Every week the same 8 people have an hour long meeting.
The yearly salaries of the 8 attendees are as follows:
$140,000
$30,000
$40,000
$65,000
$65,000
$65,000
$65,000
$65,000
The total yearly salary amount is – $535,000
The average yearly salary per person is – $66,875
The average weekly salary per person is – $1,286
The average hourly salary per person (assuming they all work a 40 hour week) is – $32.15
Therefore this hour long meeting costs the company approximately $257.2 each week.
Now I’m not saying one should obsess over the profitability of every single minute. If you did that you would most likely drive yourself and everyone around you insane.
Instead I would ask the question – do you think this meeting generates $257.2 worth of value?
If not then it could be worth asking the question – what is this meeting for?
Then, not only should one take the time to answer the question properly but from that moment practice the diligence required to continuously align the content of the meeting with the purpose.
So if the purpose of the meeting is team building you can make a rule that shop talk is forbidden and will not be tolerated.
Hopefully this line of reasoning helps you to free up your calendar and remove aimless meetings that limp on in absence of a purpose.
Thomas Duggan 