Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom!
Working in an office setting is interesting in many ways in that it has a unique blend of routine tasks that you just want a break from, and random issues that arise that you wish would just solve themselves. Mixed in there are something that occur in every office across the globe: meetings.
These meetings range greatly in length, occupancy, and topics with perhaps one commonality amongst them. Someone in attendance thinking “this could have been an email.”
This scenario is so common that I believe that statement is considered a cliché in the business world, especially given how true that statement really is. We have all been part of meetings that seem to drag on with the meeting leader going through information that we easily could have read from an email and see little point to a meeting having been necessary. There is always going to be one person in attendance who seems to not understand the topic at hand and has a thousand questions. Of course, the questions are usually inane and tend to start to deviate from the subject matter.
So, the question is, when do we know that a meeting could just be made into an email? Of course, I am sure plenty of people choose to hold meetings because it saves them from having to compile the information into an email or must field follow up questions that someone will inevitably have regarding it. I have researched recommendations from experts, as well as choosing to insert my own opinions on when a meeting is necessary over an email.
Compromise: Email with a short meeting
Before I get into breaking down when an email is better than a meeting, I want to first propose the option of doing both. I think it could be beneficial to issue an email (if deemed superior to needing a meeting) but then send out a short meeting where people could choose to attend if they had questions. The key would be to making this meeting shorter than it initially would have been, and then making it optional (if mandatory, there was no point to an email). Should anyone attend and there is discussion, notes should be taken and then sent out as another email to those originally on the email chain. This way it is not taking up as much time as a full meeting could have been and there is a chance that the meeting might not even be needed. But that is the big boon, to give employees the opportunity to determine if they need further clarification and a meeting is required.
Determine using EPIC
Shani Harmon contributed to Forbes in her own article on this subject with using EPIC collaborators to determine the validity of a meeting versus an email. These stand for Emotion, Purpose, Interpersonal, and Complexity. Emotion means a meeting is needed when the emotional tone of the email correspondence starts to rise. If people are connecting on the email chain and you sense people are starting to get heated in debate, it is time to quash any tension or confusion. Purpose refers to what the purpose of a meeting would be? If the sole purpose of the meeting is to inform people, this could certainly be accomplished with an email. But if the topic requires additional input or insight from people, then a meeting could be useful. Interpersonal means whether a meeting on the said topic could be seen as a means of strengthening bonds amongst those involved, then it might make sense to choose to host a meeting versus just leaving it as an email. This scenario could use my proposed compromise solution above. I have been to these types of meetings, and they very often devolve into conversation about children and to be perfectly honest the only people who enjoy hearing people talking about their kids are parents who are eager to brag about their own children. And complexity, if a topic might be easily misconstrued or is likely to have follow up questions, go forward with a formal meeting to discuss the topic.1
Is this just about your ego?
This certainly sounds like an attack on you, but I feel that some leaders need to hear this. I have been in meetings about certain leaders, often a Director or VP, who seem to love hearing themselves talk. The subject matter is nothing too complicated that cannot be sent in an email, and they have that protocol of “alert us in the chat if you have a question” so that tells me they are trying to control how many other people get to talk. The logic is certainly that they believe their time is more important and honestly it feels like they could not be bothered to compile an email. I mentioned this above, not wanting to write an email is not a good enough reason to host an mandatory meeting. Plus, most of these leaders have an assistant who they could dictate or have compiled a presentation that can be sent out. So, I just need to say, just because you are a senior leader does not mean we are excited that you offer time to listen to you speak. Unless there is a true level of complexity or brainstorming is needed, just write an email and send it out with the update.
Who would the recipients be?
We have been talking a lot about the data involved, but not about the people who would be involved with the meeting/email and that can be just as important. I could argue that if it is only going to two people then an email could suffice, although I could also say the same for a meeting. I feel it is valuable to evaluate the people to know if you have people who are the “talkers” who would prefer to have a meeting, or perhaps you have a series of “this could have been an email” types in which an email could likely suffice. When in doubt, a meeting is likely the option to go with, especially if you include people across multiple departments including those you do not oversee.
Can this be included elsewhere?
I feel too often people might end up scheduling many little meetings or emails when one could consolidate it all into one larger meeting. My own leader has an ongoing meeting each week which is designated for updates to save from sending over a thousand emails each week. And some of the time the meetings end up cancelled anyways because there was either no updates, they already came through as an email, or perhaps we discussed the details at a separate meeting. See this as an opportunity to streamline your own schedule rather than feeling forced to spend more of your own time than is needed.
At the end of the day, I feel the biggest tip is to simply take the time and ask yourself: is this better as a meeting or an email? I often wonder if people feel compelled to do meetings because that is how you get noticed and remembered. It is true, but I can assure you that all it takes is for you to schedule and run one meeting that goes on for over an hour with only 10 minutes worth of vital information and we will remember you as the person who wastes our time. If you truly feel the need to always hold meetings rather than emails, I will argue it is important to learn how to properly run a meeting. I shall cover that in a future post, so watch for that, but perfecting your meeting organization and public speaking would be priority one.
Have additional tips? Feel free to reach out and share in the comments to share with our readers and let us know what you think!
- Harmon, S. (2019, May 16). To Meet Or Email — That Is The Question. Forbes. Retrieved February 2, 2026, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/harmoncullinan/2019/05/16/to-meet-or-email-that-is-the-question/ ↩︎
