How do you create a positive and respectful meeting culture that fosters trust and inclusion?

In my view, the "3x without" rule applies to every meeting: Without a concrete goal: no meeting. Without an agenda: no meeting. Without moderation: no meeting. Among other things, with these "3 withouts", we have managed to reduce our internal meetings to less than 10%. It may sound unbelievable to many, but it's true. It really possible to do less and better meetings. But it requires a change, especially regarding the willingness to consistently protect your own time. We encourage our employees to protect their own time too. If they notice that we are not adhering to our own principle, they can, no, should, definitely point it out to us.

There is (unfortunately) something I call 'smoke screen meetings' - meetings that take place to hide/delay addressing problems. This is usually the case when a manager is in charge of a function they should not have been put in charge of (due to a lack of training or negative personality traits).

You have to be aware of 'meeting drift' - if individuals start bringing up problems that are outside the scope of the meeting they have to be brought back to what is the point of the meeting.

Encouraging participation and engagement is obviously a critical component of successful meetings. There are a lot of ways to do that, but I think people often overlook the most powerful way to grow engagement in meetings: Decrease the number of attendees. To understand this, think about the meetings that you attend which have lots of participants. Maybe a brainstorming session with 30 people or a decision making meeting with 25 attendees. How many chances did you get to participate? Probably not many. There just isn't time for everyone to participate. Participants soon become observers. Imagine those meetings again – but with half the number of attendees. Suddenly engagement gets easier and more powerful. Think small!

It's important the all meeting participants end the meeting feeling that they have contributed something meaningful to the conversation. Otherwise, they'll think it was just a waste of their time, and will be less likely to engage in the future. Make sure that everyone has had a chance to say something. Call them out by name if they've been quiet - "Sam, what is your perspective on this issue?" As meeting chair, you have to balance the different personalities you'll encounter. There's always someone who wants to hijack the meeting into their own agenda, and sometimes you have one person who dominates the whole conversation. Balancing personalities and keeping everyone on track is key to a good meeting.

In our experience, the best effect is achieved by only inviting people to the meeting who actually have a speaking part in the agenda. Anyone who is only supposed to listen has no business being at the meeting. The necessary information can also be conveyed in other ways. And those who have a speaking part are also committed.

Do not set up an unprepared meeting or a meeting just to have a meeting. Agenda is key, but having provided and read preparation material also.

In my experience morning meetings (especially if results are expected the next day) are the best. Late afternoon meetings where something is expected to be done the next day usually frustrates all participants.