5 Rules For Meetings
Stuff that I wish someone had taught me 20 years ago
I sit on the board of a publicly traded company.
We run a tight board process, and as I reflect on it alongside what I see inside most organizations, I want to share 5 things that will make every meeting you run more effective.
Rule 1: Treat every meeting like a board meeting.
Send pre-reads, run a tight agenda, require prepared remarks from speakers, and leave with clear decisions and clear actions. Do this for every meeting, not just the ones that feel important.
Rule 2: Meetings without an agenda are disrespectful, and that includes your 1:1s.
If you show up without one, you are saying that you did not think the other person’s time was worth preparing for.
Do better.
Rule 3: If you have a slot on the agenda, prepare to deliver it like you are being graded.
That means clear framing, tight talking points, and a document or slide ready to share and discuss. If you would not show up to a board meeting unprepared, you should not show up to any meeting unprepared.
Rule 4: Here is how you know your presentation missed the mark.
People start asking you basic questions about what you just covered, or questions come from every direction with no throughline. When that happens, stop and say: “Let me rewrite this memo and we can discuss tomorrow.”
It happens to the best of us, so do not let it drag on, because private Slack conversations about what just happened are already forming while you are bombing your portion of the meeting.
Rule 5: Pulling up a document during a meeting that nobody has seen before is bad form.
If you could have sent it beforehand, you should have.
Send pre-reads.
Here is a simple way to think about this:
How you prepare shows just how much you care.
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