| Rethink meetings |
2024-01-25 by AmitWoke up early today and faced the truth — my calendar is a meeting marathon. Seven hours. Starting at 10 AM. Last one ending at 8 PM. Quite a few back-to-back. And can we talk about the irony of having meetings to discuss having fewer meetings?
Here’s the part where I confess: most meetings, I'm just a fly on the wall. And I'm starting to question the why.
Take these update meetings we schedule. Are they checkpoints or just security blankets? Let’s be honest, a deadline does the job without the extra meeting time.
Visibility meetings? Here’s where you get to "shine." Or is it just a polite way of saying "show up or else"? Skipping out paints you as the office maverick. Dare to miss, and you’re not playing ball. It’s the silent pressure to conform.
And don't get me started on retrospectives. An hour and a half of what exactly? We talk, but do things change? We could just as easily weigh in asynchronously. Make decisions. Take action. No meeting required.
Now, I’ll give a nod to my engineering team meetings — these feel necessary, a space for crucial stakeholder decisions. Even so, does everybody need to be there? Maybe it's time to trust smaller groups to call some shots. We're all adults here, after all.
Org-wide meetings dressed up as workshops are a genre of their own. It’s less about making decisions, more consumption of broadcast material. If it’s the learning we’re after, let’s lean into on-demand courses. Save everyone time. Make it count.
Here's my pitch: let’s challenge the meeting-heavy culture. Prioritize autonomy, embrace asynchronous communication, and let’s reserve our shared time for moments that truly benefit from collaboration.
Because you know what we don’t need? Another meeting about meetings. Let’s get to work.