Less Meetings, Better Meetings

Are you tired of poorly organized meetings that lack clear goals and preparation? It's time to take control of our meeting invites and create a culture of accountability and respect.

Every day presents us with opportunities to be proud of ourselves and the team, as well as precious opportunities to evolve into a high-performing team and a culture people would love to belong to.

In this case, let me make a reflection on Meeting Invites.

It is not acceptable to send invites without:

1) Description

2) Goals

3) Preparation (what, and from whom)?

It's all about respect

Yes... Respect for the invitees (one should have enough info to be able to make a decision whether or not to RSVP).

But is also about respect for the organizer and the whole company.

Why? Because without participant preparation, what you get is slow, superficial answers of poor quality (improvisation based on top-of-mind associations and memories).

The team needs everyone to be present, clear, motivated, and prepared during meetings because meetings are an expensive moment for the company and the place where important progress and decisions need to be made. Event invitations give us that. Then, in the meeting, we just have to make an inventory of the preparation (what does everyone concretely and briefly propose (not just "think")).

The time won during the meeting due to the preparation, is time that can (and should) be invested in the relationship part (team building/forming).

How can we create accountability for this (and any other) opportunity for improvement?

Well, culture is created every day by what we do and how we do it. So let's start adding these three elements to our meeting invites.

Culture is also created by what we choose not to do (what we say "no" to). So every time someone sends meeting invites without the above-mentioned 3 elements, simply say NO.

This is how a culture self-regulates through celebrating what works and not accepting what creates a loss of energy (or what Richard Barrett calls cultural entropy).

So, let's keep evolving!??

About the author

Juan Campoo is the founder of Inner Acceleration, and a seasoned mindset & behavior coach, trainer, and consultant, facilitating personal, leader, and team evolution. Creator of the Mind Canvas model for personal mastery and writer of the Amazon Best-Selling book under the same name. In the last 13+ years, he has coached, trained, and taught more than 15.000 people either 1-on-1, in groups, or through online courses. Check out other free resources here.