Nothing quite triggers a collective exhale like the “ding” of a canceled meeting. These days, people have come to dread meetings. It’s no wonder companies are getting creative in their attempts to revamp them, from starting with coloring sessions to holding them on basketball courts (while shooting hoops) and more.
But injecting fun into meetings is like putting lipstick on a pig—it can’t save a bad, unproductive meeting.
Research has found that nearly a third of meetings are patently unnecessary, and they waste $25 million a year for every thousand people. That’s a figure that leaders can’t afford to ignore.
Meetings don’t just waste financial resources—they drain energy and steal time from more meaningful work. But the problem isn’t meetings themselves—it’s how we use them. Too often, we view them simply as time slots for getting together and discussing things. Sometimes, we’re just rehashing ideas or discussing points that could have been resolved with an email.
Today’s high-performing organizations know how to separate discussion from action. They ensure that meetings aren’t just group chats, but catalysts for decisions and action—inflection points for moving work forward.
Here’s how leaders can reduce meeting drag and create faster, cleaner decisions.
Build a system with clear ownership
There’s a tendency to go along with standard practices for the sake of continuity. We persist in doing something the same way because that’s the way it’s always been done. In terms of meetings, that usually looks something like this: invite everyone potentially interested, maybe circulate a bullet-point list of things to cover, show up with a notepad. Sometimes there’s a designated notetaker. Sometimes, an attendant brings an AI-powered notetaking tool, which may even automatically draw up a summary of the meeting. But there’s no guarantee that everyone will leave with a clear idea of the next steps.
I’ve always been drawn to systems. Even when I was a kid, growing up in Turkey, I loved building them. Be it a kitchen chemistry experiment or some cobbled-together contraption, the concept was the same: they receive input and have a clear cause and effect. If you want to improve or change the system, just tweak it until you get the result you’re after.
Meetings are no different. You can organize them like systems, and tweak them if they’re not achieving the result you want.
At my company, Jotform, meetings are their own systems, with standard inputs and predictable results. An essential part of our meeting system is that beforehand, the organizer has to draw up an agenda of questions to be answered, and afterward, the decisions and action items, each with a clear owner.
Assigning ownership ensures that meetings deliver value. No more waiting around, unsure of who’s tasked with what. Instead, conversations convert into actions without unnecessary delays.
Come prepared to decide
Another dilemma that hinders effective meetings is a lack of context for making decisions. Nothing slows momentum—and loses attention—like a frantic mid-meeting Google search, followed by someone reading the results aloud for the first time, without even being sure how relevant or accurate they are. Personally, these are the moments when I suggest “putting a pin in it” and circling back in the next meeting, once everyone has had an opportunity to do their own research and clarify their ideas.
Giving participants the relevant context and information ahead of time not only ensures everyone is informed but also gives people time to mull things over. They can arrive at the meeting ready to confidently weigh in or voice any lingering doubts or questions. In other words, less “put a pin in it,” more “decision made.”
At my company, we build automated tools into our system to slash the busywork of organizing meetings and reduce communication errors. When it comes to pre-meeting prep, AI-powered platforms like Notion are a great way to ensure participants are on the same page. They can share research and insights and establish ahead of time the decisions they need to make.
GenAI tools like ChatGPT help to lower the cost (and individual lift) of getting everyone up to speed. Rather than each participant scouring through documents, emails, research, and meeting notes, they can synthesize information and offer everyone the same clear, concise picture. The result is a meeting where everyone arrives informed, prepared to contribute, and ready to make decisions.
Keep the feedback loop open
Remember the first rule (and the second rule) of Fight Club? You do not talk about Fight Club.
The movie is a classic, but as a leader, the rule runs contrary to everything I’ve learned about running an organization over the past two decades. It’s important to communicate about day-to-day tasks, but it’s equally vital to talk about your company and how the processes are working (or not). Meetings are an essential part of that conversation.
You don’t want to spend precious meeting time on… talking about how well the meeting went. But you do want to create a communication channel where employees can offer feedback on meetings—techniques and tools they’ve found useful, ideas on how to improve them, instances where meetings ran awry, and when decisions and next steps stalled. Act on those insights, tweak your system, and continually improve it.
Having a clear and comprehensive picture of success, as well as what you could have done differently, helps companies ensure every meeting serves its purpose—to accomplish the kind of work that couldn’t have been done without a collective, real-time effort. That’s the only way to keep employees showing up fully, rather than dreading meetings.