Executives across the country sit in boardrooms and virtual rooms alike, facing a steady stream of meetings that move agendas sideways, not forward. At the center of this epidemic lies a rarely acknowledged truth: most meetings lack a clear purpose, structure, or outcome. Despite their ubiquity, they remain one of the greatest hidden inefficiencies in modern business.
Evan Unger, managing partner at a national leadership consulting firm, studies this problem not from theory, but from immersion. He works with high-level teams where collaboration defines organizational velocity. "Meetings are a mirror of leadership," Unger notes. "If they're inefficient, it's a leadership issue—full stop."
The scale of the problem grows in proportion to company size. A corporation with 70,000 employees generates well over 250,000 meetings daily. Each one consumes time, cognitive load, and momentum. Leaders rarely calculate the cumulative impact. Even a 10-person meeting delayed by ten minutes costs more than an hour of collective productivity.
Estimates suggest that poorly managed meetings cost the U.S. economy between $100 billion and $399 billion annually. That range signals not just waste—but opportunity. Unger emphasizes that companies rarely improve meetings because they misclassify the problem. "This isn't about saving calendar space. It's about reclaiming decision velocity."
Unger applies a model known as POPRA®: Purpose, Objectives, Process, Roles, Agreements. It functions as a pre-flight checklist for meetings. Before gathering a single participant, leaders identify what must be accomplished, why the meeting exists, and who actually needs to attend. Without this, most meetings default to inertia.
He compares a well-run meeting to an aircraft launch. Takeoff, he argues, determines success. "Most crashes happen on takeoff or landing. Same with meetings. If you don't plan the first five minutes with precision, the whole conversation veers off course."
This isn’t just theoretical. Unger regularly works with executives to redesign critical team meetings, Agile sessions, and project reviews. In his workshops, the first step involves removing unnecessary meetings altogether. What remains must serve strategic functions with discipline.
Unger finds that improving meetings reshapes how teams think. "People engage differently when they see time being used well. Energy improves. Decisions accelerate. Culture strengthens."
Companies fixate on performance metrics and growth indicators, yet overlook the meeting culture that underpins every decision. "You can’t scale chaos," Unger says. "Meetings either focus teams or fragment them."
A shift in meeting culture doesn’t require budget increases or software investments. It requires leaders to reevaluate how they shape conversation and allocate collective attention. Unger often challenges senior teams to assess not just what they’re doing, but how they’re doing it—and how much time they’re spending getting nowhere. With a few precise adjustments, organizations unlock momentum they didn't realize they were missing.
In a business climate defined by speed and volatility, leaders cannot afford to waste hours in rooms—virtual or physical—that go nowhere. Discipline, not quantity, determines a meeting’s value. The shift does not require an overhaul. It begins with one decision: lead meetings with purpose, or not at all.
Website: https://www.terischwartzassociates.com/
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Website: https://www.terischwartzassociates.com/
