Office Meetings Aren't A Waste Of Your Time, According To A Professor's Research

2 min read
Monit Khanna
Monit KhannaUpdated on Nov 19, 2019, 19:14 IST

Long meetings can get really boring. Most of the time it just results in unnecessary wastage of time, when more productive things can be done in a day.

But what really goes wrong? A study tries to decipher the mystery behind meetings and whether the time is really wasted.



Meetings can be a source of motivation

A study conducted by professor Patrik Hall at Malmö University in Sweden reveals that meetings that go on for longer durations can help employees to feel more motivated, express their concerns in a workplace and get a resolution for the same. Colleagues being more vocal in a meeting helps them determine a role for themselves.

New roles result in more meetings, fewer resolutions

According to him, new job roles like 'Project Managers' or 'Strategists' have considerably spiked the number of meetings conducted in a workplace. However, even with so many meetings, few resolutions actually get processed. He decided to find the root cause for this conundrum. 

The aforementioned positions take a meetings-intense or a sort of managerial roles that mix the overall equation. He said in a statement that many managers don't know what to do and are unsure of their roles, and just revert back with more meetings to seem productive. 

The meetings also get split to pre-meetings and post meetings that sort of makes the overall time spent in a meeting ambiguous.



Meeting as a therapy amidst power-struggle

The study also shed light on the fact that meetings can be helpful for colleagues as a platform to speak about what is bothering them and be recognised and acknowledged by fellow colleagues. In fact, this can be almost therapeutic. However, even here, the key is if the colleagues in the meeting are at the same level.

When in a meeting with people on the same level, employees can discuss different issues that interest then. On the other hand, having higher-level managers results in a power-struggle that makes the people on the lower tier feel meaningless and people from higher-level dominating.

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