Trying a different format today to offer you some Food For Thought (FFT). It might help you reconsider a few aspects of what you are doing and potentially challenge them. You might even decide to modify your own habits and trigger changes, hopefully, positive ones, within your organization.
People have the tendency to set up meetings: 'let’s meet.' A meeting is actually a format: you are gathering people, physically or not. You are not really defining the type of interaction you want to have. How many meetings have you taken part in where you did not contribute or were not even asked to contribute? 'What a waste of time': am I reading your mind properly?
Compare this with 'let’s discuss.' 'Discussing' implies two things: a) to be synchronized (same time frame) b) to have an exchange, an interaction (you speak, I listen and vice versa). People invited should expect to contribute, and the one inviting should create a format to allow the other to contribute. If not, why the need for 'synchronicity'? Time is people's most precious resource. Don’t waste it. People don’t have time to respond to asynchronous communication because they're busy attending, during their 9 to 6 working days, meetings in which they are not being asked to contribute.
How would you feel if, before a meeting, you had received the material of the presentation with enough notice to read it? And what if the time scheduled in your calendar was really to discuss the material, and not to discover it?
I read somewhere that one of the GAFA was actually setting up meetings during which the first part was dedicated for the executives to read or review the material before discussing it. Similar idea: you are preparing the work in advance and people acquire the knowledge at their pace.
Change: it starts with you.
If you want to get some time back, fewer unproductive meetings, you will have to be the catalyst for change. You will have to lead by example. To get, you will have to give. It will take some additional work on your side. Your peers might think it is a ridiculous idea. If not dangerous, a dangerous one for many reasons. But when the same people will start to benefit from it, meaning getting more in control of their agenda, they will claim it was obvious."
Maybe we should rank each internal meeting with how much did I get ? How much did I provide ? More than 5 people, it sucks...