The First Minute

A study by Siemens Enterprise Communications found that a business with one hundred employees spends an average of seventeen hours a week clarifying communications.1 That is 884 hours a year that could be spent delivering value to customers instead of repeating information to make sure it’s understood.

Conversations should not focus on problems; they should focus on solving problems.

A study by Ludic Meeting shows that the primary reason why meetings are unproductive is that the purpose of the meeting isn’t clear.9 The study reports that only one in ten people always understood the purpose of their meetings. A third of respondents only sometimes know the purpose of the meeting, and almost one in six rarely or never know what the meetings are about. A different study by Bain and Co reports an average of 15 percent of every working day is spent in meetings.10 That figure increases to 35 percent or more for managers and executives.