Lousy Meetings = Pathetic Culture
The higher you rise, the more time you burn in meetings. Don’t waste those hours. Seize them.
Meetings aren’t just about updates or decisions. They’re the seeds of culture.
Treat Meetings Like Culture Labs
The way you treat people in the meeting shapes how they treat each other in the hall. If you value relationships, prove it where it matters most: around the table.
Is there enough evidence in your meetings to convince a jury you value people? Or is everything about control, efficiency, hierarchy, and results?
Shift the Power
Hoarding authority shrinks people. Leaders who share power multiply talent. Helplessness grows when leaders drain power. People grow bold when they feel strong.
Walk into your next meeting asking: “How will I make others feel powerful?”
Power Questions for Your Agenda
- What behaviors make us successful?
- What practices should stop now?
- What habits make us stronger?
- How will we celebrate progress?
- How will we honor wins?
Power Move: Shift from, “What makes us better?’ to “What will make you better?” Listen for “I.” Go further by using questions like, “What can you do to make our team successful?”
“We” shelters weakness.
Ownership lives with “I”.
Opportunity
Meetings aren’t obligations. They’re culture labs, power shifts, and growth engines.
Culture is the way we treat each other while we do the work. It begins with the way we treat the people around the table.
Stop enduring meetings. Use them to shape company climate. What happens in the room walks the hall.
How can leaders use meeting to grow a great place to work?
5 WAYS TO BUILD A GREAT TEAM CULTURE BY INCREASING PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
Purchase
The Vagrant: The Inner Journey of Leadership.
“Every page carried a quiet wisdom, a reminder that sometimes losing everything can become the beginning of something greater.
It doesn’t just teach lessons; it invites reflection and renewal.”
What I loved most was how gently you explored the tension between success and self-awareness.
1. Consider if the meeting is necessary? Could some meetings be replaced with a single email? Yes!
2. Create a focused agenda. Frame each item as a question to answer or a decision to be made. This helps people concentrate on the goal.
3. Invite the right people. Include subject matter experts, decision-makers, and those tasked with implementation.
4. Set and enforce operating rules. Establish a few simple rules to help the group operate efficiently and productively. Set the example and hold people accountable.
“Invite the right people,” feels powerful. My rule is, if you consistently leave meetings without something to do that’s relevant to the meeting, you shouldn’t be in it. (Making allowance for the value of experts for specific situations.)
Take notes and then share those notes after the meeting. Taking notes lets folks know you care about the answers. And if you are taking notes, you can’t also be talking, which makes it a discussion rather than a lecture from you. Sharing the notes afterwards helps build accountability.
Don’t underestimate the power of taking and sharing notes. Love the idea that taking notes slows down the tendency to talk.
Meetings are for connection so you can collaboration, dialogue, and make decisions effectively. If a meeting is a presentation in disguise, then it isn’t necessary. Send the email instead.
Exactly! Are the heads around the table turning toward each other or the person at the head of the table?
Off-topic (speaking of meetings😁): I miss the feature to provide a “thumbs up” on a really good comment.
I recall you saying earlier blogs Meetings are Leadership opportunities.