9 mistakes companies make when they try to fix meetings (and how to get it right)

9 (completely understandable) mistakes leaders make when they try to fix meeting culture

 

Most people spend too much time in mediocre meetings.

But we've been fed a load of truisms, memes and underwhelming 'common sense' about meetings. Most organisations are tackling the 'too many meeting problem' the wrong way.

Here’s what’s going wrong … and how to get it right.

 

 Mistake 1: Treating meetings as machines that can be controlled  

Meetings can’t be controlled or optimised like a machine. They are human events that need structure and skills to create the an environment in which the most valuable can be held. We are contribution coaches, not meeting organisers.

What works instead: Meetings don’t need running better, they need owning better. Elevate meetings to their correct status in the knowledge era - high intensity, high quality rituals that need full ownership. The owner is the guardian of everyone’s time and attention and the curator of the most value-driving conversation.

Example: Instead of pushing for structure and rigidity, normalise the role of Meeting Owner (or Meeting Coach?) whose role is to protect everyone’s time and drive impactful discussions.

 

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Mistake 2: Over-relying on simple rules  

“Just start and finish on time!”

“Every meeting should have an agenda!”

“Meetings should be no longer than 30 minutes!”

Meetings are influenced by many different factors - most rooted in psychological and social phenomena. Controlling meetings with overly simple rules relies on ‘corporate willpower’ and is ineffective. Make something a rule (i.e. a 'should' and you will strip their motivation to do it.

What works instead: Instead of rules, we need 1. high level principles to guide and empower people, 2. examples of meeting techniques that really work in your organisation and 3. the skills to facilitate candour and care.

Example: Develop guiding principles and a playbook of techniques specific to your organisation’s culture. I wrote a guide to writing playbooks and you can grab it here.

 

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Mistake 3: Asking overloaded people to change meeting culture  

It's a mistake to expect people with jam-packed schedules to rework how they approach meetings. Meeting load and meeting transformation are held in a vicious circle.

The more our calendars are dominated by meetings, the less time we have to think about the next one in advance and make better design choices. 

What works instead: The first step in meeting transformation is to reduce meeting load. Only then can people begin to engage in creating more effective meeting designs.  

Example: Start by granting a freedom - help people identify meetings that can be shortened, shifted to async or sunsetted (my word for closing out a meeting that's no longer needed) to create some space so people can think, breathe and redesign how they meet and collaborate.

 

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Mistake 4: Over-collaboration with good intention

Many mediocre meetings are the result of too much of something good - or not holding a strength in healthy tension with something else. Over-using the strength of inclusivity is what can lead to a meeting culture where everyone is in every meeting. But you don't fix this through simply chopping people out - that leads to more mistrust. Instead it's a cultural change.

What works instead: Building trust and improving async updates between teams so not everyone feels they need to be in every session. 

Example: Try 'consult wide, meet small' to provide a voice for more people and then asking a smaller working group to come up with a plan that factors in the wider perspectives. Use the 'cc' option to include people in a meeting series for information - they can see the agenda and the outcomes and contribute to the chat without having to attend.

 

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Mistake 5: No one “owns” the meeting culture  

“Make meetings better” isn’t in anyone’s job description. But meetings are where strategy meets reality, where work gets done, trade offs are made, trust is created or destroyed and where people experience the organisation. If you want to transform your meeting culture, someone needs to own meetings and collaboration as a crucial 'technology'.

What works instead: Take meeting and collaboration culture seriously. Assign someone to own it. Give meetings a home, an owner, and a budget.  

Example: Create a meeting transformation lead role to cultivate best practices, cross-pollinate skills, and guide the meeting culture.

 

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Mistake 6: Accepting a low bar for meetings  

Mistake: Not recognising meetings as pivotal experiences that can boost productivity and engagement - and failing to set high expectations for change. "They're just meetings, ok?!"

What works instead:  Setting the bar high - show people what excellent looks like and how leadership is played out in meetings. Help people understand that when we make meetings energising and value-generating and they'll create an unbeatable employee experience.

Example: Reframe your goal: Could you make meetings the high point of the employee experience (you heard me right - wild, I know!) 

 

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Mistake 7: Launching large-scale changes instead of experimenting  

Rolling out large change initiatives as a 'diet'. "Here's the new way of doing meetings, everyone, let's follow it from now on forever!" - not effective for daily engrained habits like how we lead and contribute to these hugely social rituals.

What works instead: Start small. Instead, explore which new norms work on a small scale, seed these norms more widely and take away the constraints that hold people in old-style meetings. Then you can start to scale and expand across the organisation. 

Example: Run a “meeting pioneers” programme where small teams experiment with different meeting styles before scaling up. This is how social change happens in the wild.

 

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Mistake 8: Underestimating the cultural shift needed  

Meeting transformation is not simply about scheduling changes - it's about addressing deep-seated behavioural norms, often woven into power structures. 

What works instead: Approach meeting transformation as a true cultural shift. Expose people to new mindsets, create social proof and socialise obviously helpful ideas.  

Example: Involve participants in workshops that introduce new collaboration techniques and provide real-world scenarios for practice.

 

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Mistake 9: Failing to get senior leaders to openly support the mindset shift

You don't need your exec team to model Lightning Design Jams in every meeting but if they don't actively support the changes you are making or worse, if they undermine them, you'll never get scale or traction. Meetings are theatre. We go, we observe, we decide what is safe and unsafe. Senior leaders are a crucial part of people feeling they truly have permission to do something new. 

What works instead: Design in exactly how leaders will need to support change and work with them 1:1 and as a group to do this (they need to explore with you and commit to each other).

Example: Put leaders into their own mini-development module as part of this change and also help them improve their own diary and meetings so they see the value directly.