Changing your meetings culture with Meetingless Monday Mornings
How a Blue Chip organisation reduced the number of meetings

Have you ever felt the freedom of suddenly having your time as your own? Perhaps waking up on the first Saturday morning after completing major studies, or the first weekend after your child’s sports season is over?

This was the experience for the 250 staff and managers in the Australian offices of a blue chip Corporate client who launched Meetingless Monday Mornings. The new guideline; No meetings scheduled on Mondays until 12.00 noon

Meetingless Monday Mornings (MMM) addressed the burden on people of too many meetings and gave them back half a day a week to work productively in their own time. A survey three months after implementation revealed 91% of staff thought  the initiative was effective

So why did they take this measure, what were the results, and how did they make it work?

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Managers and staff at Harmony Healthcare (name changed for confidentiality) were drowning under a weekly flood of meetings.

On days filled with meetings, managers said they started getting their work done after 5.30 pm, and it was common place for people to begin responding to their 80+ emails well into the evening. One executive described a week in which she had just one hour not scheduled in meetings.

A number of measures were taken to create more awareness of good meeting practices, but the volume of meetings persisted. MMM was then conceived as a practical and symbolic change to the people’s meeting scheduling habits and norms. It gave people back work time they were in control of. It helped people find other ways of getting work done outside of meetings. And it challenged whether all the meetings previously being scheduled are essential to business success.

 

The initiative was prototyped for a 3 month trial, supported by the Senior Leadership team. A survey after 3 months revealed huge support. 91% of staff believed that MMM was an effective initiative.

 

As a result, MMM were continued permanently. At the same time, training and coaching were provided to help middle and senior managers running effective meetings using the FAST meetings system.

Whilst these initiatives are helping Harmony Health to improve their Meetings ROI, more importantly they are helping mitigate against the growing burden and pressure on people of too many meetings.

As one Executive member said

“I love Meetingless Monday mornings! After two days off work, the last thing I want to do is come in and be bombarded by requests from other people.  The three hours I get to myself each Monday morning give me time to sort through my schedule, and plan my week accordingly.  It helps me go through my week with more direction and organisation.”

What now

FAST Meetings works with organisations of all sizes to address their Meetings Culture and help them get more value from all their meetings. Contact us to find out how you can increase the productivity and decrease the number of meetings in your organisation.