Addressing Recurring Meeting Issues

Anyone else suffer from meeting overload? It’s a big deal. Simply put too many meetings means less time available for actual work, plus constantly attending meetings can be mentally draining, and often they simply are not required to accomplish the agenda items. At the same time sometimes it’s unavoidable. No matter where you are in your career, here are a few ways that I tackle this topic so that I can be my best and hold myself accountable to how my time is spent. I take 15 minutes every Friday to look at the week ahead and what is on my calendar. I follow these tips to ensure what is on the calendar should be and that I’m prepared. It ensures that I have a relevant and focused communications approach, and enables me to focus on optimizing productivity, outcomes and impact. 1. Review the meeting agenda. If there’s no agenda I send an email asking for one so you know exactly what you need to prepare for, and can ensure your time is correctly prioritized. You may discover you’re actually not the correct person to even attend. If it’s your meeting, set an agenda because accountability goes both ways. 2. Define desired outcomes. What do you want/need from the meeting to enable you to move forward? Be clear about it with participants so you can work collaboratively towards the goal in the time allotted. 3. Confirm you need the meeting. Meetings should be used for difficult or complex discussions, relationship building, and other topics that can get lost in text-based exchanges. A lot of times though we schedule meetings that we don’t actually require a meeting to accomplish the task at hand. Give ourselves and others back time and get the work done without that meeting. 4. Shorten the meeting duration. Can you cut 15 minutes off your meeting? How about 5? I cut 15 minutes off some of my recurring meetings a month ago. That’s 3 hours back in a week I now have to redirect to high impact work. While you’re at it, do you even need all those recurring meetings? It’s never too early for a calendar spring cleaning. 5. Use meetings for discussion topics, not FYIs. I save a lot of time here. We don’t need to speak to go through FYIs (!) 6. Send a pre-read. The best meetings are when we all prepare for a meaningful conversation. If the topic is a meaty one, send a pre-read so participants arrive with a common foundation on the topic and you can all jump straight into the discussion and objectives at hand. 7. Decline a meeting. There’s nothing wrong with declining. Perhaps you’re not the right person to attend, or there is already another team member participating, or you don’t have bandwidth to prepare. Whatever the reason, saying no is ok. What actions do you take to ensure the meetings on your calendar are where you should spend your time? It’s a big topic that we can all benefit from, please share your tips in the comments ⤵️ #careertips #productivity #futureofwork

I hate meetings. Here's how I've cut virtually all of them: For context... I run a small B2B SEO consulting practice. This means multiple clients at a time, each with slightly different projects on the go, scope structures, marketing challenges, operational challenges, etc. Here's how most agencies manage it: + Schedule recurring weekly client sync calls (30m) + Add internal weekly sync calls to plan (30m) + Block 30-60m to prep for the calls (60m) + Talk about the issue of the day That's close to 2h per client, per week... ... just to talk about the work. You've got 5 active clients? That's 𝟭𝟬 𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗦 per week gone. That's 25% of your weekly calendar space locked up before Monday morning. (Even worse with multiple attendees) And chances are, these sync calls aren't the only meetings on the books. Discovery calls, monthly strategy calls, department calls, recurring 1-on-1s... There's no time to actually 𝗗𝗢 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞. So how do I manage it? + No recurring meeting invites  + Weekly async updates (memos) + Loom videos for context & rapport + One-off calls only when we need them From my experience, weekly recurring sync calls are usually a band-aid for poor async communication (or unclear and undifferentiated service offerings). If you can... ✓ Report on progress async ✓ Keep clients in the loop async ✓ Bring forward any roadblocks async ✓ Share new ideas & opportunities async ✓ Add color to your comms with Loom videos ... then you won't 𝗡𝗘𝗘𝗗 weekly recurring meetings. You can still schedule one-off meetings when you need them like discovery calls, kickoff calls, strategy sessions, project-specific jam sessions, etc. But you're no longer stuck running meetings you definitely didn't need, simply because you created a recurring invite 4 months ago and nobody wanted to cancel 💀 Simple reframe for you: Instead of defaulting to "let's just book a call..."  Proactively communicate 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗫𝗧 every week. (And never tick that "repeat every..." box on the invite) Someone tell me what I'm missing in the comments... 🧭 PS: If you're also about that "meeting zero" life, we've got some space opening up in May/June at Backstage SEO. We help B2B teams figure out what their prospects actually care about, then create a plan to help them capture demand & build mindshare.

I sat through 208 leadership meetings last year. Here's what I learned: The problem isn't your agenda. It's that you're treating meetings like group therapy sessions instead of decision-making engines. The pattern I see everywhere: 🔄 Same issues, different week 🔄 Great discussion, zero action 🔄 Everyone nods, nobody owns it 🔄 "Let's circle back" becomes the company motto What high-performing teams do differently: Instead of talking ABOUT problems → They assign problem OWNERS Instead of discussing solutions → They commit to implementation dates Instead of "keeping an eye on it" → They build systems that prevent recurrence The brutal truth? If the same issue appears on your agenda twice, you don't just have a problem... you have a process failure. Your meetings should eliminate recurring problems, not rehearse them. Quick audit: Look at your last 3 leadership meetings. How many items are repeats from previous weeks? That number is your "systems dysfunction score." Zero repeats = You're operating Multiple repeats = You're just talking Which category are your meetings in?

You came to the EOS framework and the L10 meeting tool ready to solve something real. And then you hear, "I don’t have any real issues this week." Ugh. It pops the bubble of optimism, the hope you had for change by implementing this business operating system. But here's the reality - at first, your team might not come in ready for addressing what's not working and going toe to toe with conflict. That’s normal. Most teams don’t start out bringing real issues to the table. They bring updates. They bring noise. They bring operational stuff that should’ve been an email. Why? Because naming real issues means naming friction...and most people avoid conflict until they believe something will actually change. So if you’re hearing “no real issues this week” in your L10, it’s time to coach your team to see the meeting differently. Here’s how I think about it: L10 isn’t just a place to give updates. It’s a problem-solving arena. And as a leader, your job isn’t to sit there asking, “Any issues?” It’s to make it clear that if you show up without one, you’re not really doing your job. Because let’s be honest—every team has friction. If it’s not getting raised, it’s getting buried. Want your team to get there? Coach first. Then raise the bar. Based on my experience as an Integrator, here’s what to say, and when to say it. 🎯 When reviewing Scorecard or Rocks: “That red number? That off-track milestone? That is an issue. If it’s not in the list, let's add it now.” 🎯 Mid-meeting, if issues are tee'd up too vague or surface-level: “Let's dig deeper. ‘Sales are behind’ is really vague. Give me a little more - based on your perspective, what’s the root? What’s the cost of not taking action today? What decision are we avoiding?” 🎯 At the end of the meeting, to reset expectations: “If you didn’t bring an issue today, ask yourself why. Is there something you're avoiding? Or no trust it’ll go anywhere? Either way, let’s fix it.”

Let me tell you why your calendar is your organization's #1 profit killer. The average Fortune 500 company bleeds $8.2 million annually on unproductive meetings (Bain & Company) not just in salary costs, but in missed opportunities and delayed decisions that compound like interest. Having advised leaders from Pentagon generals to Fortune 100 CEOs, I've seen how meeting bloat turns agile organizations into bureaucratic nightmares. The modern executive’s calendar has become a tragic paradox – while we spend 71% of meeting time on unproductive discussions, we simultaneously complain about having no time for strategic work. This dysfunction carries an extraordinary hidden cost: $8.2 million in annual wasted productivity for the average Fortune 500 company, a figure that represents not just squandered hours but the slow erosion of competitive advantage through delayed decisions and organizational inertia. Amazon’s implementation of their now-legendary 11-minute meeting structure initially piloted in their AWS division under Andy Jassy’s leadership demonstrates how radical constraints can create extraordinary results, achieving 400% faster decision velocity while simultaneously improving the quality of those decisions through forced discipline. The meeting’s operational structure – divided into strict 2-minute reading, 6-minute debate, and 3-minute decision phases, leverages neuroscience research showing that human attention and decision-making acuity peak between minutes 7-18 of any engagement. While the "three-bullet rule" for participant contributions (15 seconds of context, 15 seconds of recommendation, 15 seconds of evidence) mirrors the communication protocols used by elite military units where clarity under pressure is literally a matter of life and death. What makes this approach particularly compelling for organizations wrestling with meeting fatigue is its scalability unlike complex productivity frameworks that require wholesale cultural change, the 11-minute meeting can be implemented immediately in any recurring operational review, with measurable impacts visible within weeks. The key metrics to track decision yield per meeting hour, follow-through rate on action items, and participant preparedness scores – all show dramatic improvement under this model, with early adopters reporting 22% faster project completion cycles simply from eliminating the bureaucratic drag of traditional meetings. The question isn’t whether your organization should adopt this approach, but whether you can afford to wait while your competitors do. #ceocoach #executivecoaching #leadership #leaders

Let's face it, meetings can often feel like a drag. While it's an overstatement to say nobody likes them, many of us feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of meetings on our calendars and skeptical about their value. It's not without reason – too often, meetings fail to deliver the promised outcomes, leaving us questioning their worth. That's why I found this interview with author and professor Steven Rogelberg particularly enlightening. He dives deep into why meetings frequently fall short and offers actionable strategies to make them more meaningful and, ideally, less frequent. His insights are invaluable for anyone looking to transform their meeting culture. In our own efforts to tackle this issue, my coworkers and I recently developed a new business operating system called True North OS ™. Similar to EOS, Scaling Up, and Pinnacle, True North features a structured meeting format known as the Power 90. This isn't just another meeting; it’s a focused, 90-minute session designed to address real issues within our teams and establish clear accountability for action items right then and there. The result? Fewer follow-up meetings and more efficient problem-solving. What makes it work? 🌟 Same day/time every week. 🌟 No substitute attendees. 🌟 Consistent agenda, with an assigned facilitator to keep us on track. 🌟 Problems are discussed, and turned into action items on the spot and due dates for those actions items are set. We report on those action items at every meeting. 🌟 The rolling agenda is kept in a open-work location where we can add a problem for at any point during the week for discussion at our next meeting. If you're tired of unproductive meetings, I highly recommend checking out Steven Rogelberg's interview and considering how a Power 90 might fit into your meeting cadence. Let’s cut through the clutter and make every meeting count. What are your tips and tricks for making meetings count? https://lnkd.in/gq-VbvxH #Nesnahventures #meetings #leadership #Power90