Why can't we get meetings right? Yet another article with 15 tips for better meetings

Many of us spend way too many hours in meetings. And most of us probably leave many of those meetings thinking they could have been an email or that they weren't valuable. We've all sat in meetings where several people (including ourselves) are multitasking or not paying attention, checking our phones, or doing other work.

Not being fully present at meetings is nothing new. We've all experienced meetings that were so boring that our minds drifted. We've all had urgent deadlines approaching that made us feel like we needed to do something else during a meeting—though we still felt compelled to go to the meeting because it was on our calendar.

I have led teams for most of the past 15 years, and while I have no data corroborating this, I would posit that multitasking at meetings has increased—especially when we're remote and can have our video off. Things feel more urgent. We're distracted more than previously.

I was so exasperated at one of my team's meetings a few years back—about 80% of attendees were on Slack or writing emails or doing other work—that I got up after about 10 minutes and left the room.

I was angry. The team was scared. I was mad at my team for not paying attention even after we had discussed phones and computers down at meetings before. But I was more mad at myself—and embarrassed. They had voted with their attention that my meeting—which, of course, was the most important use of their time in my mind—wasn't that valuable in their time calculus.

It made me think more intentionally about meeting structure and meetings more generally. I searched for books and articles about improving meetings, and there's definitely no shortage. The Google search how to improve meetings yields more than 3.5 billion results—and if you search with quotes around the phrase, you still get 21.9 million results.

Why, then, do our meetings so often suck? (And this isn't a problem about my company or my industry. It's a problem everywhere.)

The answer is obvious: as busy professionals, it's easier to fall back into what feels comfortable rather than taking the time and effort to make meetings better. And make no mistake about it, improving meetings isn't something that you can do with a magic wand or make pronouncements about changes and then "set it and forget it."

You have to be intentional and candid about why you're making changes, and that can hurt people's feelings. You have to work hard to create a meeting culture that has expectations of both of the organizer and of the attendees. And you have to continually enforce the changes—and be open to getting called out when your meetings violate the norms you've implemented.

Below is not a panacea, and I'm sure that I am unintentionally borrowing from others' ideas after reading hundreds and hundreds of articles about improving meetings. But it's at least the 15 things that I think about when considering meetings.

1. You probably didn't need that meeting you just attended. Decide if you need a meeting. Could the meeting be an email? Could the meeting you just attended have been an email? If so, there's no point in having it. Informational-only meetings should be rare. Reporting meetings without discussions should be rare.
2. Every meeting should have a clear owner. The owner—who may not be the person who called the meeting—is responsible for the agenda and driving the meeting. The owner should ensure that off-topic discussions are tabled.
3. Every meeting should have a clear focus/agenda.  When feasible, the agenda should be available 24 hours before the meeting (or at least the morning of for Monday meetings).
4. Enforce proper etiquette for how to fill in agenda items/topics if multiple people are contributing to an agenda. Establish what types of things to include, what types of things to exclude, and how detailed to be. Establish guidelines on scannability—bullets, bolding, indentation, etc. The owner should cull the agenda to remove to the parking lot off-topic or unnecessary items.
5. Make meetings as short as possible. The iron law of meetings is that if you schedule 60 minutes, a meeting will take 65. While meetings should be short, they should not be artificially short so that the topic can’t be fully discussed within the time allotment. Consider the importance of the subject and the length of time required to adequately address it.
6. Be sensitive to and respectful of people’s time. Show up on time. Start on time. Keep initial chit-chat limited. But, try to make the meetings collaborative and the atmosphere relaxed. For meetings 60 minutes or longer—or for high-pressure meetings—consider an icebreaker related to the meeting. Questions like: What one challenge is everyone facing this week? Why is this topic important to you? Use smart meeting times. Consider starting 5 minutes after the hour or half hour. Consider having the meeting stop 5 minutes before the half hour or hour early so that people can decompress (and use the restroom!) before their next meeting.
7. Invite only those people necessary. Everyone who attends a meeting should have a clear purpose to be there. And the purpose SHOULD NOT be just because they want to or because they would feel left out otherwise or because they’re not getting information they should be through other channels. If there's a communications problem, the answer isn't to add more people to the meeting—it's to improve communications channels.
8. Assign homework. If it’s a discussion-based meeting, require people to read the agenda and/or come with ideas.
9. Record all meetings—unless sensitive information will be discussed.
10. Assign a notetaker who is not the owner. After the meeting, distribute key takeaways and action items via an appropriate communications channel. Ideally, you should also share the results to a shared drive. Action items should be tracked and reported on at any standing meetings.
11. Summarize. The owner should take the last few minutes for themselves and/or the notetaker to summarize the key takeaways and actions items and align around next steps. Any missing items should be identified by the team.
12. End with engagement. Ask attendees to provide personal reflections about the meeting or provide their thoughts about how the meeting went and on the takeaways/actions items.
13. Video on should be required for ALL remote meetings. Yes, I know this is controversial and sometimes bandwidth is a challenge, but video on allows people to use facial cues of the presenter. On occasion, there are compelling reasons for an attendee not to have video on (maybe there are people walking around in the background, they're in a remote cabin with poor access that week, they need to go for a walk, etc.), so if that's the case they should be explicit that they're off video. If it's a sensitive reason, don't force them to divulge why to the team. The key is that they should be as present as possible during every meeting.
14. Require focus. Individuals should be asked to shut off email and not multitask during any meeting (unless there is a compelling client-based urgent reason). If someone is multitasking, ask them politely and privately to stop. If the behavior persists, ask them not to come to the meeting any longer or have a conversation about why they're not present. Try not to call out people in the meeting; equally, don't let unproductive meetings to persist.
15. Get feedback. Do a pulse survey to seek input about the meeting's usefulness, etc. Encourage offline feedback about the way the meeting went. This is particularly helpful if you're trying to continuously improve your meetings.

I'd love to hear about your tips for better meetings and how you continually evaluate and improve your meetings.