No matter how many meeting rooms you've got, it always seems like it's never enough.
And you know who else felt that frustration?
The folks over at Shopify.
Back in January 2023, they kicked off this cool initiative called 'Chaos Monkey' to get rid of all recurring meetings of 3+ people, and bring back No-Meeting-Wednesday so employees could focus on “Getting Shit Done”.
And guess what?
They crushed it.
The company managed to ditch a whopping 12,000 meetings.
But they didn't stop there.
Recently, they took it up a notch by introducing a tool that shows the cold, hard cash wasted in meetings.
Integrated into their calendar app, this tool takes into account things like average salary data, meeting durations, and the number of attendees to figure out how much money the company has to shell out for all those meetings.
Depending on different factors, a 30-minute session with three employees can be somewhere between $700 to $1,600.
But wait, if a C-suite executive decides to join in, the price jumps up to $2,000.
So, you’ve got to keep that in mind when planning the meeting.
Jeff Hoffmeister, the Shopify CFO, is all about being ruthless when it comes to calendar invites.
He’s aiming to save 322,000 hours and dodge 474,000 events this year.
Quite impressive, right?
“No one at Shopify would expense a $500 dinner, but lots and lots of people spend way more than that in meetings without ever making a decision.”- Kaz Nejatian, COO
It's not just Shopify battling the meeting madness.
You've got Zapier rocking their "Getting Stuff Done" week and Twilio with their cool "Think Week."
Oh, and let's not forget Moveline's product team that sets aside Tuesdays for their super productive "Maker Day" – a chance to dive into problem-solving without the constant meeting distractions.
Useless meetings are Enemy No 1.
Each time we switch from deep work to a meeting and back, our brains need time to readjust to the new context and we can’t fully immerse ourselves in the task at hand.
According to a University of California Irvine study, “it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.”
“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.” - David Lynch
Shallow thinking produces shallow ideas, along with bad decisions and missed opportunities.
Imagine Van Gogh trying to paint Starry Night while getting interrupted every 40 minutes by a meeting.
Your most scarce resource isn’t your time or money.
It’s your attention.
There’s a reason why we say paying attention.
Treat it like your money.
Save it, invest it, and spend it where it matters most.
“This meeting could have been an email,” is an expression that I’d argue has crossed everyone’s mind at least once.
Let's face it, nobody signs up to work for a company just to spend their whole day stuck in meetings.
That's where the Shopify Cost Calculator comes in handy, reminding us all that time equals money.
I'm absolutely loving Shopify's bold move of putting a price tag on meetings.
It encourages employees to be more thoughtful about which meetings they join, cutting down on those pointless ones.
So, if we have to spend time in meetings, let's think twice about it.
Time is money, after all.
Now, it's your turn – how much are your meetings costing you?
PS. Do you struggle to set yourself apart from your competitors? Does your tone of voice lack a little personality? Either way, get in touch and I’ll help you become remarkable. Or get more communication advice that doesn't suck here.
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