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Overcome The “Let’s Get Everyone Together In A Room” Instinct And Give Everyone Back Their Time

Updated: Dec 14, 2022


Love them or hate them, meetings make up a large chunk of what we call work.

It’s how we discuss ideas, share updates, brainstorm and get things done.

You're probably going to have a meeting this week and it's probably going to cost more than it's worth.

That's why Jeff Bezos’ uses “the two-pizza rule" and keeps his meetings as small as possible.

Do the same.

Start by removing those who are in the meeting just for “visibility”.

They shouldn’t be there at all.

It’s a waste of their time.

Send them notes instead.

In The Manager’s Handbook, Alex MacCaw says there are three types of people you want at the meeting:


“One way to decide who are the right people is to identify how a person will contribute to the meeting. There are three ways in which participants can contribute to a meeting: 1) input, 2) decision, 3) commitment. If a person cannot make any of these three contributions, don't invite the person because this person just needs to be informed by broadcasting the meeting notes.”


I’m not sure how many meetings you attend each week, but I’m guessing it’s both more than you’d like and more than is necessary.

Spending hours listening to your boss collect minor status updates or your coworkers try to talk over one another isn’t a productive use of your day.

It’s not a surprise that people see meetings as their biggest barrier to productivity.

Meetings should be like salt.

Too much salt destroys a dish.

Too many meetings destroy morale and motivation.

Stop the meeting madness and learn how to politely decline a meeting invitation without coming across like a jerk here.

Don't attend meetings that have no agenda.

Don't attend meetings if there is nothing for you on the agenda.

Only attend the part of the meeting that's relevant to you.

Alex MacCaw proposes a great exercise :


If you're starting to feel yourself getting burned out at work, it's time for an energy audit (as well as a vacation!). An energy audit is simply looking through your calendar and reflecting on which meetings give you energy, and which take energy from you. Then try to eliminate the latter category by hiring, delegating, and redistributing work. It is useful to look at energy and leverage at once. Map out activities with leverage on one axis (low to high) and energy on the other (draining vs energizing). High energy, low leverage activities are traps: you really like them, but they should be delegated. High leverage, low energy activities are chores: if you can't automate them, group them with higher-energy activities.

Here's a really cool approach I've learned from Gil West, ex-Delta Airline COO.

Think of meetings as a form of collaboration organized in a layered stack.

I'll just walk you through real quick and I think you'll love it.


Go asynchronous first, then default to a remote meeting when needed and then have a physical meeting only if you're getting to a point where it's so damn crunchy that you have to get in a room and hash it out." - Gil West

When starting a collaboration overcome the "let's get a meeting on it" urge.

Screw that.

You don't need to have the meeting after the meeting.

Collaborate asynchronously in the cloud.

Put out a document that people are going to beat the hell out of for a week or so.

Instead of just twelve people that you think should be in a meeting, have thirty people beat the hell out of that thing.

Maybe there are five people there that would've never been invited to the meeting that are going to be the ones that land the biggest idea.

Have all of those nuanced discussions there.

The greater inclusion, the greater innovation.

Then, when you beat it up as best as you can in the cloud, you'll see what actual conversations you need to have in synchronous meetings.

Go to a remote meeting, solve some of the disagreements, some of the challenges and then you'll land an answer.

When a heightened emotional impact is going to be a critical component of the outcome, you'll need to have a little bit of social lubricant - that's when you call a physical meeting.

As always, make sure you’re chasing the answer to the right question.

No matter the size of the company - meetings are a necessary evil.

To be clear, you can’t get rid of them but you can and you should be picky about which meetings you call and who you invite.

Here are three fun things to try.

One, like Atlassian, Aria Healthcare, Metaverse, Asana, Octa or Moveline, introduce no-meeting days, during which people operate at their own rhythms and collaborate with others at a pace and on a schedule that is convenient, not forced.


“‘Maker Day’ is a day where the goal is for people to be productive with a big problem they are trying to solve. People in the team can work wherever they want and don’t have to be accessible to anyone but themselves.” - Kelly Edison, CPO of Moveline

Two, introduce a policy where anyone invited to an internal meeting can opt out and give up her ability to have a say in the meeting

Three, imagine a rule where if anyone in an internal meeting announces that the meeting is a waste of time, it’s over.

Does your organization have the guts to try this out?

Meetings are a waste of time, but they’re actually a waste of money, too.

How much?



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