EXIT STRATEGIES

Finding Brenda’s 20-minute meeting on bin management a bit boring? Research says walk out

Bored in a meeting? Walk out. See colleagues chatting? Wade in and demand they tell you what they’re discussing. Got something important to say? Write a six-page memo and force your peers to read it – IN TOTAL SILENCE. Once upon a time these were certain ways to get yourself fired, but today? They’re the business tactics of some of the world’s greatest minds. Elon Musk walks out of comatose meetings, Jeff Bezos enforces long memos, and an unnamed PayPal executive breaks into rooms and asks what people are talking about (if it’s deemed unworthy, said meeting is cancelled). Anyone who’s endured death by PowerPoint will know they’re onto something. But what can you do to mix up meetings if your company isn’t based in Silicon Valley? Keep the guest list short, and if you can, do it standing up. Groups of fewer than 20 people get the most done (the bigger the group, the less likely we are to participate), and research* has shown that stand-up meetings are 34% shorter than sit-down ones, but produce the same solutions. Yes, it’s likely everyone will hate you a little bit – but that’s never stopped Elon Musk, has it?