Tips to Avoid Unproductive Meetings

The most underleveraged growth hack in any company is this: How the leadership team runs their meetingsMost leaders sit through 8–10 meetings a week and walk away with updates, opinions, and half-decisions. Rarely do they leave with clarity, momentum, or measurable action. I coach CEOs to treat meetings like product sprints—designed, tested, and optimized—because your meeting hygiene is a direct reflection of your company culture and strategic thinking. Let’s deconstruct how elite CEOs run meetings that move billion-dollar machines—so you can apply it to your 5-person team or your 5,000-person org. 1. Start with first principles. (Jensen Huang – NVIDIA) Before any ideation, ask: “What do we know for sure? What’s just noise or assumption?” When you strip discussions down to evidence and truths, you avoid solving the wrong problem with brilliant ideas. Clarity before creativity. Always. 2. Cap meetings at 30 minutes. (Tim Cook – Apple) Every minute over 30 without a decision-maker in the room is a tax on productivity. If there’s no owner or desired outcome → cancel it or convert it to async. Time is your highest-leverage resource. Use meetings to compress decisions—not stretch them. 3. Put the customer in the room. (Lisa Su – AMD) Start every meeting by grounding the discussion in a user story, customer tension, or market shift. Every strategic choice should begin with the end user—not internal politics. If you’re not customer-driven, you’re ego-driven. There’s no in-between. 4. Anchor every discussion to one metric. (Safra Catz – Oracle) Great meetings aren’t just about ideas—they’re about impact. So start with: “What are we trying to move?” This turns vague alignment into concrete execution. 5. Always end with a 48-hour action lock. (Sundar Pichai – Google) No meeting is done until: -One person owns the next step -The deliverable is clearly defined -A timeline under 48 hours is locked Momentum dies in ambiguity. Good leaders close meetings. Great leaders create follow-through. 6. Listen like a leader, not a judge. (Satya Nadella – Microsoft) The smartest person in the room doesn’t speak first—they synthesize. Paraphrase what you heard. Ask questions that deepen thought. Cut with clarity. You don’t earn trust by having answers. You earn it by making people feel heard and guided, not managed. If your meetings feel heavy, it’s a culture issue. If they feel aimless, it’s a clarity issue. Either way—it’s a leadership issue. #CEOHabits #LeadershipSystems #StrategicExecution #MeetingMastery #CeoCoach #HighPerformanceLeadership #TimeLeverage #OrganizationalDesign

💣 How to Tank Meetings as a Chief of Staff (AKA how I approached meetings in my first few weeks): ❌ Go in with no agenda. ❌ Take random, scattered notes—or none at all. ❌ Leave without a follow-up plan or clear next steps. ❌ Hope everyone remembers what they said they’d do (spoiler: they don’t). Needless to say…those meetings weren’t exactly productive. Fast forward to three years later, managing my own team, and even now, running my own company: No meeting happens without: ✅ A clear agenda with a desired outcome defined. ✅ A note-taking strategy (whether it’s a shared Notion doc, Ambient, or another app). ✅ A DRI (Designated Responsible Individual) for each action item. ✅ A follow-up plan for next steps and when to meet again. The difference is night and day. Meetings went from being chaotic to strategic, with real progress coming out of each one. ✨ My biggest takeaway? Meetings are tools for alignment—not time fillers. 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁. What’s one meeting tip that’s changed the game for you? Share below ⬇️ ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost and share! 👋 I’m Clara, and I post about the Chief of Staff role daily. 🔔 Follow for more!

Want more productive workshops? Try stopping them sooner. Workshops often lock people in a room for two or three hours and expect them to do their best thinking on demand. Do we really have to hold people hostage to be productive? Lately, I’ve been using a technique I call "Echo Sessions." Instead of forcing deep work to happen in real time, we kickstart an activity, get clarity, but then stop just as people are getting into it. That pause is intentional. It’s based on the same principle as the Pomodoro technique—when you leave something unfinished while still feeling engaged, you'll find it easy to return to it later and give it space to percolate. Instead of dragging out a long workshop, I schedule an Echo Session later—often in the same day—where everyone brings their independent or small group work back for discussion, iteration, and action. Why does this work? ✅ Encourages Deep Work – People get time to think, research, or create in their own way, rather than being forced into artificial collaboration. ✅ Optimizes Meeting Time – Workshops should be for shared understanding, decision-making, and iteration—not for quiet focus time. ✅ Respects Different Work Styles – Some need time to walk and think. Others need to sketch. Some want to research or tap into AI. Echo Sessions give people time and space to work in the way that’s best for them. ✅ Creates Natural Momentum – Stopping at a high-energy moment makes people want to continue later, giving them space to create, rather than leaving them drained from a marathon session. ✅ Reduces Calendar Lockdowns – Instead of monopolizing hours at a time, work is distributed more effectively and meetings are only used when necessary. Most importantly, this approach treats participants like adults. It gives them flexibility and agency while ensuring that meetings serve a clear, valuable purpose. We don’t need long workshops. We need better workshops. Curious—how do you approach workshop fatigue? Would this work in your team?

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

🚀 Want to improve group meetings? Here’s what I’ve learned from trial and error: 1. Cancel non-essential meetings: 🗑️ If it’s not crucial, don’t schedule it! 2. Adjust start times: ⏰ Begin meetings 5 minutes after the hour or half-hour to allow breathing room between back-to-back meetings. 3. Clear titles: 🏷️ Title meeting invites with the subject, objective, day, and time zone. (Example: Project Alpha MVP Decision Tue 8/20 11am PST) 4. Agenda in advance: 📝 Provide a clear agenda in the invite or as a link/attachment. If the agenda will come later, let attendees know when to expect it and ensure it’s on time. 5. Pre-reads for decisions: 📄 If decisions are needed, send a pre-read 24 hours in advance and invite comments. 6. Engage and listen: 👂 Keep your intro short. Ask questions, encourage input, and take notes. “Talk Less Smile More” 7. Inclusive participation: 🙋 Ensure everyone has a chance to speak. Gently transition if someone is going on too long. 8. End early: ⏳ Aim to end 3-5 minutes early to give people unexpected free time. Start discussions promptly, manage raised hands, and summarize with next steps about 6 minutes before the end. Suggest async follow up for any remaining raised hands. #Leadership #Productivity #MeetingTips