Stand-Up Meetings: Fewer Chairs, Greater Efficiency

Stand-Up Meetings: Fewer Chairs, Greater Efficiency

Dr. Steven Rogelberg is a Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte and former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

You don’t need a conference room (or even office chairs) to have a meeting.

Allen Bluedorn, a professor of management at the University of Missouri, compared the effectiveness of standing and sitting meetings. In a controlled experiment analyzing nearly 100 meetings with five participants each, Bluedorn and his colleagues found sit-down ones took 34% longer. Yet, meeting quality was not affected.

Moreover, attendees reported greater satisfaction with standing meetings. Similar experiments conducted at Washington University found that stand-up meetings facilitated better group collaboration, openness to others’ ideas, and engagement than sit-down meetings.

This could be a neat tool in your meeting facilitation toolkit, not as something to use all the time but rather if it fits well. Here are some key caveats to keep in mind:

• Plan ahead. Notify your attendees about the standing meeting in advance so they know what to expect. If anyone is uncomfortable with this format, offer a seated option. Objections are usually due to a physical challenge or obstacle, and we want to honor and respect this.
• Monitor meeting length. People won’t want to stand for too long. Try to keep it under 20 minutes to reduce fatigue and/or irritation.
• Check meeting dynamics. Keep an eye out for any uncomfortable situations that may emerge given differences in physical stature. Your 5-foot attendee might feel frustrated standing behind your 6-foot-5 participant.
• Positive framing. Make sure attendees know this is a new approach being implemented in hopes of making your meetings more valuable, engaging, efficient, and fun. Seek feedback from them afterward to check whether they appreciate the format or want it to take a backseat.

This article first appeared in the b. Newsletter. Subscribe now!