Till they meet again

The typical British manager spends almost 20 years in meetings during his or her career, a survey showed today. More than a quarter of that time is spent travelling to and from meetings, yet many of them could have been avoided by a telephone call, fax or letter.

The survey of 500 business managers, commissioned by BT, found they attended six meetings a week on average. A quarter of those interviewed said at least one meeting a week turned out to be pointless or unproductive.

The survey identified a widespread view of meetings as a status symbol - the more someone goes to, the more important they are. More than a third of managers complained that their company had a "meetings culture", in which everything has to be discussed at a meeting.

Some claimed that colleagues fix meetings at the end of the day to get away early, or at a client's office in the morning to get a lie-in.