Hosting Effective Meetings

Why should you care about hosting effective meetings? One simple reason is that you’ll have to do it at some point, so you might as well be prepared. A more emotional reason is that ineffective meetings are frustrating; few things produce such anger in a workday as wasting an hour on a fruitless discussion. Perhaps the most compelling argument is an appeal to self-interest: meetings are a particularly visible display of communication and collaboration, and an effective host with a reputation for getting results will have a smoother path to career growth.

Counterexamples

Effective meetings are often less obvious than their ineffective counterparts, so let’s begin sketching out a definition by counterexample. Listed below are some common varieties of ineffective meetings.

Purgatory

Someone has a document they’d like feedback on and adds it to the end of a long agenda for a recurring sync. They wait patiently for most of the meeting and only 10 minutes remain when attention turns to the document. The host postpones discussion to the next meeting, leaving the document author blocked without feedback. Alternatively, they rush through the document and provide cursory feedback without getting into the substance of it.

Steamroller

Two teams are meeting to discuss options for a technical redesign. The conversation is dominated by one engineer that keeps bringing up tangents and leaves little room for others to talk. The soft-spoken host attempts to redirect the discussion but another tangent quickly arises to derail the meeting.

Mystery decision

After a thorough discussion about a pressing problem, the attendees unanimously agree on a path forward. A month later a new stakeholder asks why that decision was made; no one quite remembers why, only that they were confident it was the right call.

Efficiency & Empathy

To identify symptoms of an ineffective meeting, I find it useful to think in terms of efficiency and empathy. Efficiency is the ability to convert a meeting purpose into results; empathy is considering the needs of participants to ensure all stakeholders can benefit from the meeting. These are two perspectives on the same dynamic: an efficient meeting will be a better use of everyone’s time, and an inclusive meeting will be more efficient. Revisiting our examples, we can describe the issues in these terms.

The Purgatory meeting lacked efficiency because the host overcommitted on the agenda and created a situation where it was impossible to deliver a quality result. It also lacked empathy because the document author’s time was wasted, being forced to wait for unrelated discussions only to be rewarded with a cursory result.

The Steamroller example shows an unfortunately common scenario where empathy was prioritized at the expense of efficiency. Uncomfortable interrupting the dominant speaker, the host wasn’t able to guide the meeting to a productive result. This dynamic can be exacerbated by a power imbalance between the host and the speaker due to title, social status, personality traits, etc.

The Mystery decision case illustrates a subtler form of ineffectiveness. This meeting addressed the issue at hand with an efficient discussion, and only later did it become apparent that the process was incomplete. In other words, the host failed to consider future stakeholders so the results were only useful to the attendees.

It’s useful to identify issues in the abstract, but let’s turn now to practical application of this understanding. What do you do when you’re hosting a meeting and it starts to get away from you?

Fixing Issues

Efficiency fixes usually come in the form of process, creating some guardrail to keep the meeting on track. In contrast, empathy fixes are often spontaneous interventions to redirect the conversation. I would recommend focusing on efficiency fixes to start with, since processes tend to be easier to reason about, while gradually developing your judgement on when and how to intervene with an empathy fix.

The common guidance on hosting meetings typically focuses on efficiency fixes so I’ll spend little time recapping these. These fixes include taking notes, setting a clear agenda, and summarizing the result afterwards in a written update shared broadly. This advice is common for good reason, and developing a routine for these processes will prevent many issues before they arise. Sharing a written result afterwards is a particularly motivating practice because it forces you to consider the purpose, record it, and deliver on it.

Once you have a solid handle on efficiently navigating the flow of a meeting, start paying more attention to the people aspect. It’s impossible to fix empathy issues without being able to identify them in the first place so I would suggest building a practice of regular checkins to tune your senses. Ask yourself whether there is anyone in this meeting that might be frustrated by it, unable to contribute, or not finding it useful. Consider that before the meeting starts, every few minutes during the meeting, and reflect on it afterwards. You can set a recurring 5 minute timer as a reminder if you find it difficult to revisit this during the meeting. While it may seem onerous initially, you’ll quickly develop an intuition and move beyond the need for an explicit practice.

Now that you have an intuition for potential people problems in your meetings, the fixes will often become apparent. Fixing these issues is often as simple as making a comment acknowledging what you noticed. For example, noticing someone hasn’t been able to contribute and voicing that will create an opportunity to address it: “X, we haven’t heard from you yet. Do you have anything to add?” Even if you don’t have a fix in mind, merely acknowledging the issue helps others feel seen and empowered to make changes themselves.

With this practical understanding of how to prevent and mitigate problems, we can summarize that guidance in a runbook with tips and quotes to use in common situations.

Runbook

Before the Meeting

Does the meeting have an explicitly defined purpose? If not, define one in the agenda or cancel it.

Is the purpose feasible to fulfill with these people in this amount of time? Be wary of overcommitting; it’s much better to end early with a successful result than run out of time trying to do too much.

“I’m not confident we can get through all these items today. X, would you be ok with postponing that document review to a separate discussion?”

Has the purpose been shared with attendees?

“In this review I’m looking for any blocking concerns on the decision to X”

Are all attendees relevant to the whole meeting? Look for opportunities to give people exits from the meeting, including rearranging agenda items to release them early.

“We’ve got X joining today from another team. Let’s discuss their item first before getting into our usual agenda.”

“I think the remainder of the items are only relevant for the X team. Everyone else feel free to drop.”

During the Meeting

Are all attendees able to contribute? Be mindful of differences in ability or preference. For example, some people find it hard to read a document while others talk, so you can ensure documents are provided in advance for them to read independently.

“Just interrupt if you have questions. Or if you’re more comfortable, you’re welcome to put questions in the chat and I’ll check it periodically.”

Is anyone dominating the conversation? Watch for someone speaking a disproportionate amount of the time. Conversely, look for participants that have been particularly quiet and create an opportunity for them to speak. In some cases, social dynamics might make this particularly difficult to fix and you can ask for help from a trusted colleague.

“X, I know you have some experience here. Do you have anything to add?”

“I want to make sure we hear from others on this as well. Does anyone else want to chime in?”

(private message) “Hey X I’m having a hard time getting this discussion back on track. Can you try stepping in?”

Is your focus divided between hosting and participating in the meeting? Be careful of neglecting your responsibilities as a host if you’re also an active participant in the meeting. Delegate tasks to prevent them from being ignored.

“X, could you help take notes on this meeting? I think I’ll be a bit distracted with the discussion.”

“X, can you watch the chat while I’m presenting and interrupt me if a question comes in?”

Is the meeting on track to deliver a result? Frequently revisit the purpose of the meeting to keep it moving towards a result.

“I see we’re nearing the end of our time. Let’s refocus on X to make sure we get a decision there.”

“It seems like we could spend a while on that topic so I’d recommend we move it to a separate discussion.”

After the Meeting

Are these results useful beyond this meeting? Add context to the results to make them more durable. A short paragraph at the top of meeting notes can go a long way towards making them accessible to non-participants.

“We made a decision today that X will be the approach going forward. This unblocks the work on Y which has been a high priority project for the Z launch.”