Partner Article

Over half of businesspeople “regularly daydream” in meetings

New research has indicated that an overhaul of boardroom practices is needed, after half of all business people admitted to zoning out in meetings.

53% of those questioned admitted to daydreaming regularly in the boardroom, while a further 10% confessed to falling asleep in dull presentations.

Meetings with unfocused agendas, inter-departmental bickering and an over-reliance on PowerPoint were all factors cited as reasons for a quick snooze.

Head of the Anti-PowerPoint Party Matthias Poehm, who compiled the statistics, believes that this should now serve as a wake up call to businesses to change the way they conduct meetings.

He commented: “The results show that in the majority of cases, the meetings don’t fulfill what one expects.

“This is because they are allowed to over-run and lose focus, and put too much emphasis on tools such as PowerPoint, which often simply bombard people with results until their attention switches off.”

On average, British businesses spend around 6 hours and 38 minutes in meetings each week, equating to 308 hours each year. At managerial level, this rises to 777 hours annually.

Most meetings last around 47 minutes, but most people begin to lose concentration after around 17 minutes. This means that time, and money, is often wasted through ineffective meetings, and 90% agreed that over-long meetings did “more harm than good”

He added: “The Anti-PowerPoint Party wants to make clear the message that everybody can present in an effective and productive way.

“There are many tricks to giving a great presentation. One simple remedy is to replace PowerPoint by a flip-chart. Research by the APPP has shown that in 95 per cent of cases, the result is that people are more eager to follow.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .