Active speak time
Meeting should allow for a discussion with all participants having sufficient time to contribute.
What if someone is doing all the talking?
However, if the math indicates that the people sitting around the table wouldn’t even have a shot at playing a significant role in the meeting—especially if it’s sharing less than 10 percent of the time—then a logical question to ask is, “Are there too many people in the room or is there not enough time?”
The subtext of this question is more about managerial intent: If a meeting is called where it’s clear that there isn’t even time for people to participate if they wanted to, do you even need to have those people meet? In that case, are we calling this a meeting when it’s really more of a telling? Is it a lecture or pronouncement that’s been mislabeled?
Yes, a meeting can masquerade as a good one if all of the agenda items are covered. But if the people in the room are mostly passive witnesses to the proceedings, the way they feel about the meeting and the larger organization may not be so rosy. Indeed, there may be very little meeting engagement on the morale front, but also a real lack of the ideas, input or discussion that would produce the best results
There’s the old office complaint heard the world over where someone exits a meeting and remarks that it could have been an email. In essence, what people are saying is that they don’t feel that their presence was needed; in fact, maybe no one’s presence was needed. If people don’t feel engaged and don’t feel that they’re participating in meetings, then they’d rather be at their desk getting work done.
It’s tempting to add more people to a meeting. After all, being inclusive is good. And having the right people at the table is important. But if people are going to be at that table for an hour, it’s important that they’re actually engaged and involved. If someone only has time to say a few words in that time, it’s probably a good indicator that either the structure of the meeting should change or not everyone needs to be there.