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personalquarterly 02 / 13
6
Schwerpunkt
_Interview
PERSONALquarterly:
How much time do you spend in meetings in a
typical week?
Steven Rogelberg:
I invest around 10 hours a week in meetings.
PERSONALquarterly:
How was your last meeting?
Steven Rogelberg:
It was very good actually. But, frankly, I need
to acknowledge my bias. I lead most of my meetings. We know
from the literature that those that lead meetings tend to have
higher levels of satisfaction. This may be due to a host of factors
such as having more control than others and/or the inherent
joy of just hearing yourself speaking (LOL).
With that said, I do take my meetings very seriously. I engage
in what I see are best practices in meeting design and facilita-
tion. This includes having the team provide substantive impact
into the agenda, preparing carefully what the meeting needs to
actually cover as opposed to what can be covered via email for
example, and perhaps most importantly leading the meeting
from behind.
What this latter example means is that my job as the meeting
leader is to promote engagement and constructive conflict, fa-
cilitate interactions, and manage time. I focus on those roles
rather than trying to actively insert myself into the actual dis-
cussion. I certainly speak at times at key junctures, but that is
most definitely not my primary role. My job is to make sure the
meeting is productive, active, and successful.
PERSONALquarterly:
What is special about meetings – why should
we do research on them? How do meetings tie into larger organi-
zational practices?
Steven Rogelberg:
Meetings reflect the inherent culture and cli-
mate of an organization. The organization comes to life in a
meeting. At the same time, the meeting is where leadership
takes shape and form. Meetings are common and potentially
powerful events (for both good and bad).
They are the building blocks of an organization in many ways.
From my perspective as an Organizational Scientist, any fre-
quent and impactful event at work is a prime candidate for
study. Putting that aside, given the tremendous amount of
grousing and complaining about meetings at work, that in and
of itself should attract the eye of scholars and practitioners.
Meetings erfolgreich gestalten: Best Practise
und Perspektive für die Forschung
Das Interview mit
Prof. Dr. Steven Rogelberg
führten Prof. Dr. Simone Kauffeld (Technische Universität Braunschweig)
und Dr. Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock (VU Amsterdam)
PERSONALquarterly:
Why do some meetings keep going bad?
Steven Rogelberg:
Poor planning. Lack of forethought by the lea-
der. Hidden agendas. Lack of focus. Meeting just for the sake of
meeting. No strategic purpose. No one is owning the successful
facilitation of the meeting event. Learned helplessness.
PERSONALquarterly:
What are the effects of bad meetings on emplo-
yees, teams, and organizations as a whole?
Steven Rogelberg:
We know from previous research that the costs
of bad meetings are extensive. Given the amount of time and
money that organizations spend on meetings and their impact
on employees, improving meeting effectiveness is an impor-
tant critical goal and presents a considerable opportunity for
increasing the ROI (return on investment). There are many
additional indirect costs that need to be considered, including
opportunity costs (time lost that could be used to do more pro-
ductive activities); employee stress and fatigue; job dissatisfac-
tion, and decreasing organizational commitment. On a related
note, some researchers are discussing an intriguing concept
called “meeting recovery syndrome” - time spent cooling off
due to frustration. Similarly, meetings can create indirect costs
when employees spend time to make sense of what transpired
in the meeting and what it means (for example, when employees
complain to others about the meeting or spend time to discuss
critical meeting incidents after the meeting is officially over).
PERSONALquarterly:
In your experience, do meetings - and meeting
practices – differ across organizations? How about intercultural
differences?
Steven Rogelberg:
Across organizations, there is great variability
in the use of constructive meeting practices. There is also great
variability in tolerance and acceptance of wasted time in mee-
ting. Stated differently, in some organizations horrible meetings
have become an accepted way of organizational life that is not
challenged. The most progressive organizations also create in-
novative talent management practices that promote meeting
excellence. For example, I have worked with organizations to
create high fidelity training programs, feedback/accountability
systems where managers can actually determine if they are
using meeting time effectively, instilling meeting content into