Should you cancel all meetings, à la Shopify?

Back in January, Shopify made headlines by canceling 322,000 hours of recurring meetings from their employees' calendars. The idea was met with adoration by many, but sparked a healthy debate around meeting culture. But if you step outside the buzz surrounding a flashy action, the reality is clear: this was an act of desperation. 

The real issue with meetings isn't their mere existence, but rather their intention.

In just the past couple of years, the way we go about meeting has dramatically evolved. We went from in-office face-to-face meetings to connecting remotely via Zoom overnight, and the number of meetings we all sat in skyrocketed — our data shows that time in 1:1 meetings increased twenty-four percent since the pandemic, and seventy-eight percent of people feel that their meeting schedule is out of control.

Knowing this, canceling meetings sounds like a brilliant idea, and an emotionally satisfying one, I might add! But eliminating meetings doesn’t eliminate the need to connect to drive impact. Vendor calls may be time consuming, but have to happen to make progress; sometimes the best way to make a decision is to get in a room; it’s important to strengthen team bonds, even in a remote environment; 1:1s are foundational to good management…the list goes on. Eliminating all meetings is equivalent to throwing your hands up in the air and saying, “I give up.” It may be the only action left to take, but it’s a sign that things have truly gone off the rails. 

The root cause is deeper: it’s cultural. 

Canceling recurring meetings doesn't inherently transform how a company thinks about time – this shift must stem from a change in company-wide culture. And without that shift, I can promise one thing with complete certainty: the meetings will come back, and they’ll come back in the same disorganized and uncoordinated manner they began.

Shopify’s not the only company eager to rethink their meeting culture; meetings are a “tragedy of the commons” problem. In today’s workplace, no one takes responsibility for coordinating how individuals, teams, or an entire company consumes time, which are all intricately networked together. 

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The solution lies in executive ownership.

To build a productive meeting culture, every company needs a senior executive – it can be anyone, like the CEO, COO, or CFO – to fully own time management. Operational efficiency and cost savings are directly linked to proper resourcing of employees’ time, and so the importance of taking on such accountability should be undeniable. While it doesn’t need to be an official standalone title, every company needs someone that can essentially serve as a “Chief Productivity Officer” (CPO). 

While it’s critical to set guidelines for effective meetings (like clear objectives and agendas, participation expectations, and action items), this is by no means enough. Below, four tips for CPOs to get started.

1. Develop a clear vision for how company time should be allocated.

‍Meetings themselves are not the root of our productivity issues. The real problem is that the way we think about time is broken. We tend to think of time in individual boxes, a mostly static grid of squares that is unique to each person. If we truly want to change collective meeting culture, we have to start thinking about time as a collective resource. 

Consider Shopify’s notion of “craft time” or a company no meeting day. These are great foundational practices that bring more team-wide awareness to how people spend their time during the work day outside of meetings. Intentionally creating time to focus is the key to combating the biggest problems with modern work: constant distraction & interruption. The CPO must work relentlessly to reinforce a culture that acknowledges, understands, and respects time as a shared resource. 

2. Evaluate the right tech stack.

‍Every business partner should have a budget allocated to tools that empower their teams to work more effectively and productively. Take advantage of technologies for tracking priorities, managing calendars, and optimizing meeting schedules which enable teams to find more time for meaningful work without necessarily having to cancel meetings. These types of solutions ensure that even when the CPO isn’t paying attention, progress continues. When rolling out tools, it’s ideal to do so company-wide – even if you try it first with a smaller team, you eventually need to commit to organizational change. When there’s fragmented utilization, it’s much more challenging to shift culture. 

3. Audit company time on a regular cadence.

Once there’s a system in place, regularly auditing calendars and reviewing time management allocations across teams is important because it allows the CPO to both identify areas for improvement and understand company-wide outcomes. When the right system is in place, leadership should be able to understand the impact of time management improvements on key business metrics – whether it’s increased sales velocity or faster product innovation. 

4. Elicit feedback from everyone.

The way we consume time varies drastically across teams and roles. Individual contributors tend to have more time for focused work in their week, whereas executives are meeting-heavy, and managers tend to fall somewhere in between. Not to mention, every individual has their own preferences around calendar management – things like when they generally like to take lunch or if they want meeting breaks on particularly busy days.

Creating an environment where employees feel comfortable and empowered to provide feedback on how they spend their time is essential for the CPO to grasp these nuances and identify patterns at scale. The CPO should encourage a continuous feedback loop, encouraging employees to share their thoughts and suggestions for improvements. This open communication can help to identify pain points in the current time management processes that are in place, so adjustments can be made using both a top-down and bottom-up perspective. 

I admire Shopify taking bold action. Many others continue to merely suffer through the status quo. But canceling meetings will only result in sustained impact if there’s someone on the leadership team who puts the time and effort into transforming company culture around time. Until this happens, businesses will continue to see a bottoms-up approach to meetings, characterized by wasted hours, frustrated employees, and lack of strategy. 

P.S. If you're ready to find the right tool to help your teams effectively manage their time, we'd love to throw our name in the ring. Try Clockwise for free today!

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