What is Meetingitis?
What is Meetingitis?
What is Meetingitis?
Meetingitis is the excessive use of unnecessary, unproductive or poorly designed meetings that ends up consuming the time people need to do their actual work.
It’s not a disease.
But sometimes it feels like one.
It’s that feeling when you open your calendar in the morning and discover that your entire day is filled with meetings.
One after another.
No time to think.
No time to work.
No time to decide.
And sometimes, no real idea why half of those meetings exist in the first place.
That’s Meetingitis.
Definition
Three ways to define Meetingitis.
There is no single universal definition of the concept. And that is precisely why we like it.
The simple definition
Meetingitis means having too many meetings — and running them badly.
The business definition
It is an organizational dysfunction that appears when meetings stop being a tool for collaboration, decision-making or progress and start consuming an excessive share of the working day.
Our definition
Meetingitis is using meetings as the automatic response to problems that could often be solved in another way. A meeting should help work move forward. It should not become the work itself.
Origin
Where does the word Meetingitis come from?
We didn’t invent the concept. And it isn’t new.
The word combines “meeting” with the familiar suffix “-itis”, normally associated with diseases or inflammation, and applies it ironically to meetings.
The term meetingitis has been used to describe an excessive tendency to organize meetings, particularly meetings that are unnecessary, repetitive or unproductive.
The same idea exists in other languages. In Spanish, reunionitis is used to describe an excess of meetings and the loss of productivity they can create.
In French, réunionite is recorded by the Académie française and describes the habit of excessively multiplying work meetings. The variant réunionnite is also used.
“Today we invented Meetingitis.”
There is no single day when someone can claim to have said that first. And that probably doesn’t matter.
Because the problem was already there. And we are seeing more and more of it.
A global problem
Meetingitis around the world.
Too many meetings know no borders. Organizations around the world experience the same problem. Same problem. Different names.
The English version of the concept: meeting + “-itis”.
A term used in Spain and across much of Latin America to describe excessive or unproductive meetings.
A term used particularly in Mexico and parts of Latin America, derived from “junta”, another word for a work meeting.
French terms used to describe the excessive multiplication of work meetings.
Different words. Same problem.
Symptoms
How do you recognize Meetingitis?
Some symptoms are remarkably easy to spot. You have probably experienced at least one of them this week.
A calendar full of meetings
Your day starts with a meeting and ends with another one. Somewhere in between, you try to do the work you are actually paid to do.
Recurring meetings nobody questions
“It’s the weekly meeting.” What for? Silence. But next Tuesday, it appears again.
Meetings that are too long
If a meeting lasts an hour simply because the calendar is configured that way, we have a problem.
Too many people
Some meetings have eight people in the room to make a decision that one person could make.
Meetings to prepare for other meetings
Yes. It happens. Probably more often than we would like to admit.
Meetings that could have been an email
Or a document. Or a message. Or simply a decision.
No time to think
This is one of the most dangerous symptoms. When the entire day is spent in meetings, there is no time left to analyse, create, prepare, execute or decide.
Meetings without decisions
People talk. Debate. Share. Talk some more. And at the end: “Let’s schedule another meeting and discuss it.”
Start by measuring
How much does a meeting cost?
Put a number on your team’s time. Calculate the cost of any meeting in less than a minute.
People
Who suffers from Meetingitis?
Almost anyone can. But some roles are particularly exposed.
Executives & managers
Spending most of the working day in meetings can become a signal of responsibility or importance. It should be the opposite: an executive’s time has a cost too.
Project Managers
Status meetings, committees, kick-offs, workshops, coordination meetings and follow-up meetings about previous meetings.
Sales teams
Internal meetings, client meetings, follow-ups, forecasts, pipeline reviews and coordination.
Technology & product
Daily, planning, refinement, retrospective, steering committee, sync…
Human Resources
Because almost any process involving people eventually seems to generate a meeting.
And many more
Any professional whose calendar no longer belongs to them.
Organizations
Which companies suffer from Meetingitis?
It is not limited to one industry.
Multinationals.
Startups.
Banks.
Consulting firms.
Technology companies.
Public organizations.
Universities.
SMEs.
The more complex an organization becomes, the easier it is for the number of meetings to grow.
More teams. More countries. More functions. More projects. More stakeholders. More coordination.
And, very often, one apparently simple solution: schedule a meeting.
Until the calendar explodes.
One fundamental idea
Meetings are not the problem.
This is probably the most important idea behind Meetingitis.
We don’t want to eliminate meetings. Meetings are necessary.
We need to meet to:
- Make decisions.
- Solve problems.
- Create.
- Coordinate.
- Share information.
- Unblock projects.
- Work together.
The problem starts when a meeting becomes the automatic response to everything.
A good meeting can create enormous value. A bad meeting can consume ten people’s time.
So it isn’t simply about having fewer meetings.
It’s about having better meetings.
The solution
How do you cure Meetingitis?
There is no magic vaccine. And eliminating every meeting is not the answer. Meetingitis is tackled by understanding, measuring and changing how an organization meets.
Understand how the organization actually meets.
How many meetings take place, how long they last, how many people attend, what they cost and which meetings actually create value.
Change formats, frequency, participants, duration and the way decisions are made.
Turn new rules into habits and learn to question an invitation before accepting it — and a meeting before scheduling it.
Measure again. Because if we don’t know whether we have improved, we are simply expressing an opinion.
This is the starting point of the Meetingitis Method →
The initiative
What is Meetingitis.com?
Meetingitis.com was created to make visible a problem experienced by millions of professionals every week — and one that many organizations still do not know how to address.
We don’t simply want to talk about meetings. We want to help change them.
That is why we are building the initiative around three objectives.
Make it visible
Give the problem a name.
Research what is happening.
Start conversations.
Share data.
And make questioning a meeting feel completely normal.
Explore the Meetingitis Barometer →
Provide tools
We want any professional to be able to start improving their meetings without having to hire anyone.
Meeting cost calculators.
Fast diagnostic templates.
Checklists and analysis tools.
Help organizations transform
For organizations that want to go further, we have developed a methodology to diagnose, measure and transform the way they meet.
Because a company does not change its meetings simply because someone says: “From now on, let’s have more efficient meetings.”
Understand. Measure. Redesign. Change. Measure again.
Our goal
Less of what adds no value.
More of what matters.
We want to achieve something that is very easy to say and much harder to accomplish.
useless meetings.
unproductive meetings.
meetings driven by habit.
time to work.
time to think.
time to decide.
time to create.
Because productivity isn’t about filling the calendar.
It’s about making the time we have create value.
Look at your calendar
Do you have Meetingitis?
You probably don’t need a medical diagnosis. You just need to look at your calendar.
Start there. Apply our Quick Wins, calculate how much your meetings cost or discover how we transform the way an organization meets.
The next step
Does your organization have Meetingitis?
Start by measuring it. We can help you understand how your organization meets, where time is being lost and where the biggest opportunities for improvement are.