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We’ve all heard people show their importance and value to

the organization by crowing about how many meetings they have to attend.

YEAH, BUT ...

“I don’t want to get everyone up to speed individually.I just want to broadcast my message and be done with it.”

First of all, look around the room the next time you have a “mandatory” meeting. There is always someone missing for some socially acceptable reason—illness, travel, etc.—so you rarely get everybody anyway. And even if you do you don’t always reach people. Some people get a lot out of meetings. Others are checked out. So there is always a give-and-take in an organization as people cross-train one another, cover for one another, and so forth. At the same time, if you’re the type of employee who constantly needs to be brought up to speed, in a ROWE you need to fix that. Part of getting results means getting the information you need whether you’re in the office or not. There is a big accountability jump when people work in a ROWE.

We’ve all watched as people have abused scheduling software like Outlook to override common sense.

So you put the results first. When an invitation to meet pops up in a ROWE it’s yet another opportunity to take part in that constant, probing conversation about results. What are the results we’re trying to drive? How does this meeting at this time with these people drive those results? Who really needs to be in this meeting? Does this meeting even need to take place or can we resolve it via e-mail?

When you hold a meeting in a ROWE, you have to be very specific about what the meeting is for, what people are specifically expected to contribute, what they are going to take away from the meeting, and how all of this helps drive concrete, articulated results. When you do schedule someone you have to say, “Here is what I need you there for. Here is how long it should take. Here is what outcome we should get.” And then you have to give the person you’re scheduling the chance to push back. They can say, “I hear you, but I’m not the right person.” Or, “I can help you with that but what if I were to give you X and Y ahead of time so we can spend more time in the meeting collaborating rather than downloading information to each other.”

What ends up happening in a ROWE is that the number of meetings goes down and the number of people attending meetings goes down, but collaboration and teamwork actually go up. The reason is that people are more engaged during the time they are together. People prioritize their work. They become focused on what they need from people. And you actually learn more about your teammates and business partners than in the past because you actively try to figure out how you work best together. One of the ironies of a ROWE is that when people have less time with one another they make those interactions more purposeful and meaningful.

This change in meetings culture comes very naturally to some people. They embrace it and welcome it and it doesn’t take them out of their comfort zone. For others, not having as many meetings or being forced to question meetings can be more difficult. We have developed a culture of consensus-building and teamwork in corporate life that is very comforting to some people. There are those who like being the tenth person in the overstaffed meeting that only needs three people. They like knowing a lot about what is happening in the organization even if not all of it has anything to do with their jobs. They like to add encouragement (or discouragement) to the group. In other words, they like to meet.

But we would challenge people to look carefully at how effective meetings are.

Do you really need every team member’s input to move a project forward?

Do you really need everyone in the organization to be “up to speed” on every decision?

Do you really have to be together to work together?

There aren’t any last-minute fire drills.

Every corporation has its own internal language for bullshit.