When was the last time you calculated the ROI for your business meeting?

We ask for ROIs when assessing new ideas, we cancel those beyond-budget projects, and we estimate market value prior to developing a new product. Yet curiously we don’t bring this same type of financial rigor when holding meetings, despite the millions of dollars spent on unproductive meetings. Given that we spend over 60 percent of our time in meetings, shouldn’t we manage this investment better and decide whether it is worth it?

Out of all the ways to communicate—Teams, Email, Text, Chat—face-to-face meetings are the most expensive. If you add up travel costs, the time listening to someone present in your meeting (I can out read the rate at which you speak at about a three-to-one ratio), the time spent in meetings to plan the meeting, and the total salaries/hour participating in the meeting, you have a chunk of cash being spent. Conservative estimates for larger companies (pre-Covid) put that total around $70 million annually.

What’s the Source of Value?

Despite their numerous and sometimes steep costs, however, face-to-face meetings do have their upsides. They provide richer data than electronically mediated mediums. When meeting physically in a room, I get audio, tone, sharp visuals, body language, exchanges of glances, and the “feeling” in the room. Compare that to a toneless, faceless set of words one sees in a chat space. It is also easier to hold participants’ attention in a face-to-face meeting. Eyeballs are attracted to movement (Oh, shiny!), and in-person meetings keep those eyeballs entertained with constant physical activity. Keeping our attention on the steady faces on the Teams screen requires a whole lot of mental energy (a key contributor to Zoom fatigue).

For astute meeting facilitators, face-to-face meetings offer important clues that would be otherwise invisible and inaudible. Reading the room involves noticing things like the concerned person tapping her feet under the table, the person expressing he’s pondering a suggestion by swiveling in his chair, and the two people exchanging quick glances, suggesting a point of connection. Those quick glances can’t be noted when staring at the Brady Bunch faces and sometimes key side bars move to an inaccessible private chat space.

I recall one virtual meeting during Covid in which one of the Teams cameras was in a meeting room where the essential workers gathered. Luckily for me, the meeting-room table was made of glass and the camera caught what was going on under the table. When a person in a third location made a proposal, I could see a foot start to tap. That observation prompted me to ask, “Hey, Richard! I’m wondering what was going through your mind as you listened to that proposal?” He smiled and replied, “Now how did you know to call on me? Yeah, I have some concerns.” Then he proceeded to share them.

Changing the Talk

The virtual meeting also affects how people talk. Studies show that people are far less likely to speak up in a Teams meeting than in a face-to-face meeting. One of my studies showed there is more small talk as people drift into the room at the beginning of a face-to-face meeting than when they appear for a virtual meeting.

Small talk creates the social glue that comes in handy when differences arise. If you and I share an interest, say, hiking, I am much less likely to generalize about you when we disagree on some meeting matter. So instead of generalizing about you to rationalize our disagreement (“Oh, that person just doesn’t understand anything”), I will be much more specific (“Yeah, that’s one area where we might see it differently.”). Social glue can be a game-saver when you are working through tough decisions.

Is the Face-to-Face Meeting Worth the Investment?

It depends. There’s really no need to call everyone together to announce that the upcoming town hall will be held next week at 2:00 pm, nor should we have people fly across the country just to hear a presentation or give a round of updates (that’s like buying an Alfa Romeo for the sole purpose of driving to the end of your driveway to get the mail). But what if you want to use those updates as inputs to assess resource allocation or project timelines? Or you must get your team to align on a competing set of objectives. Perhaps it’s time to resolve a critical conflict where strong emotions are present. In all of these cases, we’re upping the level of thinking and communication required, and that calls for a richer meeting medium.

Recommendations to Improve your Investment

So here are a few principles to achieve an admirable ROI for that face-to-face.

1. Identify two or three questions that the meeting must address. If you can’t identify those questions, spend your investment elsewhere.
2. Regarding those questions: Will answering them require a discussion among meeting attendees, or is this a one-way flow of information (you speak, they listen)? If the latter, consider another medium. Email might be a better option.
3. Make sure all participants are aware of those two or three questions. Intel once had a sign in every meeting room (and maybe they still do) that read, “If you don’t know why you are here, LEAVE.” Participants will come better prepared if they know what the meeting is supposed to accomplish.
4. Structure your meeting so that no more than 40% of the total meeting time is a one-way flow. The rest should be reserved for discussion, questioning, innovating, and debate.
5. When the critical questions have been answered, end the meeting. In my 30 years of leading over a thousand meetings, I’ve yet to hear anyone complain when we finished early.

Protect your investments. Chose, design, and lead your face-to-face meetings wisely.