Organizing.  You’ve probably thought about, at one time or another,
why do some people seem to be very organized and others don’t find
it necessary at all.  I have a quick theory to share with you about
what drives organization, but more importantly two tips to help you
at work, regardless of how you organize.

First the theory.  Yes, people organize differently.  Look at todo lists for
example.  Some people make them up as they come to mind… just  jot
it down, or if it was a closet, just throw it in there.  Some organize todos
around concepts or topics or projects, some around dates, some around
urgency, some around people.

Not only do we organize differently, but we also vary in the amount
of effort we spend in organizing.  Most of us vary over time.  In fact
lots of things effect organization.  Personal preference, time of day,
pressure, interest.

So here’s my theory about what drives your level of organization. 
It’s in the rear view mirror.

What?   That’s right, the need to organize is ultimately driven by the
consequences for not being able to find stuff, not your aspiration or
aptitude for organizing.

Being able to find stuff is what drives us.  Or more accurately the
consequences for not being able to find stuff.   Reminds me of working
on a project for Nokia years ago, and how that all the developers
documented their code every week – something that gives most
development houses trouble.  Why?  Because the consequence for
not organizing and documenting your work was that you didn’t get paid.

So my theory is that the emotional consequences, in this case for not
being able to find stuff, is what drives our organization behavior.  If
there’s minimal impact or consequence for not having something at
your finger tips, then you probably won’t spend a lot of time or invest
a lot of time in organizing it, whether it’s information at work or stuff
in your garage. 

Personal comfort, and most of the time that means likelihood of
being uncomfortable, is the engine that drives the need to organize.
Avoiding discomfort is the pay-off for the pain of the extra work required
to categorize, place, and all the other tasks that are involved in
organization.  If there’s no discomfort, especially immediate discomfort,
whether generated externally (your boss or spouse) or internally
(you don’t like things messy, it makes you feel tense), then you’re
probably going to just leave it in a stack somewhere, place it on a shelf,
drop it where you last used it, etc.

So here’s my best tip to assist you at work when it comes to
organizing information.  MAKE IT HIGHLY VISIBLE & FLEXIBLE.

It’s one of the reasons I depend on using an information management
technology, like ManagePro.    Whether I’m organizing by person or
by date, by project or by category, by sight or by look-up on a key
word; it’s all in one place and very visible.  The key is that I can find
anything I’ve put in the system, regardless of how much effort I put
into organizing the data when I put it in, or regardless of which
organizing principle I’m using.  Make sense?

In fact, whatever system you use for organization, it will only be effective
if it helps you “find stuff.”  If you create a system today that you can’t
recall the following day, your organization can actually get in the way of
finding stuff. 

I do this some times when I’m tired at the end of the day and think
“I’ll just put this set of keys, or this book, or… here because this is a
logical place to remember to find it”, only to struggle the following day
to remember exactly what creative place I had found to store, read
organize my keys.

My second tip.  This has immediate implications for managing
other’s, especially when you wish them to be more organized. 
Remember the key is discomforting consequences… not preaching
about the values of organization.  Aspirations, discussing the value
of organization, making it part of your process is all great and tends
to fade over time.  Remember its ultimately emotional consequences.
Just think Nokia and you’ll be fine.

Bottom Line:

We all have quite a bit of diversity and enduring patterns of behavior
influencing how we organize tasks and information.  Admidst all that
diversity, what I find most consistent is that the consequences for not
finding stuff is the key factor that drives how much effort we put
into organizing.  And finally, when at work what I find most helpful
is a tool like ManagePro that helps me use multiple ways of organizing
data, and regardless of how “organized” I am at any moment, provides
one place to view it all and to find it.

As we emerge from this recession, crises continue to emerge, and the
present and future remains a slippery object to get our arms around, 
different, not necessarily better - you’re probably wondering about
how to succeed in such an environment.    Let’s go over two tips in this blog. 

First of all a quick review of the current environment.  There are multiple
predictions of change in personal careers.  Changes in the number of times
someone like you and me will make a job change, much less a career change,
e.g. reinvent ourselves and what we do to make a living and with whom. 

There’s also predictions that the nature of work will change, see the post
below from a recent email from the Economist. 

“Today, humanity is on track to advance mentally, physically and
economically more than ever before. But serious challenges lie ahead.  

We will soon be a world of at least 9 billion people. In an age of high
unemployment and aging demographics, how will we educate billions of
new people and manage their successful entry into the global economy?
The nature of work and talent development must evolve dramatically. 
Your office may never look the same again.” 

On the other hand, a quick scan of forums reveals that the reality of
managing work change looks very messier, and challenging.  Here’s
a sample from Airbucket: 

“It appears thus far that finding a career or switching careers in mid 30s
is difficult thing to do and to research. My husband graduated with a useless
B.A. and has done nothing since resume worthy although he is a model
employee, he has no IT experience or finance or any of the major industries.
Now at his age and with a family he is trying to decide what to do, and
constantly searching on the net and reading books and trying to predict
what will be a winning move is confusing at best and almost making
things worse in that we are both too confused to make a move at anything.”

So what do you do?  Here’s two tips for starters: 

1. Focus on value and think like an entrepreneur.  

Most people think they are valuable at work.  In fact our brain is very good
at convincing us we are valuable and should be treated well, if not better
than we are. 

That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you think about value (think outside
of yourself, not personal value) and you think like an entrepeneur, then
you find the conversation in your head to be something like this: 

“Where is there a need that not’s being addressed?  A need by people with
the resources to pay for a solution?  How can I jump in and be part of/create
the solution?”  

In a sense creating value, is a lot like selling hamburgers if you’re an
entrepenuer. You want to find a market of hungry buyers with cash, and
get your shop right in front of them, e.g. be a very prominent, “in your face”
solution. 

So imagine you are regularly going to  scan your work environment for
unmet demands by people with resources, because that represents a value
opportunity, and decide whether or not it is worth it to you to get in front of
that demand and market yourself as (part of) the solution. 

2.  Standout by following-up. 

The world at work is full of more starts and stops than an LA freeway at 5pm
on Friday afternoon.  Meetings get canceled, sometimes you get call backs,
often you don’t.   Lots of information, but continuity is in limited supply.  

Stand out by owning continuity, in your own behalf, first of all.  Persevere
in asking the value question and pursuing the opportunity to reinvent
yourself to meet that opportunity.  Keep moving ahead, keep testing what
works, keep learning, keep trying.  As some would say, “keep on keeping on”.  

Keep challenging your assumptions about what creates value and what
you should have to do to be successful, to see if they still make sense in
the world NOW, and the anticipated tomorrow.   Then extend that
continuity to your work network.  Be the person that returns calls,
that remembers, that prompts, that keeps the goal in mind. 

Following up, not just to maintain contact, but to create value, or in
pursuit of creating value, as defined TODAY, will help you stand out and
navigate the volatile work place projected by the Economist.  Your
follow-up on the process of “how do I succeed, and succeed by identifying
opportunities to create value?” will stand out to others over time. 

Bottom Line: 

The world of work is a volatile place, full of starts, stops and unexpected
turns.  Focus on Creating Value and Followup as two essential skills  to help
you navigate the instability and develop  a good set of sea legs in the process.

I was working on a significant project this last week, several million at stake,
and found it very difficult to get my arms around  the deliverables and
the plans to reach them.  Dates and mitigations were even harder to nail
down. I’m saying to myself and my co-worker, after reviewing the poor
performance, “Who organized this anyway? Good grief!”

That led me on an interesting journey this week, looking at how different
people organize.  Here’s the big insight for me, and maybe even you -
everyone organizes around a purpose (not specifically a tie to
performance).   Yes, there is a method to our madness, but, and this
is important, those different styles of organization don’t all end up with
the same amount of money in your pocket at the end of the day.

Let me say that again, everyone has a pattern of organizing that’s based
upon a purpose.   But, all purposes are not equal, and depending upon the
purpose you use, you are looking at very different outcomes for your
career and your life. 

I should also mention that what looks like organization from one
person’s purpose-based system, can look like chaos from
someone else’s purpose based system.  Let me give you two
quick examples:

#1  I saw an interview with Miley Sirus last week.  She was discussing that she
was looking forward to moving out and having her own place and ending
the tension with her Mom about her style of organizing clothing by dropping
it on the floor of her room. 

Interesting, her Mom probably feels she is unorganized, Miley was telling
the talk show host that it is her form of organization.  When you listened
carefully you realized she was organizing based upon visual location and
ease of effort.  Her clothes were spread out all over the room, not all
clumped in one corner.  She could easily get to whatever she needed with
minimum storing effort.

#2 The person who’s project plan I was struggling with, was organizing all
work effort around project report milestones.  So you couldn’t follow any
deliverable easily from start to finish.  Tasks sequences were broken
up and re-clustered together based upon what had to be included in the
next report. 

It’s another way of organizing,  maximizing the purpose of generating a
report, but was giving me fits in terms of being able to confirm we had the
right or even a complete sequence of tasks or plan to achieve each deliverable.

If you step back and look rather dispassionately at your own style, at what
purpose your organization serves, you might it find it pretty informative,
if not entertaining… but not necessarily tied to giving you the best overall
performance.

Here’s some purpose based organizational patterns I recognize frequently,
I bet you can add more.   We tend to organize work based upon:

1. Whatever is on my calendar today,
2. The latest request in my inbox, voice mail,
3. My boss’ s requests
4. What’s due next, due dates in general
5. When I have to deliver… a report, an outcome,…
6. How I’ve always done things, my preferred habits
7. What’s easiest,
8. What’s most comfortable
9. What’s most likely to keep me out of trouble
10. What’s most likely to reach the outcomes I want

Bottom Line:
We all tend to organize our world and information at work.  We all organize
to serve a purpose.  You might want to think about the purpose your
organization is built on… and whether it serves your best interest.

Lots of people write about critical success factors.  You know, the things you
must do to be successful.  I slightly cringe using the term, because it’s so
over-used, but I want to share a couple of things with you about being
successful that may surprise you.

First impressions are misleading:  First of all, success or the lack of it,
is often a very lagging indicator.  E.g. someone may be very effective,
and successful at what they do, but acknowledgement, fame or fortune
may be trailing them in the distance, so you wouldn’t notice it up front. 
The converse is also true. We work with a number of people who have high
level positions, long careers, but I wouldn’t rate them as very effective
or successful people.  Bottom line, you have to look beyond “successful”
people to find what the critical factors are for success.

If first impressions are misleading, recurring impressions are a pretty
good bet, and I’ve found 9 factors or enduring patterns of behavior that 
characterize people and organizations that are effective at what they do. 

Those nine factors range from use of systems, to using defined outcomes
in action and speech, to keeping clear and current about current status
updates and priorities.  I’ve made up a graphic scorecard you can use to
rate yourself or your organization on these 9 patterns.  You can download it at http://www.managepro.com/successfactors.xls 

Here’s the real curve ball.  Most of us have all been saturated with
the quasi-myth that success is related to setting positive goals,
positive imagery and visualization, etc.  It’s sort of true, but not nearly
as highly correlated as one might think.

The truth is that most of us are not only relatively risk-adverse, but
we tend to gear up for change, and yes success is a change for most
of us… when we focus on the negative, not the positive.

Whether you look at:
1.  the classic comment from the movie, Network,
 ”I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore”, or
2. the behavioral research by Daniel Kahneman, or
3. the pop-psychology imbued in diet theory, e.g. you “will be most
successful if you’re thinking about the negative aspects
of failing your goal rather than the positive…”
the surprising truth is that avoiding negatives is a bigger
driver for helping you be successful than positive incentives.
So use the negatives in your life, they have wonderful motivational
power.

Bottom Line:
There’s a number of surprising lessons to be learned about being
successful at work, and at life.  Apart from learning that the
people who have currently “made it” can often not be modeling
what it takes to be successful,  and yes there are some practices
that will help you be more successful… but the biggest sleeper is
how much more powerful negatives are than positives to motivate
you to success.

Another thought about the role of comfort in business.  I keep being struck
with how often it functions in an orthogonal, if not opposing, manner to
working strategically and winning at the game of business.

Hm… first sentence and I already wrote that to nicely.
How about saying it this way:

“Be very careful about doing or supporting others doing what’s comfortable…
check that it really is aligned with working, managing strategically, with the
end goal in mind… otherwise it may mean you or they will not survive.”

For a similar perspective, check out Alan Webber’s book, Rules of Thumb:
52 Truths for Winning at Business without Losing Your Self.  It seems that
when we lose the sense of being in touch with survival needs, we get feeling
insulated, we rationalize not needing to adapt, not needing to respond, not
needing to take the extra steps.

This last week I was peering at a man’s face, as his body lay crumpled on the
street, his eye fixed wide open, someone feeling for his pulse, someone else
calling 911.  He had walked across a busy highway at night, instead of
walking the extra 50 feet down to the light ahead of us.  He didn’t survive,
but he did what was comfortable… until it suddenly wasn’t.

I worked with customers from two different governments this week.  Both
are slow to get even basic strategy tracking and resulting action plans
implemented.  Both would be dead on the street if they had to face a car
bearing down on them.

How nimble is your business, how much does doing what’s strategic, what
ensures survivability, rank over comfort?

Bottom Line:

Staying in touch with the need to survive, is a great antidote to over-
emphasizing comfort in how we engage in life at work.  In fact, losing
touch with survival needs makes us all too complacent, protective and
non-adaptive in a world that often rewards the one who adapts the quickest.

Links:

Working Strategic and the Role of Comfort

Who Moved my Cheese

I’ve been swamped with a large international project for the past few months,
and blogging as well as a few other things, have all had to take a back seat.
One thing I have been itching to write about it seeing how individuals manage
and translate information into a preferred work style.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written, you know that I am in favor of setting
clear outcome goals and then translating the embedded assumptions and
action steps into a set of chunks or small deliverables.  Why?  For me it’s all
about what helps people be most effective.  But that has to do with what
drives me, which is likely not what drives you.

That’s what this blog is about today.  It’s about what drives you and how
that affects your work.

Lately I realize how much we are all driven by something.  For me its a
number of things, including getting to make an impact, use my gifts and
tools in my toolbox, having the opportunity to knock the ball out of the park,
working smart and working with people I enjoy.

But perhaps the biggest insight lately is to realize how much achievement
drives my behavior… and doesn’t drive lots of other people.  Oh, its not that
people don’t want to work, or get things accomplished, it’s just that
achievement isn’t the largest or prominent driver for them.

Guess what is.  What would you say drives most of the world at work?

What I keep noticing is that comfort or the avoidance of discomfort is the
biggest shaper for how most people I work with around the world behave.
It permeates the choices we all make, even effecting how we manage
information and approach chunking projects and deliverables into a set of
daily tasks.

Take managing information and working projects for instance.  I find myself
driven by wanting to adopt what works best, and I’m constantly checking or
cross checking if we’re on a trajectory to hit the outcome, and if not I want to
make a course correction.  Why?  Because that’s what I am most comfortable with.

For many, what emerges is a different pattern, one where comfort isn’t tied to
cross checking to see if they are on track, but instead to verify that they are
operating in a known pattern, and justifying that position if needed.  Here are
a couple of examples:

1. Some people are most comfortable in managing information and work by
approaching it in what I call the “librarian” style.  Whether they use post-it
notes or have an elaborate coding system, they approach comfort at work
as a state in which everything is identified, categorized, defined…   Having a
developed taxonomy is their way of chunking the work process.

2. Other people approach work and information by limiting their focus to the
next task.  What’s next, what do you want me to do?  There is no over-
arching categorization.  Managing work and the information in it is most
comfortable when perceived as a rolodex of todos, which when one is finished,
you just turn to the next.

3.  Still others are most comfortable when they dive deeply into the details,
scenarios, implications and deeper recesses of possibilities.  They enjoy
gathering and stating knowledge, writing technical manuals, knowing the
theory, and the theorist’s name.  Comfort is the ability to know and be able
to declare a lot.

Bottom Line:

It pays to take a look at what shapes your comfort meter, as it significantly
drives your behavior at work and ultimately your outcomes.  It would be
strategic of you to ask yourself this question as we embark on another year…
“Is what I comfortably adopt as a work style, and information management
style, really related to being successful?  Or does my comfort meter get in
the way of my ability to accomplish what I want… or say I want?”

Links:
Being Successful using Chunks
Technology for Translating Work into Track-able Chunks

I wanted to pass along a couple of tips that help improve your chance
of being successful with that next improvement effort.  We are witnesses
to individual and organization’s attempts to improve every day, working
with ManagePro installations and deployment.  Using ManagePro
inevitably involves a work smarter improvement process, sometimes
to the dismay of the users, and gives me a front row seat to the
adventure.

Anyway, these tips boost your chances for success, whether you’re
focused on something corporate, like your strategic plan or
applying software, or something personal, like maintaining
your key relationships.

#1 The first tip I’d like to cover is simply this -
Chunks work better than goals most of the time.

It’s funny, you need goals, an outcome, something to shoot for, etc,
to get the improvement process focused and launched.  But, if you
don’t chunk up your goals (break them down into specific action steps),
they remain as aspirations and most people don’t have much long term
success implementing goals.

What do I mean by chunks or chunking?

Chunking refers to breaking down any process into bite sized or smaller
increment sub-tasks. It’s not really defined, but it’s usually implied
that chunks are something you can complete in a short period of time.
It may be 30 minutes for some, 90 minutes for others.

Here’s a quote from James at Organize It that demonstrates the use of this
concept: “I am about the whole idea of breaking your work down into tiny
chunks of activity (or next actions if you’re a GTD fan). I do it so often in
fact that any little project I have I will look at how it can be broken down.”

Another way to think of this is in using the “bake the cake” analogy.
I know of a few people who can bake a cake by just making it up. The
goal or outcome is enough for them to know what to do and get it done.
For the vast majority, e.g. the rest of us, we need a recipe, something
that breaks the process down into a series of concrete steps, otherwise
we are soon stumped or don’t have very good outcomes.  I know I won’t.

You may be thinking “Well duh! Nothing new here.”, but if you step back
and look at whatever goals or improvement processes you have in
place you may find that a significant proportion have not been
chunked down… and as a result are likely to end up as unrealized
aspirations.;

Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers, suggests that after doing a specific type of
task for 10,000 hours, you become so competent that the whole concept of
chunking may become irrelevant.   Until then, and especially if you need other
(non-10,000 hour) people to assist you… practice chunking for better results.

Bottom Line:
No goal, no process, no improvement target is really ready for
prime time, for assimilation and application by more than a few
experts, until it has been broken down into chunks.  Breaking
activities into chunks immediately improves your odds for success.

Links:
Being Strategic about People, Information and Technology

I started flying again this month, after a year’s hiatus.  There’s a picture of the Velocity I fly below.  Flying demands a level of attention that nothing else I do requires.  It is something that makes me feel emotionally transported and refreshed on most flights.  It’s also a high performance activity that requires consistency and competence to stay ahead of the plane - not unlike what’s required for success at work.  Let’s talk about 4 things that work for both.

High Performance Requires High Competence for Safety

Part of flying safe is being current, having regularly put in time piloting the plane.  And when you’re flying you’re expected to know three things all the time:

1. Where are you going?
2. What’s your flight path, heading and next fix or milestone?
3. What time do you expect to be at the next milestone – e.g. regular progress updates?

Said in a different way, flying safe is knowing where you’re at, where you expect to be and by when.  It’s called staying ahead of the plane.  And its the same in business… except often it’s missing.

I’ve had two coaching conversations this week with executives that serve as an example.  But both people fell behind because they weren’t tracking these three areas, they were busy doing other stuff.  Invariably, to get better results at work, whether that’s an initiative, a project,  or a personal goal… you’ve got to put in time regularly on the things that are directly related to success.

In business terms, think of it as tracking Outcomes, What’s next and Updates.  It’s a process that keeps you working on the business, and it is decidely different than working on the next task, attending the next meeting and plowing through you email inbox.  It’s something that most of us need to put on the schedule, otherwise we get distracted and stop being consistent about it.

You probably already know the basics of what to do to meet your next goal, or can easily find out.  The challenge is putting in the time and not getting distracted by a myriad of demands and requests coming at you, nor inconsistent because your commitment was only as good as your personal “want to” index on a given day.

Gerber outlined the same realism in his book the E-Myth. That being, that most of us, most business owners and executives don’t invest enough time working ON the business, as we’re so easily consumed working in the business.

Warning: Tip #4. I don’t think most people use effective strategies and technology to “stay ahead” of their business outcomes, plan and updates.  You certainly can’t do it with email and meetings.  I use ManagePro as my technology backbone to keep me ahead of the process.  It functions the same as my GPS in the plane. It provides the structure for reminding me and visually laying out the focus, planning and tracking involved in staying ahead.

Let me know what works for you.  And in the mean time be sure to sign up to get my blog regularly, I’ll be covering more tips on staying ahead of your business and all the associated information and people management issues involved.

Bottom Line:
If you work these four issues consistently, you’ll like the results at work.  They are:
1. Where are you going – what’s the outcome?
2. What’s your plan for getting there? – work it.
3. When’s the next update on progress due?
Do you need to course correct?
4. Use a technology that tracks it all for you – a business management GPS.

Links:

Management Software – Doing More with Less
Business Management Software

Almost a year ago McKinsey Quarterly did an interview with Google CEO
Eric Schmidt and in it are three great suggestions on developing a culture
of innovation we would all be well advised to consider.

The 3rd suggestion has to do with how to create an organizational structure
that fosters innovation.  The question put forth by the Quarterly, is this:
“Is there a type of organization that has an edge when it comes to fostering innovation?”

Eric suggests that innovation is inherently complex, not simple.  Innovation,
in today’s global economy is something that needs multiple inputs drawn from
individuals who likely will work in and across multiple divisions or departments.

Eric characterizes innovation with the tension of originating from small teams,
but yet needing a collaborative input from a variety of sources outside of the
small team.  He opens it up by underscoring the need for a collaborative
culture where people “self organize” to work on the most interesting problems.”

That sounds like a majority of the people standing on one side (the interesting
side) of the boat doesn’t it?  

Before you think that will tip everything over, flip his comments in reverse and
listen to what they sound like in terms of organizational structure.

1. We don’t innovate if people can’t work in small teams.
2. We don’t innovate if people in small teams can’t get access to anyone else
they need in the company.
3. We don’t innovate if a project is closed off to anyone with expertise who is
interested in contributing to the project.
4. We don’t innovate if our departmental structure creates boundaries that
prevent ideas and expertise flowing to where it’s needed.

That should get some neurons firing.  Hopefully you start to think,
“Hey, we can do more of that.”

Before I wrap up this blog, let me cover one more thought about structure.

Eric drifts into equating collaboration with innovation later in the interview.
If you’re like me, when you read the four statements above, I’m thinking
that most organizations don’t have the idea and information visibility
that would allow people to know what’s happening in the next office,
much less the next department.

I wonder what it would be like for an organization to publish not only an
employee and contact list, but a “cool project” list.  “Here’s what’s going on
across the organization – let the team lead know if you have something that
may contribute.”

It begs the need for having a much better information solution than email,
shared documents on a server somewhere and PowerPoint decks. 

In effect you need a management information technology, where you could
view and work on everything going on in the organization within one application.

Bottom Line:

The structure of innovation is messier than any organizational chart.
It starts with a small group, but needs to draw upon resources from
a larger pool of people to  be competitive in today’s global market.
You promote that type of access by both a flexible organizational
structure, and by “not the customary” office information technology.

Your thoughts?

Links:

How to do more with less using ManagePro

Almost a year ago McKinsey Quarterly did an interview with Google CEO
Eric Schmidt and in it are three great suggestions on developing a culture
of innovation we would all be well advised to consider.

The 2nd suggestions that emerged in the conversation is the idea that
“Innovation is something that comes when you’re not under the gun.”

Eric talks about that in terms of the Google 20% time process,  a process
where staff  devote “20 percent of their work time” to special projects of
their own design.

It’s represented as a core component of Google’s efforts (and success) at
systematially developing innovation.   Actually this a remake of an
approach 3M is famous for in their efforts to facilitate innovation.  

It’s a challenging move isn’t it?  Most businesses I work with would feel
like they couldn’t afford to do it.  That sounds like quite a loop, “I can’t
afford to be innovative, because we’re not making enough money…
because we aren’t innovative enough.”

I got a chuckle out of Eric confiding that he has no balance, e.g. no
20% time, and communicated that this was just reality for senior execs.
So does that mean they aren’t actively supported in being innovative?
Aren’t depended on to be innovative like the direct reports alloted the
20% time underneath them?  Interesting.

What gets even more interesting to me, is that most companies we work
with wouldn’t support an allotment of 20% of a workers’ time to be devoted
to innovation… but get this, they do support 20% of the time being devoted
to managing email, social media, and even a larger percentage of time
devoted to attending meetings, especially as one moves up the organization.

Bottom Line:

Google is extending the 3M practice of allotting people 20% of their
time to work on innovation projects (or catch up) to futher innovation
across the organization.  This stands in contrast to most organizations
that don’t allow any set % of time to work on independently innovation
projects, but do support personnel to allocate a significant % of time
(more than 50% in some organizations) sitting in lengthy meetings,
and more than 20% of the time attending to email.  Looks like we’ve
got communication heavily favored over innovation.   

BTW we have a meeting management product that has been verified to reduce
meeting time by 50%.

Link – see Meetings as a Form of Collaboration