As true as some of the observations in this text are, I’m afraid it’s another one of these pseudo-scientific articles that boil down to: yes, we need to take a more conscious approach to whether and how we conduct meetings. But when it comes to distinguishing facts established by academic research and what I like to call “guru knowledge”, the article fails, especially in the beginning, when it suggests that there is plenty of evidence for both how much time we spend in meetings and how this has developed over time, when there clearly isn’t.
Towards the end, it gets better, when they provide some anecdotal evidence (and clearly describe it as such) about how various organizations have changed their meeting practices.
Does someone know any of the authors? Please invite them to share more background information about their study. I suppose they would agree that systematic data about meetings is still thin and perhaps we can have a discussion about what we know, what we think we know, and what we don’t know about meetings?