Leda Writes for Fintech Futures: You’ve been doing meetings wrong

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she turns her attention to the interminable nature of meetings.

So much of life in banking is consumed by meetings. Meetings about meetings, post-meeting meetings, action meetings, outcome meetings and of course the meetings themselves. There’s a lot of wasted time. Meetings are essential. They’re how you discuss, align, negotiate, resolve and progress the business. It’s where decisions are made and advice is received. So long as everyone involved came prepared to do all of those things. But that’s rarely the case.

Bankers waste time, their own time, each others time and the startups time by pretending that meetings will solve problems and push issues forward just by happening. It doesn’t. And then another meeting is required to find out why. There are only three meetings that matter. The one where someone asks for something the other party can give or make happen. The one where two parties come together to do something necessary to progress work. And the one where nothing gets done and everyone’s time is wasted.

That’s it.

If the meeting doesn't fit the first two types then you can say no. If your role is unclear then just don’t take the meeting. If there’s no value to you then don’t take the meeting. All you need is a whiteboard a problem and the people needed to make the decision equipped with a question that needs an answer.

Everything else is just a waste of time.

Read the whole story at Fintech Futures.