Meetings are a strange thing. They can be amazing or terrible, a boost or a drain, a catalyst for innovation or an obstacle to morale. Depending on their purpose, structure and timing they can propel teams toward success or devalue the team. The rhythm and purpose of meetings has the ability to make or break a team. 

During coaching sessions the last six months I’ve been helping a lot of leaders make team meetings sharper and more purposeful. This is a crucial season to make changes to optimize effectiveness and efficiency. Here are some meeting changes we’ve been coaching leaders through.

Determine which meetings need to be in person and which can happen at a distance 

Move weekly meetings to every-other-week

Make meetings more productive by asking teammates to come ready to answer questions

Create a clear purpose and agenda, send it ahead of time and stick to it

Change meetings from 60 minutes to 30 minutes (and don’t go over!)

Move all your team or personal meetings into one day

Kill meetings that are not effective or necessary in this season

Re-emphasize WHY each meeting exists 

Use video (Marco Polo) or audio communication (voice memos) instead of more meetings

Combine a bunch of one-on-one meetings into one team meeting 

Why does this matter?

Teams and team members are passing away from the “death by meeting” epidemic 

With some simple tweaks you and your team can maximize meetings, and minimize waste

Time together as a team is a precious resource that we cannot afford to waste

Meetings either show dignity or disrespect. They’re rarely ever neutral. 

Why is this crucial right now?

Leaders, teams and organizations need all the spare energy they can get to build their way forward right now. 

It will give a shot in the arm to give your team to give them 2-4 hours a week back that they could invest in crucial projects. 

Employees are looking for clarity and direction right now more than ever