Meet the new year. Same as the old year.
No matter who I talk to. What industry they work in. Everyone hates meetings.
There’s a reason why “this meeting could have been an email” became such a popular meme. (I miss the days when it was played out. Man, I laughed sooooo hard the first time.)
I’d even go so far as to say running an effective meeting is the number 1 thing any company can do to boost productivity, sales, employee morale, whatever.
And bad meetings became even worse once we entered the Zoom world. Think about it: the primary way a remote employee knows what it’s like to work at your company is by what they experience on video meetings.
I feel so strongly about this I actually put together an internal training on how to make meetings no suck. Here are the CliffsNotes*:
👉Be positive and bring some f*cking energy.
I don’t care if you’re having an awful day. (Or worse, you’re a boring person.) This is when you fake it. Put a smile on your face and practice charisma.
👉Be a facilitator, not a talker.
You MUST have an agenda. And it’s your job to stick to that agenda and direct traffic. Not dominate the conversation.
Your goal should be to talk as little as possible. And when you do, it’s to give the absolutely necessary updates then keep the meeting on track.
Pro Tip: we use a modified version of EOS’s L10 agenda.
👉Incorporate team participation.
The best way to get people to participate is to bake it into the agenda. We start our meetings by asking the team for recognition & shout outs. Which psychologically forced people to get involved because it’s weird if you’re the one person who can’t recognize others.
And you can also assign different people to be responsible for preparing each agenda item.
👉Cut off ramblers and off topics convos.
Normalize telling people to stop talking when they’re going on tangents. Literally everyone, even the long talkers, will appreciate it. Assign someone to do this.
👉Include an open discussion.
Even if it’s just a few minutes, give everyone the opportunity to ask questions, make suggestions, share their insights, or request training.
👉Periodically evaluate aka why the hell are we even having this meeting?
If your meeting sucks, it’s because you’re trapped in the status quo. The main way to get out of crappy meetings is to recognize when you’re having crappy meetings. What was necessary a year ago may not be necessary now.
👉Respect the clock
Start on time and more importantly: END ON TIME. Keep an eye on the clock and make sure the important things get done.
People have their actual work to get back to.
*Side note: Does anyone even know what CliffsNotes are anymore? What’s the 2025 version? ChatGPT summary?
Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.
