Meet Less, Achieve More: The Executive’s Guide to Skipping Meetings

How to Structure Meetings for Maximum Executive Efficiency

Executives often find themselves overwhelmed by the number of meeting invites piling up on their calendar. To combat this, it's essential to rethink how meetings are structured. Let's work backward from the desired outcomes and decisions each meeting should produce by redesigning an agenda that guides your team toward providing the necessary information for swift, informed decision-making—without the need for constant executive attendance.

Focus on Results: Working Backward to Structure Your Agenda

Instead of simply gathering for updates, executives should ask themselves:

What decisions need to be made? and What information is crucial to make those decisions?

By working backward from these questions, you can create an agenda that reflects the outcomes and decisions that should result from the meeting. This ensures that the team arrives prepared to discuss key points and next steps, providing leaders with a roadmap for what information they need to be fed without necessarily being present.

What Should Executives Ask for?

The core of the meeting should revolve around the following key pieces of information:

1. Milestones: What significant milestones have been achieved, and what will be achieved in the next two weeks?
2. Risks: What risks have been identified, and how will they be mitigated or handled? By when?
3. Next Steps: What are the forward-looking outcomes, and what actions need to be taken?
4. Decisions: What decisions need to be made, and by when?

This information should be presented in a clear, storytelling format, supplemented by relevant data points. The goal is to guide the executive toward making informed decisions.

Evaluating the Necessity of Each Meeting

Executive leaders also need to carefully evaluate the purpose of each meeting they attend:

• Is it crucial for you to be present?
• What value do you bring to the meeting, and what value do you take away?

If a meeting's primary purpose is to provide updates, ask yourself whether that information could be communicated more efficiently via another method. Tools like email, Slack , or a centralized resources & notes system linked to your work management tool may provide the same insights without the need for a formal gathering. However, if the meeting requires key decisions from you, consider how the agenda and information (as designed above) can be structured so that you're fully prepared to make those decisions during the meeting.

Shifting the Focus from Reporting to Storytelling

Rather than requesting endless reports filled with raw data, executive leaders should shift their expectation to receiving data summaries woven into stories. The onus is on the team to gather and analyze the data while the executive’s role is to provide guidance, make decisions, and mentor employees toward developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This ultimately elevates their contributions and increases the value they bring to the organization.

Proactive Solutions: Automating the Answers to Common Executive Questions

A simple way to reduce the time executives spend asking for updates or explanations is to identify the common questions that leadership consistently asks:

• What data or insights do you regularly need?
• Could this information be aggregated and projected in real-time onto a dashboard?

Organizations often already have tools in place that can streamline this process. Dashboards or project management tools can help consolidate information, allowing executives to access critical insights at a glance—before the questions are even asked. In addition, it’s worth exploring what training may be needed so that executives can effectively navigate these systems and access the necessary data when they need it.

Reducing Meeting Time to Shift Focus on Leadership and Strategy

Understanding the answers to the questions above will drastically reduce the time spent in meetings. This frees up valuable time for executives to focus on developing strategies for the organization, fostering innovation, and mentoring their teams.

Executives don’t need to be bogged down by endless meetings or repetitive data requests. By rethinking the structure of meetings, delegating effectively, and leveraging existing tools, leaders can focus on what matters most: guiding their organizations toward success.

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Kirsten Ebey, MSIA PMP is the Founder and Principal Project Manager of Path to Summit LLC, a project management firm located in New Orleans, Louisiana.

We implement PMOs, provide expert project staffing, implement software architecture solutions, and provide executive-level business & project management coaching. With our people-centric focus in project management, we help organizations succeed across industries & around the globe.