BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS

Meaningless meetings: the best way to

get nothing done
1 Warmer

a. Discuss the questions.

1. What are some characteristics of your most productive meetings?

2. How can meetings be made more efficient and worthwhile?

3. What are the best alternatives to meetings?

b. Skim the article and choose the main idea.

1. Why meetings remain the best way to reach consensus in large enterprises

2. Your ultimate guide to making meetings more productive for all attendees

3. The attempts of several companies to reduce the ‘wasted’ time spent in meetings

2 Key words

a. Read the definitions and find key words in the article that match them.
Check your answers and your understanding of how the words are used by using the same
word to complete the example sentences. You may have to change the form of the word.
Then read the complete article to see how each of the key words is used in context.

bloat bluff cull epiphany equate equivalent ingrained

peer purge reappraise recurring ruthlessness stagger veer

1. an action to remove something unpleasant

The organisation’s main mission is to the planet of plastic pollutants.

2. be the same as something

Investing in a health campaign does not to a change in behaviour.

3. deliberately give a false idea to someone about what you intend to do or about the facts

of a situation, especially in order to gain an advantage

Advanced

They say that they’re going to pull out of the deal, but I think they’re just

to negotiate better terms.

4. the action of getting rid of something

As the virus spread, the government considered a squirrel .

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5. walk in an uncontrolled way, as if you are going to fall over

The paramedics were called after he out of his seat and collapsed on

the floor.

6. suddenly move in a different direction

The chairperson will interrupt anyone whose comments off topic.

7. happening again, especially several times

We are considering cancelling our Monday meeting.

8. with the same size, value, importance, or meaning as something else

We project returns for both initiatives, so we haven’t made a

final decision.

9. the action of becoming larger

60% of the board voted to streamline internal processes and cut admin

10. a moment when you suddenly realise or understand something important

She had an when visiting a client: her own company should also

introduce office sleep pods!

11. describing an attitude, belief, or habit that has existed for a long time and cannot easily be

changed

The idea of longer working hours reflecting your professional commitment is an

idea that workers have been fed for decades.

12. consider something such as an attitude, a situation, or a judgement again

Advanced

A focus group has revealed that consumers are what’s important to

them when making a purchase.

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13. the willingness to make other people suffer so that you can achieve your aims

She was unpopular because of her , but she did not care; she was

determined to succeed no matter what.

14. someone who belongs to the same social or professional group as another person

Many people choose to go to conferences so they can network and learn from their

who have faced similar challenges.

Advanced

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 BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS
The great meeting bloat deserves this
Shopify purge
OUR PANDEMIC WORKING PATTERNS HAVE RAISED THE NUMBER OF GATHERINGS IN WHICH NOTHING
IS ACHIEVED
BY EMMA JACOBS
1 One of the problems with New Year’s resolutions is
that bosses have them too. How many workers, still
adjusting to a mince-pieless breakfast, warily log
on to their laptops at the start of the year? Yet one
announcement this week by Shopify, the Canadian
ecommerce platform, seemed to stir an enthusiastic
response: namely, a meeting purge.
2 Kaz Nejatian, its chief operating officer, tweeted the
new rule, “Meetings are a bug. Today, we shipped
a fix to this bug at @Shopify. To start 2023, we’re
cancelling all Shopify meetings with more than two
people. Let’s give people back their maker time.
Companies are for builders. Not managers.” He
also banned meetings on Wednesdays and ruled
that those for 50 or more people could only be
held between 11 and 5 on Thursdays. In a memo
to staff, Nejatian explained: “Shopify is planning
to delete nearly 10,000 events, which equates to
approximately 76,500+ hours of meetings.”
3 People love productivity hacks and never more so than
those applied to meetings. A few years ago, Jeff Bezos
made waves with his two-pizza rule, which meant that
meetings should only be attended by the number of
people who could eat two pizzas. The Amazon founder
also banned PowerPoint and insisted on starting
all meetings in silence so attendees could read a
preparatory memo providing the agenda because he
was tired of ill-prepared executives bluffing.
4 Meeting culls are also popular. No one leaves school
hoping to make a career staggering from the 10am
gathering to the 11am gathering, after all. But for
many white-collar workers, too many days are lost
to such pointless events, veering off agenda (if there
Advanced
even is one) with the result that they spend nights
or weekends catching up with their actual work.
One business consultant undertook an inventory
at a global consumer products company and found
Emma Jacobs, 04 January, 2023.
© The Financial Times.
All rights reserved.
Articles republished from the Financial Times.
Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2023.
that directors and above across the enterprise
(a population of about 500) “collectively spent more
than 57,000 hours per year in recurring meetings.
That’s the equivalent of six and a half years.”
5 That was before the pandemic. Remote working has
triggered further bloat. Last year, Microsoft said that
for the average Teams user, the number of meetings
per week had risen 153 per cent globally since
lockdowns were imposed. “The strain is clear,” the
tech company said. “In an average week, 42 per cent
of participants multitask during meetings by actively
sending an email or ping – and that doesn’t include
practices like reading incoming emails and pings,
working in non-meeting files, or web activity.”
6 Last year, I spoke to employees at companies
participating in the four-day week trial, which offered
staff 100 per cent of pay for 80 per cent of working
week with no reduction in output. For many, the
obvious efficiency saving was meetings. One art
director at a games company in London reduced the
time he spent in meetings by half, and would later listen
to recordings of them while doing other tasks such as
admin. Another told me, “Quite often I’d invite people
because I feel like they’d get upset if they were not at
the meeting.” It was an epiphany. He was “inviting that
person for the wrong reason”. The disruption to their
ingrained work practices helped them reappraise their
routines and become more productive.
7 But others voiced concerns about the effects of too
much meeting ruthlessness, such as the loss of
sociability and exposure to new ideas. One worried
that it cut down the opportunities for younger workers
to learn from their older peers, or indeed give
fresh perspectives.
8 So, yes, cut the meetings. Apply rigour. Create
opportunities to focus on work. But don’t be surprised
by unintended consequences.
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3 Understanding the article

a. Write the main idea of the paragraphs in the table below.

Paragraph Main idea

1

4 Business language – collocations

a. Complete the collocations with verbs from the article.

1. an enthusiastic response

2. a bug

3. off agenda

4. an inventory

5. a lockdown

6. more productive

7. concerns
Advanced

8. fresh perspective
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b. Paraphrase the sentences using phrases from Activity 4a.

1. They wanted to have a monthly meeting where all employees could express their worries.

2. Most customers reacted positively to the new design.

3. We first took stock of the ways in which time was wasted.

4. The government mandated that everyone remain in isolation.

5. You can get more done if you stop multitasking.

6. As usual, Bill went off on a tangent and had to be interrupted.

7. There was a glitch in the system, but it was solved quickly.

8. They wanted to hire someone young to provide a new point of view on customer wants.

5 Discussion

a. Discuss the following statements.

• “Meetings are a nuisance. Give people back their time for more important things!”

• “Meetings attended by fewer people are more productive. Meetings should be limited to
three attendees.”

• “At least one day a week should be utterly meeting-free.”

• “Meetings are a space where fresh perspectives can be shared and people should be encouraged
to socialise.”

6 Wider business theme – participating in a meeting

a. Develop new policies for meetings in your team, department, or company. Consider the
following ideas.

1. In what circumstances is a meeting justified?

2. Which days are meetings allowed?

3. How short/long should a meeting be?

Advanced

4. How many people should attend a meeting?

5. How should a meeting be run/chaired?

6. When should a meeting be cancelled?

7. When should an email (or alternative) replace a meeting?

8. What other rules should be followed?

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b. Have a meeting to discuss your proposals. Keep minutes that summarise your partners’ ideas.
Follow the proposed policies as much as possible.

Useful language

On the agenda today …

First of all, … Secondly, … Finally, …

Do you mind if I ask you … ?

If I may, I would like to add …

Any other thoughts?

Evie, do you have anything to say about … ?

What are your thoughts on this?

Actually, I think Zander is right.

Speaking as a manager, …

Let’s return to …

Continuing where we left off, …

Now let’s move on to …

Let’s wrap up with …

Advanced

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 BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS
Meaningless meetings: the best way to
get nothing done
Key:
Level: Advanced (C1–C2)
1. purge 9. bloat
2. equate 10. epiphany
Time: Approximately 90 minutes
3. bluff, bluffing 11. ingrained
4. cull 12. reappraise,
Business topics: Productivity, meetings,
corporate culture 5. stagger, staggered reappraising
6. veer 13. ruthlessness
Business language: Useful business 7. recurring 14. peer, peers
vocabulary, phrases and expressions, 8. equivalent
language for participating in meetings
As an extension you can focus on pronunciation and
Activities: Discussing meeting policy, key ask students to identify similar long and short vowels.
words, understanding the text, business For example:
language, discussion, participating in a meeting
Short vowels:
Groups: Whole class, pairs, small groups
bluff, cull
stagger
Overview: This article discusses how several Long vowels:
large companies are re-evaluating their purge, recurring
meeting policies and drastically trying to free
ruthlessness
up more time for ‘actual’ work.
Diphthongs:
Equate, reappraise, ingrained
bloat
1. Warmer
veer, peer
a. Ask students to discuss the questions in pairs or small
groups. Elicit main ideas that arise from the discussion 3. Understanding the article
from the whole class.
a. Ask students to scan the article individually to
b. Ask students to skim the article and identify the main complete this activity and then to compare their
idea. Encourage them to do this before looking at answers. Remind them that they don’t need to read
the options and only choosing the best option after the whole article each time but that they should rather
reading the whole text. look over it very quickly to locate the information and
then read carefully.
Key: 3
Key:
2. Key words Paragraph Main idea
1 Introduction: sets up the idea of
a. Have students scan the article, find the key words companies try to be more efficient
individually and compare their answers in pairs. Elicit
Advanced

every year.
answers from the whole class.
2 Shopify has cut meetings: banning
them completely on one day,
cancelling meetings of more than two
people, limiting meetings of 50 or more
people to 6 hours on one day.
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3 Amazon limits meeting attendees to
the number of people who could share
two pizzas, bans PowerPoint, and
gives people time to read the agenda
at the beginning of a meeting.
4 Workers can spend up to six and a
half years in recurring meetings, many
times without an agenda.
5 In the pandemic, people used Teams
153% more, and 42% of attendees do
other things during meetings.
6 Employees on a four-day week trial
have remained productive by cutting
meetings and realised they sometimes
invite people only to avoid hard
feelings.
7 Meetings are not all bad: they can
expose us to new ideas and allow us
to learn from older peers.
6. Bill veered off agenda, as he tends to, and had to
be interrupted.
7. There was a bug, but it was fixed promptly.
8. They wanted to recruit someone young to give a
fresh perspective on what customers want.
5. Discussion
a. Put students in pairs or small groups and ask them
to discuss the questions. When students have
covered all the questions, bring the whole class
back together so that they can share their answers
and any interesting information that arose from
their discussions. Make note of good examples of
vocabulary and language on the board, as well as
incorrect usage that needs to be corrected. Ask
the class to identify which is which and help you
with corrections.
6. W
 ider business theme – participating
in a meeting

4. Business language – collocations a. Students first discuss the questions in pairs and agree
on the criteria that they would like to introduce. Ask
a. Ask students to practise their scanning skills again them to make notes to use in the meeting.
to complete this activity. You could also set it up as a
whole-class activity so students compete against each b. Go over useful language with the class and elicit any
other to complete the ‘reading race’. other phrases that might be useful for participating in a
meeting. Regroup students so that they are in groups
Key: of six or eight and ask them to have their meetings.
1. stir 5. impose At the end, ask students to reflect on how productive
2. fix 6. become their meeting was and how it could have gone better.
3. veer 7. voice
4. undertake 8. give

b. Ask students to work in pairs or small groups to

paraphrase the sentences. This can be done as a
speaking or writing activity. Answers given below
are simply suggestions – more than one answer
is possible.

Key:
Advanced

1. They proposed a monthly meeting so all

employees could voice their concerns.
2. The new design stirred a positive response.
3. We first undertook an inventory of the ways in
which people wasted time.
4. The government imposed a lockdown.
5. You can become more productive if you stop
multitasking.
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