Your meetings are expensive (and everyone knows it)

Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

January 14, 2026

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published Monday to Friday, equipping you to achieve your professional goals faster and without burnout or overwhelm.

Your meetings are expensive (and everyone knows it)

Hello ,

Do you still have your eye on your ONE Result for the week?

I hope you do.

Especially in the light of this expensive monster.

Meetings, meetings, meetings.

Here's the ugly truth about meetings that nobody says out loud:

Most of them are a waste.

Not because people are incompetent. Because meetings have no built-in forcing function for value.

You can schedule a meeting with 6 people, talk for an hour, reach no decisions, create no clarity, and everyone just... accepts it. Then they schedule a follow-up.

Here's what that actually costs:

If you have 6 people in a one-hour meeting, you're not spending one hour. You're spending six hours of human capacity, plus the opportunity cost of what those people could have produced instead.

So if that meeting produces nothing actionable, you just burned serious organizational resources.

The fix is simpler than you think:

Before any meeting, answer five questions:

1. Outcome: What must be true by the end?

2. People: Who is essential for that outcome?

3. Inputs: What must people review before the meeting?

4. Decisions: What decisions will be made? Who decides?

5. Next actions: What happens after, who owns it, and by when?

If you can't answer these clearly, the meeting isn't ready; or isn't needed.

One more move that changes behavior fast:

Cut the meeting time by 30%. If it's scheduled for 60 minutes, make it 40.

Forces clarity. Reduces drift. Respects energy.

Your Wednesday Action:

Pick one meeting on your calendar for next week. Run the five questions. Then shorten it by 30%.

See what happens when you respect people's capacity.

Keep winning at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategic Workplace Mentor