Meetings reduced from 150 minutes to 40 minutes

23 Feb 2021 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:28

In this short talk, the speaker recounts the experience of Steve, a deputy in a small government department who was asked to chair a weekly Friday meeting while his boss was on a four‑week leave. The meetings originally lasted about two and a half hours (≈150 minutes) and were unfocused. Steve introduced a disciplined structure: he started the meeting exactly on time, eliminated off‑topic tangents, kept discussions centered on concrete decisions, and assigned clear action items with owners and deadlines. As a result, the meetings consistently finished in about 40 minutes, with participants leaving knowing exactly what had been decided and what they needed to do. The boss, upon returning, was unaware of the change, but the team advocated for Steve to continue running the meetings because of the marked increase in productivity and effectiveness. The anecdote highlights practical techniques for dramatically reducing meeting length while improving outcomes.

Chapters

I have a friend called Steve. He's second in charge of a small section in a government department, and they have a meeting every Friday afternoon. Really bad time to have a meeting. They run for 2 and a half hours, and his boss runs the meeting. One day, his boss called Steve into the office and said he was going on leave for 4 weeks and Steve would need to chair the meetings. And so he did. Steve ran the meetings and got them down to 40 minutes. But there were bonuses. Not only were they shorter, but they were really focused. Everyone knew exactly what had been decided, and they knew exactly what they needed to do. So when the boss came back, unbeknownst to Steve, the other people in the section went to the boss and said, boss, you need to let Steve run the meetings. He does them really well. And so Steve still runs those meetings today. What does he do? Well, first of all, there's a few things. He starts on time. He doesn't wait for anyone. And so after the first time of doing that, everyone arrives on time. He doesn't allow red herrings. He doesn't allow tangents that aren't focused on the decisions that need to be made. He's really clear about the decisions, and he's clear about the action that needs to be taken by who and by when. So you can really get meetings down markedly. He got them down from 150 minutes to 40 minutes with significantly increased productivity. Productivity and effectiveness.