A member of the Microproject-team recently sent me a link from an article at entrepreneur.com stating that meetings cost US economy a staggering 37 billion dollars per year. By coincidence I met with another friend, a mentor really, and we happened on the subject of meetings.

She told me that she’d recently brought an unbalanced budget at the public institution where she worked into balance and showed profit for her unit in the same year simply by cutting down on meeting time and by making the meetings that did take place more efficient. She saved somewhere around 150.000 USD in a year with a few very simple measures like stopping the regular weekly staff meeting and encouraging staff to meet in smaller groups impromptu to solve the actual problem that each team faced.

It is interesting that meetings have in such a significant way become markers for showing yourselves and others that things are indeed GETTING DONE. It is as if booking a meeting in itself will solve whatever problem that might be on the agenda. And of course they can. But we all also know that they are as likely not to. Solve anything that is. Actually, many meetings are rather detrimental to the cause discussed. Meetings are very often completely social functions where the same old people get to shoot their mouths off pushing the meeting OT within minutes.

The problem is that meetings are necessary. Both to discuss a pre-set agenda as well as to solve problems using the energy of the group gathered. The meeting between humans is a necessary way to develop products, relations and business in general and without meetings where visons are set and agendas drawn up things would simply get less done.

The guys at 37 signals wrote in Rework that “meetings are toxic”. Agreed, they can be. But to do completely without them? The article in entrepreneur.com lists some tips and tricks on how to make meetings more efficient (as does Rework) but the key word here seems to be limit yourself to what is actually at hand in terms of the agenda, to limit the time allowed to be spent on the meeting and to keep the group small and balanced. In effect what most people seem to agree on is that meeting culture, in order to work as a positive factor, needs to become smaller.

We’ve championed the idea of “Small Is Beautiful” here for some time, smaller economies, smaller groups, closer to home. Why not go that route with our meetings as well. A maximum of 15 minutes to solve one issue allowing all participants equal time and noting other issues that might come up to solve them at a later date. That way making things smaller might free, time, energy and resources to actually achieve more. Once again an example of how micro could be the way to macro.