3 Ideas to Make Meetings Great Again
Everyone is busier than ever, so build better check-ins.
“To be sure, meetings are essential for enabling collaboration, creativity, and innovation.”
These words — suggested by Perlow, Hadley, and Eun — feel aspirational, and they were not wrong. Standing meetings especially are important, and they can be the best or worst thing about organizational life.
By standing I don’t mean literally standing — although you might do that. I mean meetings that occur with regular frequency, perhaps once per week, fortnight, or otherwise.
These are great opportunities to brainstorm the next big project or provide programmatic updates, if you can find the right formula. And that goes for bosses and employees — meetings are two-way dances. I have a boss but I also manage people who all work on uniquely different projects, so this story has both perspectives in mind.
Personally, I wish I acknowledged all these points earlier in my career, and each adds its own weight to what you might do.
#1. The idea of purpose
Learning to purpose a meeting was one of the most important things I ever learned. I like to think about planting any meeting in one of two categories:
- Discussion: These are meetings where you ponder, jot things on large Post-It notes, and envision future projects. You walk away from discussion meetings with more ideas.
- Decision: These are meetings where you choose what is happening next once the meeting is done. You walk away from decision meetings with marching orders.
In studying a healthcare organization, management consultancy McKinsey found: “[P]oor clarity around decision rights encouraged wide-ranging discussions but not decisions, and over time this behavior became a habit in meetings — a habit that exacerbated a general lack of accountability among some executives.”
Far too often you might think you’re walking into a decision meeting, and one hour later you’re miles away from anything resembling next steps. The McKinsey report backs up Perlow, Hadley, and Eun’s thesis by suggesting:
“Decisions are the lifeblood of organizations, and meetings are where important business decisions often happen.”
What you might do: I’ll say more about this, but not all meetings can be all things for all people. Especially with standing 1:1s, figure out what type of employee or boss you are, and what you need from these meetings.
If you find that you’re getting into a lull of pedantic weekly updates, suggest a different meeting flow. Conversely, if you repeatedly find that 90 minutes go by and you’ve only brainstormed, you might suggest the opposite.
#2. The idea of frequency
Twenty years ago I recall many of my 1:1 meetings were at least one hour long. This used to be more commonplace, and thankfully we see evidence of the 30-minute meeting as a more standard practice. My point is, again, to figure out what works.
If your work is very project- or detail-oriented — with lots of micro-updates happening all the time — you might want to consider scheduling these meetings once a week. On the other hand, if your work is less tactical, you might consider scheduling these in a bi-weekly cadence. Meeting too frequently when your work is more creative or theoretical might stymie progress and make you feel weighed down, when what you really need is space to ruminate.
Perhaps you have both needs on your team? What you do for the “tacticians” may be markedly different than what you do for the “thought leaders.”
What you might do: This differentiation can be difficult for some to manage. I’ve worked for plenty of people who want their Tuesdays filled with routine 1:1 check-ins, and others who are perfectly fine going months without any updates at all. Again, as with meeting purpose, try to pinpoint how much time you need (and when) and be clear about that.
And one other thing. Whenever you decide to have your meetings, make that time sacred. Repeatedly canceling or moving standing meetings is a bad practice. It’s can be seen as discourteous, as Jeremy Cothran notes:
“The basis for any successful 1:1 meeting is personal respect. It requires the employee to do their part by preparing for the meeting, and the manager to acknowledge this preparation and show an active interest in the personal and professional development of their employees.”
#3. The idea of ownership
I believe wholly that 1:1 meetings are for employees, not bosses. This can be a rather novel idea, and not all managers are on board with it. In her most-excellent book, Radical Candor, Kim Scott¹ says this clearly in advising managers to turn over the reigns to their employees when it comes to recurring meetings:
“I think the idea that your employee owns the agenda is a simple, symbolic practice that helps them feel ownership and autonomy for their work and their time. You’re saying, ‘You tell me what’s important,’ and of course you can coach and guide them to help refine over time what’s important.”
This shift can have interesting benefits. When I refashioned my view on 1:1 meetings this way, I began to feel less like a boss of my teams, and instead, more like a boss for them. The difference is subtle, but the rewards are dynamic and profound.
What you might do: This can be a great show of initiative. With a sense of meeting purpose and frequency, start talking about who crafts the agenda. A boss may have input or suggestions, but there’s a lot of agency (and growth potential) in an employee owning this task.
Then, find an agenda format that covers all bases and keeps the conversations fresh. I’m a big fan of the 5-15 template which should take no more than 15 minutes to write and five minutes to read.
Last words
I’ve seen the full spectrum being on both sides of 1:1 meetings. To bring this home, consider focusing on the following ideas:
- Purpose: Why you’re having these meetings
- Frequency: When/how they make the most sense
- Ownership: Who takes charge
I became a better employee when I took charge of those three details, and my direct reports’ meetings became infinitely better and more effective — for them and me — when they did the same.
Good luck out there. Go make meetings great again!
¹ Scott’s book is written from the perspective of bosses, but it’s one of the finest pieces of organizational writing I have seen in recent years. If you can get your hands on a copy, it will be worth every moment reading it.
