Not all meetings are bad though and you cannot put a counter on meetings that foster future growth or stability. Spending 30mins extra in a meeting could resolve a major issue, helping the company beat competition - something that you cannot put a dollar value on easily.
Just like there is an opportunity cost of having four senior staff sit in a room for 45mins, there is an opportunity (benefit) for them to do something that helps the long-term growth too. While I have been in many meetings that were twice as long as they needed to be, I have also been in meetings that went overtime but solved technical, inter-departmental, and operational problems. Having a clock in those meetings would have been seriously counter-productive.
Agreed - but I think there are enough unbalanced forces within most organizations towards the "let's a have meeting" solution to problems that this is making a "ha, ha, only serious" point that resonates.
Just like there is an opportunity cost of having four senior staff sit in a room for 45mins, there is an opportunity (benefit) for them to do something that helps the long-term growth too. While I have been in many meetings that were twice as long as they needed to be, I have also been in meetings that went overtime but solved technical, inter-departmental, and operational problems. Having a clock in those meetings would have been seriously counter-productive.