Grade A Meet

 

Nobody seems to have love for meetings. Meetings are seen as soul-crushing wastes of time, a dreaded distraction from the real work. Which is puzzling to me, because I think meetings should be the most important, impactful, and enjoyable part of work. What I realize is that people don’t hate meetings; they hate bad meetings. And if all their meetings are bad meetings, then of course they’re going to hate meetings. 

Which is unfortunate, because it’s not hard to have good meetings. But it is hard to have good work without meetings. 

Good meetings, I think, boil down to a short list of important norms that need to be consistently hewed to: 

1. Start and end on time. 

2. Be clear about who is to attend and why. 

3. Make an agenda, share it in advance, and make sure people are ready for the meeting before the meeting. 

4. Have someone run it, keeping an eye on time, participation, and the fundamental purpose of the meeting. 

5. Establish what decisions need to be made and actions taken, and then do it. 

6. Be clear about what we’re supposed to do now that we’ve met. 

Without meetings, we are basically doing our own thing. Oh sure, you might argue that there are many ways to communicate outside of a meeting, and you’d be right. A meeting doesn’t replace those communications. But, those communications do not replace the meeting, because it’s impossible to move a complex task forward without a lot of synchronous together time. 

I suppose bringing snacks and having someone running the meeting who is funny goes a long way, too.