The Surprising Science of Meetings

October 8, 2018
Science, yes—but there’s little surprising about this slim, narrow-scope proposal from Rogelberg, a UNC­–Charlotte management and psychology professor. Setting the scene, he observes in the preface that meetings have their upsides—when done well, they provide employees with “organizational democracy” and “buy-in”—but also get a consistently bad rap, and for good reason. In one study, 47% of workers reported meetings as the number-one time-waster in their offices. Rogelberg’s stated goal, then, is to bring a systematic, statistics-based approach to understanding and improving meetings, usable not just in the workplace but in community and religious gatherings as well. How can meetings be more productive—and does science have the answer? One obstacle is that people, according to studies, tend to naturally overestimate their own leadership ability—but, Rogelberg counsels, the typical manager can do better by shortening meetings, inviting fewer participants, keeping the tone positive, and avoiding the “folly” of remote call-ins. Simultaneously sparse and padded, Rogelberg’s work only confirms what the average office worker already knew even without the benefit of scientific confirmation.