What will I learn about: the hidden financial and psychological costs of unproductive meetings, and why traditional corporate gatherings might be draining your resources?

Understand the hidden financial and psychological costs of unproductive meetings, and why traditional corporate gatherings might be draining your resources.

What will I learn about: why meeting leaders consistently overestimate their own effectiveness, and how utilizing anonymous employee feedback can reveal areas for necessary improvement?

Discover why meeting leaders consistently overestimate their own effectiveness, and how utilizing anonymous employee feedback can reveal areas for necessary improvement.

What will I learn about: act as a servant leader during meetings to effectively manage time, redirect off-topic conversations, and foster an atmosphere of constructive debate?

Learn how to act as a servant leader during meetings to effectively manage time, redirect off-topic conversations, and foster an atmosphere of constructive debate.

What will I learn about: Recognize the impact of Parkinson's Law on your schedule and intentionally shorten your meetings so tasks don't unnecessarily expand to fill a standard one-hour block?

Recognize the impact of Parkinson's Law on your schedule and intentionally shorten your meetings so tasks don't unnecessarily expand to fill a standard one-hour block.

What will I learn about: how unconventional tactics, such as choosing highly specific start times or utilizing 15-minute huddles, can eliminate tardiness and boost overall efficiency?

Find out how unconventional tactics, such as choosing highly specific start times or utilizing 15-minute huddles, can eliminate tardiness and boost overall efficiency.

The Surprising Science of Meetings

How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance

Steven G. Rogelberg

★ 4.3 / 5(313 ratings)

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Categories:

Management & Leadership Productivity

If You're Curious About These Questions...

You should listen to this audiobook

💡Have you ever wondered why most managers rate their own meetings as excellent, while their teams secretly consider them a massive waste of time?
💡What if you could slash your meeting time in half while actually increasing your team’s creative output and engagement?
💡Are you curious about the 'silent' psychological technique that can stop a single person from dominating the room and finally unlock everyone’s best ideas?

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Key Takeaways from The Surprising Science of Meetings

✓Understand the hidden financial and psychological costs of unproductive meetings, and why traditional corporate gatherings might be draining your resources.
✓Discover why meeting leaders consistently overestimate their own effectiveness, and how utilizing anonymous employee feedback can reveal areas for necessary improvement.
✓Learn how to act as a servant leader during meetings to effectively manage time, redirect off-topic conversations, and foster an atmosphere of constructive debate.
✓Recognize the impact of Parkinson's Law on your schedule and intentionally shorten your meetings so tasks don't unnecessarily expand to fill a standard one-hour block.
✓Find out how unconventional tactics, such as choosing highly specific start times or utilizing 15-minute huddles, can eliminate tardiness and boost overall efficiency.

Learning Tools

Reinforce what you learned from The Surprising Science of Meetings

Mind Map

The Surprising Science of Meetings

The Cost of Meetings+

Effective Leadership+

Time Management+

Crafting Agendas+

Optimizing Attendees+

Enhancing Creativity+

Cultivating Positivity+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 8

Why do meeting leaders often overestimate the quality and effectiveness of their own meetings?

A. They receive artificially positive feedback from subordinates who fear retaliation.
B. The more a person talks in a meeting, the more positively they tend to rate the experience.
C. They focus on completing the agenda rather than measuring actual employee engagement.
D. They evaluate the meeting based on its length rather than the decisions made.

Question 2 of 8

How does Parkinson's Law apply to the length of typical workplace meetings?

A. Meetings will inevitably run over their scheduled time unless strictly moderated by the leader.
B. The time required to make a group decision increases exponentially with every additional attendee.
C. The discussion will automatically expand or contract to fit the time frame scheduled for it.
D. Shorter meetings result in lower quality decisions due to a lack of adequate deliberation time.

Question 3 of 8

According to the text, what is a crucial step for creating a highly effective meeting agenda?

A. Reusing a standardized template to ensure consistency across all departmental meetings.
B. Placing the easiest and quickest items at the top of the agenda to build early momentum.
C. Ensuring the agenda is distributed at least one full week in advance of the meeting.
D. Sourcing agenda items directly from the attendees and ranking them by importance.

Question 4 of 8

Based on John Kello's research, what is the ideal maximum number of attendees for a decision-making meeting?

A. 5
B. 7
C. 10
D. 12

Question 5 of 8

Why do traditional verbal meeting formats often fail to solicit unique insights from attendees?

A. Attendees tend to withhold unique knowledge and only discuss information that is already common knowledge.
B. Extroverted team members naturally talk over introverted members who hold dissenting opinions.
C. The typical one-hour time limit is too short for deep brainstorming to occur.
D. Leaders rarely leave enough time for a dedicated Q&A session at the end of the meeting.

Question 6 of 8

What technique does the author recommend to overcome the failure of traditional meetings to generate original ideas?

A. The round-robin speaking method
B. Brainwriting
C. The daily huddle
D. Servant leadership

Question 7 of 8

Which of the following unconventional tactics is recommended to dispel negative energy and boost focus during a meeting?

A. Implementing a strict 'no small talk' rule to respect everyone's time.
B. Asking attendees to verbally share their current stress levels at the start of the meeting.
C. Providing small toys like play dough or puzzles for attendees to fidget with.
D. Dimming the lights in the conference room to create a calmer environment.

Question 8 of 8

Why does the author advise against having remote attendees join meetings via traditional telephone calls?

A. Audio delays frequently cause people to accidentally interrupt one another.
B. Telephone attendees feel anonymous, which encourages them to reduce their effort and contribute less.
C. The lack of visual cues makes it harder for the leader to read the room's body language.
D. Phone connections are often unstable, leading to wasted time troubleshooting tech issues.

The Surprising Science of Meetings — Full Chapter Overview

1Recommendation
2Today's meetings are costly, lengthy, and joyless.
3Strong leaders serve others and fully own responsibility for their leadership skills.
4Boost meeting efficiency by making them shorter.
5Meeting agendas need careful design to be truly effective.
6To run effective meetings where everyone stays engaged, invite no more than seven people total overall.
7Conventional meetings are poor at drawing out attendees' unique insights.
8Improve your meetings by clearing away negative energy.

The Surprising Science of Meetings Summary & Overview

The Surprising Science of Meetings (2019) explores what goes wrong in our work meetings and reveals how to transform them into positive, productive experiences. Drawing on the latest scientific insights from the world of business psychology, these blinks are an indispensable guide to making team meetings more efficient.

Who Should Listen to The Surprising Science of Meetings?

Leaders hoping to take their meetings to the next level
Entrepreneurs looking for fresh business insights
Psychology buffs seeking a new angle on work culture

About the Author: Steven G. Rogelberg

Steven G. Rogelberg is the Chancellor's Professor at the University of North Carolina and Secretary General of the Alliance of Organizational Psychology. Rogelberg’s research on leadership, workplace meetings and teamwork has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He regularly advises major organizations such as IBM, Procter & Gamble and Siemens.

The Surprising Science of Meetings

If You're Curious About These Questions...

Listen to The Surprising Science of Meetings — Free Audiobook

Key Takeaways from The Surprising Science of Meetings

Learning Tools

Mind Map

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

The Surprising Science of Meetings — Full Chapter Overview

The Surprising Science of Meetings Summary & Overview

Who Should Listen to The Surprising Science of Meetings?

About the Author: Steven G. Rogelberg

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