Meetings are one of the easiest places for a business to lose time without realizing it.
I’ve seen it happen in conference rooms, over Zoom, and in those awkward standing meetings that have been on the calendar for so long that absolutely no one remembers why they exist. Everyone shows up, everyone talks, and somehow very little gets accomplished. Then the meeting ends, and the real work still hasn’t been done.
Now, I’m not anti-meeting. There is absolutely a time and place for people getting in the room together. But I am increasingly convinced that most organizations would benefit from asking three much better questions before sending the invite:
Why are we meeting?
When should we meet?
How should we meet?
If those questions are not clear, the meeting probably should not happen.
Start with Why
The first and most important question is why.
What is the actual purpose of the meeting?
Is it to make a decision? Solve a problem? Brainstorm ideas? Get input from multiple people? Work through an issue that requires group counsel?
Those are all valid reasons to meet! But “well, because we always do”…is not.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is people gathering a group without a real point, then hoping the conversation eventually lands somewhere useful. That’s not effective collaboration. If you get people in the room and start talking until a topic emerges, you’re not leading a meeting, you’re consuming time.
A good meeting has a purpose, an outcome, and a reason the right people need to be there. If those things are not clear, people either prepare for the wrong thing or don’t prepare at all.
That’s when you get the classic pattern: one person talks, the others appear to listen, but in reality most of them are just preparing what they want to say next, or worse, thinking about that show they watched on Netflix last night. The discussion becomes less about shared problem-solving and more about each person waiting for their turn or zoning out completely.
That’s not a meeting, that’s a sequence of monologues.
Not Everything Deserves a Group Meeting
A lot of organizations hold group meetings for updates. That’s usually a mistake.
An update is often better handled as a one-on-one, a written summary, or a simple message. If the purpose is just to report where things stand, most of the room does not need to be there. And if they are there, they usually aren’t engaged anyway.
That’s especially true when people are giving updates that only matter to themselves or their direct manager. The group may sit there politely, but mentally, they have checked out. Meanwhile, the team spends all this time talking about what needs to get done and almost no time actually doing it.
If people are simply reporting status, ask whether this really needs group airtime. More often than not, it doesn’t.
Why the Future Matters More Than the Past
At least 75% of what happens in a useful meeting should be focused on the future, not the past.
That doesn’t mean the past never matters. Sometimes you need context; to review what went wrong, what changed, or what was learned. But the point should be to inform what happens next, not to endlessly rehash what already happened.
The most useful meetings answer questions like:
- What do we need to solve?
- What decisions need to be made?
- What needs to happen next?
- Who owns what?
- What should we be thinking about before it becomes a problem?
That’s where value is created!
If the meeting is mostly backward-looking, people may leave informed, but not necessarily helped. The point of a strong meeting is not simply to review yesterday, it’s to improve tomorrow.
Be Respectful of Time
The second question is when. And part of that question is really about duration.
If people don’t know when a meeting will end, they will tune out. They may not do it obviously. They’ll still nod, still smile, still occasionally jump in. But mentally, they are already half out the door.
People engage better when they know the boundaries. Start on time. End on time! Let them know what they are walking into and how long they are expected to be there.
It also forces discipline on the meeting leader. If you know you have 30 minutes, you have to know what matters. If you leave everything loose and open-ended, people usually fill the space with repetition, side commentary, and things that could have been handled in another format.
There is a place for longer conversations, especially if the meeting is strategic, creative, or complex. But even then, clarity helps. People need to know whether they are walking into a 20-minute decision session or a 90-minute brainstorming exercise.
Brainstorming Has a Place, but Not Every Place
There absolutely is a time for general brainstorming. Sometimes you do need to get smart people in a room, throw ideas on the table, and see what comes out. Done well, that can be energizing and productive. But not every meeting should try to be a brainstorm.
And brainstorming without guardrails can become just another way to waste time. If there is no framing, no problem statement, and no outcome in mind, then the energy usually spreads in too many directions. Good ideas might surface, but so do distractions.
Even creative sessions need structure. People should know what problem they are helping solve, what kind of input is useful, and what the next step will be after the discussion.
Remote Work Changed the Stakes
Remote work has added a whole other layer to all of this.
Virtual meetings make it even easier to lose attention without anyone saying so. Cameras off, microphones muted, multitasking in the background, and before long you have a meeting full of people who are technically present and functionally absent.
That means virtual meetings should be even more intentional than in-person ones! The purpose should be clear and the structure should be tighter. The participants should actually need to be there. Otherwise, you’re just asking people to sit in front of a screen while getting very little in return.
Think Before You Meet
To be clear, I’m not saying you should never have group meetings. But I am saying you should think harder about why you’re doing it, when it makes sense to do it, and how the format can best support the goal.
That simple discipline can save an enormous amount of time and frustration.
A well-run meeting can sharpen thinking, improve decisions, and create momentum. A poorly run one just interrupts work and disguises inactivity as productivity.
And most teams already have enough of that!
Leave a Reply