Mr Musk’s other thoughts on improving productivity include avoiding large meetings – which he says are the “blight of big companies”. “It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time,” he wrote. BBC News, April 18, 2018 Elon Musk: Just walk out of bad meetings. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

My trick was simple. I would suddenly grab my mobile phone, look at it, and then head out the door. In the good old days of flip phones, it looked even more convincing when I glanced at the phone, then flipped it open as I went out the door. Clearly, something important was happening and I had to deal with it. What was actually the case was that the meeting I was in had become clearly a waste of time. The phone call or text message, there was either none or it was not urgent, became the socially acceptable trigger to key my exit.

See Meeting Madness, Don’t Do It and Your Project Needs Business Rules, Not Meetings

Are your meetings productive or do people seem to find reasons to leave or avoid them?