In the professional world we share, meetings have become a mainstay of corporate communication. However, as the number of meetings has increased, a new phenomenon has emerged: "acute meetingitis". What exactly does this mean, and how can we combat it? Let's delve into the subject.
Acute reunionitis refers to an excessive number of meetings, often perceived as useless or unproductive, in the day-to-day running of a company.
Combining "meeting" with "-ite", an ending often used in medicine to designate inflammation, the term humorously suggests an occupational "disease".
The origin of the term "réunionite" is interesting, as it reflects the way in which professional and medical jargon can sometimes intersect to give rise to relevant neologisms. The etymology of "réunionite" combines two distinct elements to paint a picture that is both humorous and serious.
The first element, "meeting", is a common business term for an assembly of people gathered to discuss, deliberate or make decisions on a specific topic. Meetings have become an integral part of modern corporate culture, serving as spaces for collaboration, strategy and communication.
The second part, "-ite", is a medical ending, often used to indicate inflammation or disease. We find it in words like "bronchitis" or "appendicitis". This ending evokes disturbance, dysfunction or even pain.
Combining these two elements, "réunionite" conveys the idea that the seemingly innocent act of holding meetings can, if overdone, become as harmful as disease or inflammation. The humorous use of a medical ending underlines the urgency of the problem, while making it accessible and recognizable.
The term "meetingitis" is therefore more than just a combination of words. It reflects a professional reality where good intentions - in this case, the desire to collaborate and communicate - can sometimes lead to excesses that damage productivity and employee well-being.
It's also interesting to note that the creation of such neologisms testifies to the ability of languages to evolve and adapt in response to cultural and professional trends. "Reunionite" is an example of how language can capture and comment on social and professional dynamics, providing both diagnosis and critique.
Acute meetingitis is a phenomenon that has intensified with the rise of the collaborative culture in modern companies. At first glance, increased collaboration and communication may seem beneficial to an organization. However, when taken to extremes without clear structure or purpose, they can quickly become counter-productive.
Most employees have already experienced those interminable meetings where the conversation goes round in circles, where we cover topics already discussed at previous meetings, or where we waste precious time bringing up details that could be dealt with efficiently by email or via collaborative tools. Not only does this excessive number of meetings waste valuable time that could have been devoted to productive tasks, it also contributes to team fatigue and demotivation.
And the negative impact doesn't stop there. Acute reunionitis can hamper innovation. Indeed, when you're constantly interrupted by meetings, it's hard to concentrate on deep thinking or creative work. It can also lead to feelings of job dissatisfaction, as employees may feel that they are not making progress on their projects or making a real contribution to the company's overall vision.
A number of surveys and studies have revealed some edifying figures for meetings:
As you can see, meetings have a significant impact on the company, affecting both operational costs and employee commitment.
Since human resources are often an organization's biggest expense, inefficient meetings can seriously undermine profitability.
What's more, if employees feel that their time is being wasted or misused at these meetings, this can lead to disengagement.
And in a context where attracting and retaining the best talent is becoming increasingly competitive, no company can afford this kind of negative consequence.
Several indicators can help you identify this problem.
Organizing meetings without a clear agenda is often a sign of a lack of preparation and clearly defined objectives. This can turn what should have been a productive session into a disorganized gathering where participants wonder why they're there in the first place. Without a clear direction, discussions can drift, touching on irrelevant topics or repeating themselves unnecessarily, prolonging the meeting unnecessarily.
The absence of a well-structured agenda also leaves little room for upstream preparation by participants. They may find themselves unprepared, without the necessary information at hand, delaying decision-making and project progress. What's more, without a clearly defined objective, it's difficult to evaluate the success or effectiveness of the meeting after it's over.
To avoid these pitfalls, it's essential to always prepare a precise agenda, share it with participants in advance and stick to it during the meeting. This ensures that every minute spent in a meeting is put to good use, promoting more effective collaboration and better performance.
That's why Rolebase lets you define your agenda in advance and customize it for any type of meeting.
Low attendance at meetings is often a symptom of a lack of commitment or interest in the subject under discussion. When participants are constantly on their phones or answering their e-mails, this reflects not only a certain casualness, but also a feeling that the meeting in progress is not adding value to their work.
There may be several reasons for this lack of interest. It may be that the subject of the meeting does not directly concern all participants, or that the points raised have already been discussed several times without leading to concrete conclusions. The absence of a clear structure or an effective moderator can also make for chaotic discussion, leading participants to drop out.
What's more, in a context where one meeting follows another, a phenomenon of saturation can set in, making it difficult for participants to concentrate and get actively involved. So it's crucial for the organizer to ensure that each meeting is relevant, that its objectives are clearly defined, and that everyone present has a role to play.
Encouraging interaction, asking direct questions and regularly soliciting everyone's opinion can also help maintain a high level of attention and ensure active participation, making the meeting more dynamic and productive.
The existence of redundant meetings is an indicator of a lack of coordination or insufficient communication within the company. This can result from inadequate planning, where different departments or teams hold meetings on similar topics without realizing the overlap. Not only does this lead to wasted time for participants, it can also result in conflicting messages or duplicated effort.
What's more, this redundancy can lead to frustration among employees. They may feel as if they're going round in circles, tackling the same problems over and over again without making any real progress towards a solution. This can also lead to a feeling of weariness and diminish the perceived value of meetings in general.
To avoid such duplication, it's essential to set up a centralized planning and coordination system for meetings. This can include project management tools or shared calendars where teams can view and plan upcoming meetings. When planning, it's also crucial to clarify the purpose and key points to be discussed to ensure they haven't already been covered elsewhere. Finally, fostering a culture of open communication where teams are encouraged to share their plans and concerns can greatly reduce the risk of redundant meetings.
This redundancy can often occur because the information is not easily accessible. The Rolebase search engine can identify whether a topic or meeting has already been dealt with by a role, to avoid this redundancy. The person requiring the information will be able to access the subject or meeting notes to determine whether a new meeting is needed to deal with it.
In this way, the new exchange will be better prepared, and will avoid looping over existing information.
The causes of reunionitis can be traced back to a number of variables, linked both to the company's culture and to its impact on employee behavior.
We've written an entire article based on scientific research into the causes of meetingitis, and invite you to take a look at it to find out more.
Corporate culture plays a crucial role in how meetings are perceived and organized within organizations. In some business environments, holding meetings is seen as a sign of seriousness and professionalism. You could even say that for some companies, a meeting is a kind of ritual, a demonstration of commitment to a project or idea, even if this doesn't necessarily translate into concrete action.
However, this penchant for meetings can become counterproductive. Instead of being a tool for communication and decision-making, meetings become a habit, a reflex, often without questioning their relevance or effectiveness. This can lead to situations where employees spend a large part of their day in meetings, leaving little time for actual work.
Our corporate culture needs to evolve to distinguish between moments of genuine collaboration that require a physical or virtual meeting, and those that can be handled by other, more efficient means of communication.
Lack of trust is a key factor that can lead to a proliferation of meetings in a company. Managers, worried about losing track of what's going on within their teams, may be tempted to organize regular meetings in order to "keep a grip" on operations and decisions. This may be symptomatic of a corporate culture where transparency and open communication are not sufficiently valued.
This dynamic can have negative effects on employee morale. Indeed, constant monitoring, even under the guise of "follow-up meetings", can make employees feel untrustworthy or that their autonomy is curtailed. What's more, it can stifle innovation, as employees may be reluctant to take the initiative for fear of overstepping undefined limits.
To build a strong corporate culture, it's crucial to reinforce mutual trust. Leaders must learn to delegate, to trust their teams, and to use meetings as a tool for collaboration, not as a means of surveillance.
Without structured time management, meetings can multiply. When a company fails to structure its days and projects effectively, meetings can be used as a means of bridging these organizational gaps.
They then become a palliative, a "band-aid" on a deeper wound: the lack of rigor in time management.
This can lead to a vicious spiral. Without a clear vision of objectives and priorities, every problem or challenge can seem to require a meeting. And without a clear agenda or well-defined objectives for these meetings, they can drag on unnecessarily, consuming even more valuable time.
What's more, the high frequency of these unstructured gatherings can lead to fatigue among participants, diminishing their commitment and concentration. To avoid this, it is essential to adopt effective time management tools and methods, to clearly define the objectives of each meeting, and to ensure that it adds value to the organization.
Meetings are not inevitable, and it's important to remember that they start with a good intention: to create alignment so that everyone can work on high value-added subjects.
Solutions exist to reorganize and optimize the time devoted to meetings so that they are perceived not as a waste of time but as a gain that speeds up the process!
Without a well-defined objective, a meeting risks becoming a simple discussion without direction or purpose. Before organizing a meeting, ask yourself: "What is the concrete result we want to achieve at the end of this meeting?" This could be a decision on a specific topic, the resolution of a problem, the development of an action plan or the exchange of essential information.
It's also essential that this objective is communicated to all participants in advance. This gives them the opportunity to prepare themselves, gather the necessary information and arrive at the meeting with a proactive attitude. What's more, a clearly defined objective helps people to stay focused during the discussion, avoid unnecessary deviations and ensure that time is used optimally.
At the end of the meeting, return to this objective to assess whether it has been achieved (during a closing round, for example). If not, identify the obstacles and plan concrete actions to overcome them in future sessions.
Limiting the length of meetings is an effective way of ensuring their relevance and efficiency. When a meeting is long, there is a natural tendency to dwell on ancillary subjects, to ramble and to lose sight of the initial objective. On the other hand, setting a time limit creates a constraint that encourages participants to get straight to the point.
The technique of "stand-up meetings", popularized in particular by agile methodologies, is a good example of this approach. These meetings, generally held standing up to emphasize the idea of brevity, are designed to provide a quick update on project progress, obstacles encountered and future actions. They often last between 10 and 15 minutes and are focused on the essentials.
Adopting short formats also helps to keep participants focused and engaged. A well-structured 30-minute meeting can be far more productive than an hour-long meeting with no clear direction. So it's essential to rethink the way we design meetings and experiment with more condensed formats.
You should also not hesitate to schedule further meetings if additional topics arise. In Rolebase, for example, you can create a task to assign the employee who wishes to deal with this side issue to research it, and then prepare the agenda if it needs to be dealt with.
In the digital age, it would be a shame not to take advantage of technology to optimize our meetings. In fact, numerous tools have emerged to facilitate the planning, management and follow-up of meetings. Using these tools can go a long way to combating acute meeting fatigue.
Rolebase, for example, offers features that enable you to centralize information, clearly define the objectives of each meeting, and follow up on the actions decided upon. With such a platform, it's easier to identify redundant meetings or those that don't add value, and so eliminate them from the agenda.
What's more, these technological tools encourage active participation by enabling, for example, real-time document sharing, collaborative note-taking or instant polling. So, by integrating technology into our meeting routines, we can not only gain in efficiency, but also make these moments more interactive and engaging for all participants.
Employee training is a crucial element in improving the quality of meetings. Ineffective meetings are often the result of poor preparation, lack of clarity of purpose or lack of dynamic facilitation. Training employees in time management and meeting facilitation gives them the tools they need to make these moments more productive.
A module on time management might cover techniques for prioritizing topics, allocating the right amount of time to each agenda item and effectively concluding a meeting. Training on facilitation, meanwhile, could teach how to encourage participation, manage off-topic discussions or deal with conflicts that may arise.
Investing in employee training is not just good for meetings: it also improves self-confidence, communication skills and teamwork. It's a win-win situation for the company.
In line with point 3, this training is greatly facilitated by the use of tools that simplify the implementation of best practices. The aim is to make employees' lives easier, not to complicate them with unnecessary additional processes.
The question of the need for a meeting is fundamental, and should be the first filter before any appointment is made. Indeed, modern corporate culture tends to favor the systematic calling of meetings, sometimes simply out of habit, sometimes out of fear of missing a crucial step. Yet every meeting costs time, energy and, indirectly, money.
Before scheduling a meeting, it's a good idea to ask yourself the right questions: What is the precise objective of this meeting? Could the same objective be achieved through a simple exchange of e-mails or an informal discussion? Are all the participants relevant to the objective?
What's more, if the purpose of the meeting is to inform, other formats may be more appropriate, such as an internal memo or a recorded presentation. Systematically assessing the need for a meeting increases efficiency, respects everyone's time and improves well-being at work by reducing the feeling of being overwhelmed by incessant appointments.
It's much easier to have the right reflexes when access to this information is facilitated. The rolebase search engine is a great ally in this respect.
Role Based Management offers an innovative approach to managing roles, responsibilities and collaboration within your organization. By assigning clearly defined roles, everyone participates only in meetings that are relevant to their role.
Each meeting has a customizable agenda, collaborative notes and minutes. Subjects have their own contextualized feed that can be integrated into meetings.
It's a good way of supporting change to create an organizational structure where employees' time is valued and they can focus on their expertise.
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