Next level meetings

We have a dysfunctional relationship with meetings.

We love to hate them, but we keep coming back to them.

We complain about them, but we constantly schedule them.

We don’t pay attention when others are presenting, but we get upset when no one pays attention to us.

Digital meetings feel terrible because they reveal what's been wrong the whole time.

Let’s look at meetings through the lens of the five levels.

Level 1 (The office is the nucleus). Meetings have a physical location, but if Vanessa is traveling to a client, she can call in from the road. Meetings are usually scheduled, but they are often called ad hoc. We create agendas on the spot. We don't document meetings because everyone was there.

Level 2 (Replicate the physical with digital). Any interaction that used to be live is a video call. This means days full of meetings. Except, without all the in-person cues to know how people responded to your idea. There’s also no post-meeting chatter as you walk back to your desk. You feel successful if you managed to mute and unmute yourself correctly.

Level 3 (See the native advantages of digital). One day you cancel your daily standup meeting and have everyone send in written updates (that wasn’t so bad). Or someone can’t make a meeting, so you record it and get it transcribed (that’s actually pretty helpful).  

Level 4 (Rebuild systems around new values). You stop and ask, "What’s the job you’ve hired the meeting to do?" Meetings are great at:

• quickly discussing complex issues
• uncovering unknown problems
• building human connection

If you value giving people autonomy over their time, you need to maximize the discussion time. This means:

• Requiring an agenda ahead of time with pre-reading and pre-work
• Only scheduling meetings when everyone's calendar is free
• Documenting decisions and storing them in a very open and durable place
• Dispersing the time zone burden across many regions

If you value being human-centric, you will schedule time to relax together or catch up on life.

Level 5 (Exploring new worlds). You find new ways to partner with technology. AI software finds a convenient time for everyone to meet. It provides instant transcriptions/captions to help non-native speakers. An AI assistant takes notes, documents decisions, and assigns tasks. You experiment with new whiteboarding tools to communicate visually. You schedule 5-10 minutes after the meeting for debriefs in small groups.

This is just one example of how everything needs to be rethought in a digital workplace. It may seem daunting, but it’s the hard work that digital leaders must do.

Two reflections to end on:

1. If this sounds like a great workplace to aspire to, start with yourself. Find one way to improve your meetings starting now.

2. If you are planning to have a "hybrid workplace", the meeting must be equally great for people in the room and out of it. Otherwise you are back at Level 1.