Long perceived as a necessary evil, Reunion has become one of the main positions of hidden expenditure in organizations. Multiplication of alignment points, endless validation committees, coordination loops with low added value: some French companies have decided to operate a radical rupture. Not by limiting meetings, but by removing the vast majority, with a clear instruction: maintaining only what produces an immediate, concrete, measurable result. This drastic reduction, far from slowing down the activity, has generated a clear improvement in commercial performance in several cases.
An internal audit before acceleration
At Germinal, a structure specializing in the growth of SMEs and startups, an initiative was launched at the end of 2021: to audit all weekly collective times, identify their purpose, and remove everything that does not lead to decision -making or concrete action. In three weeks, 80 % of regular meetings are deleted. Some are replaced by asynchronous documents, others by dedicated channels on Slack, or simply abandoned.
The first consequence, unexpected, is an acceleration of commercial velocity: more time to treat leads, fewer interruptions for salespeople, greater autonomy in field decisions. The number of sales cycles curly in less than ten days has increased by 30 %. The CODIR then decides to sanctuarize this new operation: a meeting can only be scheduled if it generates an explicit deliverable within 24 hours.
A saving of time … and energy
The Walaxy company, based in Montpellier and specializing in LinkedIn prospecting tools, adopts a similar approach in early 2022. Objective: free time with high added value for its dirty teams, while sales cycles become more competitive. Result: a drastic drop in weekly synchronization meetings, replaced by written newsletters and a single framing meeting every Monday morning, limited to 30 minutes.
This refocusing has an immediate effect on the energy of the teams. The salespeople report a decrease in stress linked to the chain of internal calls and greater clarity on priorities. The supervision, for its part, observes a better appropriation of the weekly objectives. The abolition of intermediate points has strengthened individual empowerment, without harming collective coherence. This change, which seemed risky upstream, becomes in a few months a pillar of team culture.
Cascade effects on the organization
For other companies, the abolition of meetings acts as a trigger for deeper transformations. At Agicap, SCALE-UP Lyonnaise specializing in cash management, the experience carried out in 2021 on the sales team leads to the complete revision of coordination methods. The follow-up documents are standardized, CRM tools become the central information point, and managers are trained to pilot the results without micro-management.
This evolution releases precious time on the supervision side. Team managers, less mobilized on the organization of collective times, can focus on fine performance analysis and individualized coaching. The abolition of meetings is therefore not just a direct productivity lever: it also becomes an accelerator of rising managerial skills. At the end of the first quarter, the management noted a 20 % increase in deals signed by salesperson, with a globally more stable transformation rate.
Rethink the role of the manager
In this context of massive reduction of meetings, the role of the manager evolves. At Shine, the French Fintech, team officials have not had a statutory meeting for more than a year. Their role is to make good information accessible, to arbitrate quickly in the event of blocking, and to organize targeted work sessions only if a critical point justifies it. The performance indicators can be viewed in real time, the objectives are set in a quarterly and monitoring asynchronously.
This functioning requires greater rigor in writing, prioritizing and structuring exchanges. The manager becomes a facilitator, a quick decision maker, but is no longer at the center of the information flow. This development has enabled Shine to maintain a high level of responsiveness while reducing organizational pressure. The abolition of meetings is therefore not a simple productivity measure: it contributes to a redefinition of management itself.
More demanding transparency
One of the side effects of this transformation is the increased requirement for clarity and traceability. At SuperProf, a platform for connecting students and private teachers, the reduction in meeting times has led to a complete overhaul of the internal documentation. Each information must be able to be found, shared, and understood without the need for an oral exchange. This new operation requires strong discipline: each decision is drawn, each arbitration is explained, each priority is visible for the teams.
This model is based on a simple principle: what is not documented does not exist. It allows the sales teams to act faster, to be more freely and to coordinate their actions without systematically resorting to validations. In this logic, the abolition of meetings becomes not a subtraction, but a redistribution of time and collective attention.
A direct impact on the commercial relationship
In some companies, the reduction in the time spent in an internal meeting has produced a posture tilting against customers. At Partoo, a SaaS solution for online visibility, the sales teams have integrated the principle of “protected slots”: time slots, released by the abolition of meetings, exclusively reserved for external exchanges. This increased availability made it possible to multiply the points of contact with prospects without lengthening the working days.
More than a simple time saving, this change has changed the nature of the interactions: faster responses, better targeted reminders, reinforced listening. This relational quality, which has become an assumed competitive advantage, prompted the company to perpetuate this model. Ultimately, it is the internal practices that have aligned themselves with the requirements of commercial reactivity – and not the reverse. The reduction of meetings then becomes a structural condition of commercial fluidity, more than a simple organizational choice.
