33 Tips for Leading Better Meetings
The word “meeting” evokes frustration and hatred in the minds of many employees.
Poorly conducted meetings zap time and energy that could be spent doing other things, which is why meetings are the favored whipping boy of many businesspeople.
Software company Atlassian recently published these statistics about meetings:
- 31 hours/month spent by the average employee on unproductive meetings
- $37 billion/year spent on unproductive meetings across the U.S.
- 73% of employees did other work in meetings
- 39% of employees slept during meetings
And yet, a well-conducted meeting can save time, provide clarity, and even alter the direction of a team or company. The key is not to avoid meetings, but to get better at conducting them.
I’ve had the chance to conduct hundreds of meetings over the past decade: strategic planning meetings, team retrospectives, iteration planning meetings, weekly team meetings, and many others. Along the way, I’ve made many of the classic meeting mistakes but also learned a number of powerful lessons.
Here are 33 things I’ve learned about how to conduct effective meetings.
BEFORE the Meeting
1. Decide whether a meeting is necessary.
Could the decision be made over email rather than hosting a meeting? Or perhaps a slack poll would allow you to gather the information you need? If you can efficiently gather the information in another way, don’t conduct a meeting.
2. Determine your objective.
You should be crystal clear on what you want to get out of the meeting. Do you want the group to brainstorm ideas to solve a problem? Are you trying to gather input to make a decision? Are you seeking buy-in for a decision you’ve already made? Each of these situations requires a nuanced approach.
3. Decide what falls within the scope of the meeting.
If you don’t define boundaries for the discussion, it will be easy for the meeting to go off the rails. For example, if you’re leading a meeting to gather feedback on a new product that is in beta testing, tell the group exactly what type of feedback you’re looking for: “We won’t be adding any new features right now, so I’m primarily looking for feedback on the product’s current features and its user interface.”
4. Host different meetings for different purposes.
“To make our meetings more effective, we need to have multiple types of meetings, and clearly distinguish between the various purposes, formats, and timing of those meetings.” -Patrick Lencioni
In his book Death by Meeting, Author Patrick Lencioni recommends four different types of meetings to achieve different purposes:
- Daily standup: Quick meeting to touch base on daily priorities and what each person accomplished the prior day (15 minutes or less)
- Weekly tactical: Review team metrics and weekly focuses (1–2 hours)
- Monthly strategic: Choose one or two big topics that require a deep-dive discussion, bring relevant data to make a decision (2–4 hours)
- Quarterly offsite: View the business from a distance, discuss items that have a long-term impact on the success of the team or company (1–2 days)
5. Only invite necessary attendees.
Strive to have no more than eight people in each meeting. There is a noticeable difference in efficiency between meetings with fewer than eight attendees and those with more than eight attendees.
6. Invite every relevant decision-maker.
Although you need to limit the number of attendees, you also must ensure that the relevant decision-makers are in the room. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself hosting a second meeting later on the same topic just to gather the buy-in of the decision-makers who missed the first meeting.
7. Send an agenda in advance.
Many attendees like to mentally prepare for meetings, so send an agenda before the meeting. Frame the agenda as OUTCOMES you want to achieve rather than TOPICS you want to discuss. Doing so will signal to attendees that you’re interested in action — not aimless discussion. Here are two examples:
- Determine pricing strategy for new product > Discuss product pricing
- Decide whether to give a rebate to client X > Rebate for client X
8. Collect all of the relevant information prior to the meeting.
You don’t want to show up at the meeting and find out that you don’t have the necessary info to make a decision. Prepare for the meeting by gathering data that may arise in the discussion. For example, if the purpose of the meeting is to find ways to deepen your company’s partnership with your largest client, consider bringing a list of the client’s most recent development requests, your company’s product roadmap, and stats on how much revenue the client generates for your company.
9. Be wary of assigning “pre-work” before meetings.
In situations where people need to know a lot of information before making a decision, it can be tempting to assign pre-work, like asking attendees to read a document, brainstorm a list of ideas, etc. However, few people will put in the time to do pre-work. If you absolutely need attendees to read or do something before the meeting, make it explicitly clear why that is important or try doing tip #15 below instead.
10. Consider hosting “pre-meetings” with key decision-makers.
If you’re planning to pitch a big, new idea during the meeting, you should think about meeting with one or two of the loudest voices before the meeting. Win them over to your side before talking to the full group. They’ll appreciate you coming to them for help and they can serve as vocal advocates for you during the group meeting.
DURING the Meeting
11. Start on time.
Starting late sets an implicit norm that people can arrive late with no consequences. That’s a terrible norm to set. Start your meetings on time, regardless of whether everyone is already in attendance.
12. Open the meeting by saying, “We will have failed in this meeting if we do not _______.”
Using this type of language signals to every attendee that you value their time and you’re not going to waste it. It also sets the expectation that you know exactly what needs to be done in the meeting and people can trust you to keep the meeting on track.
13. Explain the stakes of the meeting.
“Meetings are boring because they lack drama. Or conflict. This is a shame because most meetings have plenty of potential for drama, which is essential for keeping human beings engaged.” -Patrick Lencioni
Build drama and explain the stakes of how the group’s decision will impact others. This will help attendees focus on the meeting rather than daydreaming or doing other work during the meeting.
14. Do not tolerate distractions.
Don’t allow attendees to do other work during the meeting. Disengagement and distractions are viruses that will infect others if not eradicated early. Tell everyone at the start of the meeting that you expect full engagement and don’t want to see any phones or computers out except for note-taking.
15. Utilize quiet reading time.
Amazon, Square, and LinkedIn begin meetings by allocating time for attendees to read a background memo in silence before diving into the discussion. Unlike assigning pre-work, quiet reading time ensures everyone will read the background information before sharing their thoughts.
16. Discuss problems before solutions.
It’s often counterproductive to discuss potential solutions too early before everyone has a full understanding of the problem. Solutions are more fun to discuss than problems, so the group will push toward solutions as fast as they can. Don’t let them. Articulate and agree upon the problem before solutions.
17. Allow productive tangents.
Sometimes attendees bring up topics that weren’t on the agenda. Sometimes those topics are more important or urgent than the topics you planned to cover. That’s okay. Give yourself the latitude to steer off-course if the tangent seems like a productive usage of the group’s time.
18. Recognize when to cut off tangents.
Most tangents are counterproductive. As you lead more meetings, calibrate on which tangents are beneficial and which are not. When unproductive tangents arise, direct the group’s attention back to the agenda and ask attendees to take tangential conversations “offline” with a smaller group after the meeting.
19. Start a “parking lot” of future discussion topics.
When someone brings up a great topic that doesn’t fit in the scope of the current meeting, note that topic in a parking lot of ideas to discuss in future meetings. Using a parking lot ensures that you won’t lose sight of important topics while also showing the person who brought up the topic that you see merit in what they wanted to discuss.
20. Encourage debate. Draw it out.
“When two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary.” -Dale Carnegie
Many of the best meetings involve passionate debate. Debate shows that people care and that they’re willing to put themselves out there to make the right decision for the company. It’s natural and healthy for people to disagree, and disagreement leads to better decisions. Engaged dissenters are 100 percent better than disengaged zombies.
21. Call out groupthink.
The first few comments in any discussion tend to sway the group in a specific direction. If you notice that everyone keeps agreeing with the points that are raised, stop the discussion and point out what you’ve observed. By acknowledging groupthink, you can push the group back toward dialogue rather than head nodding.
22. Distinguish between the brainstorming and decision phases.
During the brainstorming phase of a discussion, no idea is a bad idea. Ideas should flow like wine at a wedding. But after you’ve fleshed out a wide array of potential solutions, you need to push the group to make a decision. During the decision phase of the meeting, incorporate voting and other mechanisms to shrink the pool of ideas.
23. Experiment with various voting techniques.
It’s tough to get a group of people to coalesce around a decision, so it’s often best to try different voting techniques. Force people to pick a side. Give everyone a certain number of votes (e.g. one vote if you’re choosing from a small number of ideas, three votes if you’re choosing from ten or more ideas). You can use the vote to select the best idea or simply to winnow down your list to the top two or three ideas that can then be debated by the group.
24. Use whiteboards whenever possible.
Whiteboards inspire creativity and offer attendees a way to visually follow along with a conversation. These traits make whiteboards a powerful meeting tool — especially for meetings about creative or strategic topics (e.g. product design, company vision, brainstorming).
25. Coax insights out of less talkative members.
Don’t let extroverts suck up all of the air in the room. Many of the best insights come from team members who listen more than they speak. If you notice that one of your team members hasn’t shared his or her perspective, invite them to join the discussion. A simple invitation like, “John, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this,” can give introverted team members the encouragement and safety to jump into the foray.
26. Interrupt the interrupters.
Confident, talkative team members tend to interrupt quieter introverted team members. Don’t let this happen. As the discussion leader, it’s your prerogative to interrupt the interrupter and encourage the original speaker to finish saying whatever they had begun to say.
27. Disagree and commit.
“Have backbone, disagree and commit. Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.” -Amazon Leadership Principles
Disagreement is great, but at the end of the meeting, everyone needs to be on the same page. Here’s one way to encourage team members to disagree and commit: “While we’re in this room, I want everyone to throw punches and disagree strongly. But whatever we land on, when we walk out those two doors, I don’t want anyone who wasn’t in this meeting to be able to tell who was on each side of the fence for this decision. We will fully commit to the decision — whatever it may be.”
28. Conclude every meeting with action items.
WHO will do WHAT by WHEN? Without a clear owner and timeline, assume that nothing will get done.
29. End on time.
Become known as someone who is respectful of others’ time. If the conversation is still going strong at the end of the scheduled time, ask the group how they’d like to proceed: “I think we’re getting somewhere with this discussion, but I want to be respectful of everyone’s time. Should we schedule another time to finish this discussion or does everyone want to continue the discussion right now?”
AFTER the Meeting
30. Conduct a quick retrospective.
If you’re looking to improve your meeting skills, ask one or two attendees afterwards for feedback on how you conducted the meeting. Tell them you’re looking for genuine, candid feedback because you want to get better.
31. Send recap notes.
Hold the group accountable to their agreed-upon next steps by emailing recap notes to all attendees within one day of the meeting. Timeliness is important so you don’t forget the core aspects of the meeting or lose momentum with the rest of the group.
32. Follow-up on action items.
You must circle back with the team members later to see if they’ve completed their action items. This is one of the hardest and most neglected steps of running a meeting, but it’s also one of the most critical steps. Follow-up is the difference between six people bullshitting in a conference room and six people impacting the future of the company.
33. Determine whether additional meetings are necessary.
Can the rest of the project be handled via email? Can a mini task force tackle the last aspects of the project and report back to the full group once it’s completed? Or is the best course of action to reconvene the entire group in a few weeks? Don’t hesitate to schedule a follow-up meeting if you think that’s the best way to keep everyone on track.
The biggest lie of Corporate America is that meetings are a waste of time.
Meetings don’t have to suck. When conducted properly, meetings can save time, improve efficiency, clarify objectives, and inspire action.
The 33 tips above will turn you into a meeting maestro. Happy conducting!
