If you’ve been getting the sneaking suspicion that more of your workweek has been hijacked by meetings over the last year, you just might be right. Research conducted a few months into the coronavirus crisis found that workers were attending 13% more meetings, compared to pre-pandemic levels. And many business experts believe that even before the advent of pandemic-spurred remote work, companies were too reliant on meetings. After all, how often have you been stuck in a conference room or video call with the nagging thought that “This could have been an email?”

Carlos Valdes-Dapena, founder and managing principal of Corporate Collaboration Resources, has made it his mission to challenge the conventional wisdom of corporate team-building and wean executives off their overreliance on traditional meetings. A speaker, author and corporate leader with 30 years of experience at organizations including Mars and IBM, Valdes-Dapena uses evidence-based strategies to empower teams to become more connected and productive.

We spoke with Valdes-Dapena about meeting best practices, whether they occur face-to-face or virtually.

Carlos Valdes-Dapena, Corporate Collaboration Resources

Q: In the last year, since many businesses started working remotely, the number of meetings has increased significantly. What do you attribute that rise to?

A: The increase results from three human tendencies: our social nature, fear of failure and ignorance about the effective use of collaboration platforms.

First, people are accustomed to being with each other in offices and used to ongoing, if casual, exposure to teammates and colleagues. The desire to feel connected has fed this uptick in meetings.

Second, we’re all afraid that if we don’t keep talking, keep reviewing what we’re doing, that something important will fall between the cracks. No one wants to fail, especially during a stressful period like a pandemic. So, we keep checking in.

Third, too many people assumed they could cut and paste office-based behaviors and practices into virtual settings. They tried it. It didn’t work. So, not understanding the learning curve involved in becoming effective at virtual collaboration, they just did more of the same.

For all these reasons, we’re seeing more virtual meetings, most of which are ineffective and energy-sapping. That curve, though, has started to shift as all of us become more adept at virtual working.

Q: You’ve said that fewer meetings are the secret to engagement and success. What do you mean by this?

A: We’ve been overdoing meetings for decades. A study I was part of at Mars revealed that Mars managers were spending more than half their time in meetings. Meetings have become the default for sharing information with groups. Despite all the technology available to us, too many people figure it’s easier and safer just to do a data dump to a (virtual) room full of people. It’s mind-numbing to sit through a 50-slide deck packed with words and numbers.

Meetings have also evolved into the default way to get work done when more than one person is involved. If a person has a piece of data a project needs, they get invited to a meeting to provide it. If someone else is suffering from FOMO about an initiative they have nothing to do with, they ask to get invited to the next meeting about it. Thus, meeting rooms are packed with people, many of whom are on the periphery of the work to be done.

The larger a meeting is and the longer it goes, the more disengaging it becomes. The best meetings are focused on co-creation of things like plans, decisions and solutions. They’re not about information-sharing. Effective meetings include only those with an active role to play in the work being done. So, if you limit meetings to those focused on co-creation, the number of meetings goes way down. Then, if you invite only those who will be actively involved, those people cannot help but feel engaged, which leads to being more productive.

Q: Can you give an example of a time when a meeting is a bad idea?

A: I recently worked with a senior vice president who brings his team together for one hour every week to give them a download of what he’s been hearing and thinking about over the past seven days. Invariably, it ends up being 50 minutes of one talking head and 10 very rushed minutes of Q&A. Most of the questions raised in that 10 minutes are answered during the first 50 minutes. But, because everyone is so busy and bored by the information dump, they get distracted, doing their emails or texting instead of listening. So now the boss, much to his frustration, has to repeat himself. What a waste of everyone’s time. An email or a post to a shared team site would have been a better place to start.

Q: What are some best practices for meetings?

A: The most important practice for face-to-face or virtual meetings is using O2 deliverables. I said earlier that effective meetings are built around co-creating tangible outcomes or deliverables. I recommend framing meeting deliverables using the O2 technique where the two O’s stand for objective and opportunity.

The first O – objective – states the kind of deliverable you’ll be working on: a decision, a plan, a solution, etc. Keep this generic, classifying the kind of discussion and thinking you’ll need.

The second O describes the specific opportunity your objective will address. You might be working on a problem of low customer service or controlling raw material costs. Though not essential, it’s most helpful to express your opportunity as a “from-to” statement, e.g., “We will be creating a recommendation (the objective) for how to move from no annual bonuses for hourly employees to a bonus system that includes all our employees regardless of pay grade or level.” The added specificity helps remind people what’s at stake and heightens engagement.

Q: What about virtual meetings? Should there be different conventions for how they work?

A: The basic principles that meetings are best when focused on co-creation and meetings should involve only those with an active role in co-creation apply no matter what. Therefore, the O2 deliverable works regardless of whether meetings are face to face or virtual.

Other practices should change. No more day-long deep-dive meetings, no matter how important. Try to keep meetings to 90 minutes or shorter. Also, create clear agendas and actively facilitate to keep momentum going. A laid-back facilitation approach creates too many awkward silences as participants wait for one another to talk.

Likewise, be willing to step in and redirect someone who’s carrying on too long. In person, we can use body language or gestures to signal growing impatience or discomfort. Over video, those cues don’t work, so be ready to be overt in the spirit of keeping the meeting moving and giving others the chance to speak.

Finally, build in a little unstructured social time at the beginnings and ending of your meetings. As I said, we’re social creatures, and we want to honor that. Allow five minutes at either end of your meetings for people to joke and catch up.