Add Excessive Meeting Syndrome (EMS) to your Business Glossary
EMS Is a fast-growing dysfunctional business practice.
On a recent project, we realized that the company holds an average of 312 meetings a month. As we observed some of these meetings, we quickly noticed that participants engaged in what is known as Circular Conversations. Circular Conversations refer to lengthy debates that that do not develop or progress; the discussion is eventually tabled for another meeting where the same cycle is repeated.
In order to stop the madness of redundancy and improve productivity we used the chart below to help identify when calling a meeting is justified:
Too Much Information (TMI) to your Business Glossary
TMI can distract from the purpose of any professional document or presentation.
During another project we found ourselves faced with an accountant who was generating reports with the purpose of explaining the report. This sounds exactly as complicated as it actually was. These monthly reports literally exceeded 200 pages and she distributed 8-12 copies every month. I am sure their photocopy distributor was a very happy provider!
This accountant’s team of 3 people wasted countless hours and resources preparing reports that hardly anyone read or reviewed. As we began working to simplify the issue, we introduced our “Paper Reduction Act” process or “Save the Trees” Campaign:
- Identify who needs to know which information.
- Is the information available electronically? If not, can it be converted?
- Identify and print KPI’s only and provide an index with hyperlinks to supporting documents.
Monthly reports decreased to 9 pages long and this practice was promoted across other plants. The accountant we worked with was recognized for her efforts in improving the system. Not only did she accept and embrace the change, she became an important advocate and supporter of our endeavors.