Why Do So Many Teams Still Struggle With Bad Meetings?

You know what a bad meeting feels like: It’s not clear why you’re there. Maybe no one knows why they’re there. One person is talking endlessly, and the stream of words stopped making sense about fifteen minutes ago. You have had to pee for almost as long, but your boss will notice if you step away. Meanwhile, your phone buzzes as Slack notifications stack up and your mental to-do list grows more unmanageable with every second you sit there.

Why is this the default experience for so many modern knowledge workers? New research from Atlassian finds that meetings are “the #1 barrier to productivity” in most workplaces, ineffective at an alarming rate of 72%. Or, to put it another way, 3 out of 4 meetings on any given calendar right now will be a waste of time and resources.

And what a waste it is. Ineffective meetings have been shown to cost companies roughly $25,000 per employee per year in lost time and resources. Live meeting time, whether virtual or in-person, is an extraordinarily valuable commodity, asking as it does for the time and attention of busy people with many other things to do. In today’s climate of corporate cost-cutting, it’s surprising that poor meeting protocols don’t face more scrutiny—particularly because of the drain they place on any company’s most important asset: its people. Meetings that don’t deliver clarity, alignment, and motivation generally do the opposite, leaving people uncertain and demotivated—an unacceptable risk, particularly for distributed organizations that are highly dependent on trust and social cohesion to work effectively.

Atlassian’s report finds that the harm of ineffective meetings isn’t just financially costly, it’s also damaging to organizational culture and innovation. 70% of respondents said that meetings don’t help them connect with colleagues — a finding backed by 2017 research from Boston University and Harvard Business School, which found that 62% of senior managers believe meetings “miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.”

So what is it that goes wrong with so many meetings — and how can we fix it?

It’s True — Most Meetings Shouldn’t Happen

In The Effective Executive, first published in 1967, the famed business consultant Peter Drucker wrote, “Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization. For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.” Nothing has changed since then; time remains zero-sum.

The first and most important step any meeting leader can take is to audit the meetings for which they’re responsible. Knowing the purpose and structure of the meeting makes all the difference in delivering successful business outcomes. Meeting leaders can use the following diagnostic to determine whether a meeting will make good use of time:

• Can I define a clear goal for this meeting time? And is a meeting the best way to achieve that purpose, or might it be better served by an asynchronous process, quick sidebar conversation, or other structure?
• Does this time have an intentional structure or agenda that will engage the team’s attention and help us make progress towards our goal?
• Do I know why each invited participant should be present?
• Have I given the team the right resources and context to make this time successful? (Think pre-reads, a detailed agenda, prompting questions, or relevant research.)
• Do I anticipate that the team will actively engage or participate in this meeting? If not, what do I need to do differently?
• What recaps, next steps, or follow-ups do I plan to share after the meeting time is over to further boost the value of this time together?

These are complex and time-intensive questions that even experienced leaders may struggle to answer, but it’s worth the time to run through this list for each meeting on the calendar.

Leading Meetings That Matter

Once the calendar has been assessed, what should be left are the meetings that matter.

These meetings focus on conversations that are nuanced or complex and therefore hard to navigate asynchronously. They are likely focused on decision-making, work progress, social norms or cohesion, or all of the above. They may be sensitive or urgent. Only some meetings meet these criteria — and the ones that do will be different for every team (though 1-1s, retrospectives, learning workshops, ideation sessions, and well-run all-staff meetings are some common categories that likely meet the standard.)

And even a thorough Marie Kondo-ing of the shared calendar is just the first step. It’s important to address some of the common pitfalls that can disrupt a high-potential meeting and prevent it from strengthening the productivity, innovation, and social dynamics of the team.

Even if the leader knows the purpose of a meeting, its attendees might not. Atlassian found that as many as 62% of meetings are scheduled without a stated goal, leaving everyone lost. Or maybe the meeting does have a clear written objective, it’s just not clear what part each participant has to play.

Solution: If you’re the meeting leader, define a clear objective and share it in writing with your participants. While you’re at it, consider the guest list and the roles that you expect the different invitees to play in achieving your goal. Think of yourself as a facilitator, bringing together different perspectives to create a collective outcome. Share your thinking with participants, so that they know what to bring to this time.

If this exercise reveals holes in your plan , cancel or redesign the meeting. Conversely, if you’re invited to a meeting without a stated purpose (for you or for the time in general), ask! Write back: “Can you share more about how we’re going to use this time? I want to be sure I can be useful before I accept.”

Often, this goes hand-in-hand with “no clear goal.” What happens is that people discuss something for thirty minutes and then reach time without a next step or a decision.

Solution: State the desired output in the meeting goal and at the start of the meeting. Assign someone to take minutes or use an AI tool to transcribe and compile themes and takeaways. And create an outcomes-oriented agenda, with a “why” attached to each point, and time blocked for deciding next steps.

When you reach the end of a meeting, make sure the next steps you decide on make it out of the meeting and into whatever workflow systems you use to keep projects on track. Assign yourself or another attendee the task of recording and sharing those actions.

If someone has a slide deck to present, proceed with caution. While there are certainly exceptions, most presentations don’t merit a meeting, and vice versa. Even very important information will often lose the attention of the audience when shared this way.

Solution: If you can, share the updates asynchronously, ideally as a doc and as a video to accommodate different learning styles. If you can’t, mix up the run-of-show. Intersperse slide presentations with town hall-style Q&A, breakouts, and other interactive elements. If you’re meeting virtually, take advantage of tools like chat and polling to get people engaged.

Many meetings are subject to a handful of loud voices who take over the dialogue. This has a number of negative impacts: it biases results toward the opinions of those people, it exacerbates power imbalances (the people who talk most tend to have higher status), and it often derails productive conversation.

Solution: Meet virtually if you can. Virtual meetings are generally more equitable with less visible hierarchy, and are more inclusive to people who aren’t naturally outspoken. No matter how you meet, try to build in opportunities for everyone to say their piece — with an egg timer if need be. And if you’re a more senior or visible person in the room, listen more than you talk.

You go into a meeting to talk about one thing, but end up discussing everything but. There are a million ways that this can happen, including some we’ve already discussed (see: meeting derailers above).

Solution: Bring a structured agenda to every meeting. This is the same advice Drucker gave back in 1967 and it’s still the best practice today. The best way to keep a meeting purposeful and focused is to create an agenda, share it ahead of time, and stick to it. Better yet, give your participants a stake in the agenda by allowing them to propose items ahead of time, then establish a meeting structure that gives everyone ample opportunities to participate.