“Micromanaging came down when there were less meetings, and stress came down… autonomy increased, communication was better, there was better cooperation, there was better engagement, there was better productivity, and there was better satisfaction.
Across all the companies in the study, the most beneficial results came when companies restricted meetings to two days per week. Holding good meetings is like swearing – “the more you do it, the more mundane it becomes”. At the companies with more meeting-free days, “meetings were better structured… they wanted to not beat around the bush but come to the point, have an agenda – what we call ‘meeting hygiene.
Interestingly, the reduction in meetings didn’t lead to an increase in the other great stressor of white-collar life: email. In fact, employees’ satisfaction with how they communicated rose. More hygienic meetings lead to more hygienic communication elsewhere.” By Will Dunn