Yahoo Finance Why Vogue’s Anna Wintour doesn’t like meetings
Meetings that could have been emails are everyone’s pet peeve, including Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.
In an online leadership and management series, Wintour shares her successful management techniques, one of which is axing formal meetings.
Rather than micro-managing, Wintour prefers a hands-off method, and often holds informal meetings with just one or two people at a time.
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“I feel very strongly that it is important to empower those who are working with you,” she said.
“They will work much more effectively if they can make leadership decisions on their own.”
But, once a week she will have one large meeting with all her staff members, “so everyone feels involved and part of the conversation”.
Who else has axed meetings?
Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban and Elon Musk also hate meetings.
Bezos avoids early morning meetings, and convenes with investors for just six hours a year, CNBC Make It reported.
And, he refuses to go to meetings if two pizzas won’t feed the entire group.
Cuban told Inc in 2014 that, “the only way you’re going to get me for a meeting is if you’re writing me a check”.
And Musk will always drop off a call or leave a meeting if he can’t add value.
But hating meetings is backed by research too.
Research from Harvard Business School and Boston University found 65 per cent of senior managers believe meetings keep them from completing their own work, and a whopping 71 per cent found them to be unproductive and inefficient.
And meetings don’t even help team-building efforts: 62 per cent of senior managers stated meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.
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