calling or
attending any meeting. Look upon each meeting as a busi-
ness investment. Look upon a meeting as carrying a cost in
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managerial and staff time and wages. Take the combined
hourly pay of the people in those meetings and realize that
you need to get a return on your investment of this amount
of money. 
If you have ten people in a room who earn an average of $50
per hour, then it is going to cost $500 out of the bank account
of the company for a one-hour meeting. If someone wanted to
spend $500 on a project and came to you for approval, you
would want to know what the company would get from this
expense. You would probably want to think about it for a while
before you approved it. You might even demand more infor-
mation and details before you are comfortable authorizing an
expenditure of this size. Treat each meeting the same way.
Avoid unnecessary meetings. Always ask if this meeting
has to be held at all. Whenever a meeting is unnecessary, it
is necessary not to have the meeting. If you personally don’t
need to attend the meeting, then don’t attend. If you are
organizing the meeting, ask yourself who is essential to the
meeting, and invite only those people. Refrain from inviting
people who don’t need to be there just to make them feel
good or important.