My question here is: what about when the meetings ARE the work? So much of my strategic work has been getting technicians, business leaders, community leads, administrators, etc to buy into change and evolution. So much of my managerial work is to get a team of specialists to see each other as humans and to collaborate effectively. In my experience, meetings are often incredibly useful—exhausting, yes, but useful. What are your thoughts?
Ana, this is a very relevant question. I wonder whether the answer to this challenge lies in traditional meetings or in narrowly focused, purpose-driven sessions designed to build empathy, trust, and connections—like workshops, offsites, and 1:1s. Kick-off project workshops and brainstorming sessions can greatly benefit from synchronous meetings, yet, in practice, we don’t use meetings only for those purposes. They consume time and energy and tend to give louder thinkers and strong presenters more space, even if they don’t necessarily have the best ideas or answers.
I think it’s not about having meetings or not having them, but about using them more intentionally to drive human and business value sustainably. I’d like to hear your perspectives on this.
Thanks for writing this! Particularly vibe with this part:
- T𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. Everyone reads together and adds comments and questions, marking when reading is finished. It levels the playing field—loud voices don't dominate.
- 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻: 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲 on material everyone has actually absorbed, with follow-ups and updates via asynchronous tools.
For years I've led research synthesis, product development, and strategy sessions with silent reading and mark-ups. They're so unpopular, but, like you, I find that they produce better results than just jumping into debate, which so often ends up with loud or highly ranked voices dominating, or with the meeting becoming (the dreaded) Update meeting.
Great question, Ana. I have run into this a ton in 2025, so I feel the pain.
The way I've been personally addressing this problem is by trying to build trust between the groups I need to bring together for work.
I'm on a project now where, initially, it felt like the two main teams I planned to work with existed on opposite planets. We have had to work closely together, and through the summer, I was consistently doing things as you mentioned. All the while, I was attempting to build up a culture within my meetings that was serious and firm but also not so intense that people felt like it was a total drag to be a part of.
In recent times, I have found myself able to steer them from the perspective of knowing what needs to be achieved. Because they've built up some camaraderie working together so often, they're able to get work done and report back instead of being hand-held by me.
Opposite planets yes! I often say that one of the roots of organizational disfunction is that we all start selecting into different crowds in about middle school, and then never talk or go to each other's parties again until somehow we're expected to work together seamlessly when we lurch from school into professional life. My only competitive advantage? I love parties, and I'll go to anyone's.
There's a great deal of happiness to be found in not being too particular about what you find interesting, don't you think? So often, that's what the meetings are for: to show everyone that yes, somehow the other planet also has something interesting on it.
My question here is: what about when the meetings ARE the work? So much of my strategic work has been getting technicians, business leaders, community leads, administrators, etc to buy into change and evolution. So much of my managerial work is to get a team of specialists to see each other as humans and to collaborate effectively. In my experience, meetings are often incredibly useful—exhausting, yes, but useful. What are your thoughts?
Ana, this is a very relevant question. I wonder whether the answer to this challenge lies in traditional meetings or in narrowly focused, purpose-driven sessions designed to build empathy, trust, and connections—like workshops, offsites, and 1:1s. Kick-off project workshops and brainstorming sessions can greatly benefit from synchronous meetings, yet, in practice, we don’t use meetings only for those purposes. They consume time and energy and tend to give louder thinkers and strong presenters more space, even if they don’t necessarily have the best ideas or answers.
I think it’s not about having meetings or not having them, but about using them more intentionally to drive human and business value sustainably. I’d like to hear your perspectives on this.
After reflecting, I did a post about it: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7384951366357762048/
Thanks for writing this! Particularly vibe with this part:
- T𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. Everyone reads together and adds comments and questions, marking when reading is finished. It levels the playing field—loud voices don't dominate.
- 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻: 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲 on material everyone has actually absorbed, with follow-ups and updates via asynchronous tools.
For years I've led research synthesis, product development, and strategy sessions with silent reading and mark-ups. They're so unpopular, but, like you, I find that they produce better results than just jumping into debate, which so often ends up with loud or highly ranked voices dominating, or with the meeting becoming (the dreaded) Update meeting.
Great question, Ana. I have run into this a ton in 2025, so I feel the pain.
The way I've been personally addressing this problem is by trying to build trust between the groups I need to bring together for work.
I'm on a project now where, initially, it felt like the two main teams I planned to work with existed on opposite planets. We have had to work closely together, and through the summer, I was consistently doing things as you mentioned. All the while, I was attempting to build up a culture within my meetings that was serious and firm but also not so intense that people felt like it was a total drag to be a part of.
In recent times, I have found myself able to steer them from the perspective of knowing what needs to be achieved. Because they've built up some camaraderie working together so often, they're able to get work done and report back instead of being hand-held by me.
Opposite planets yes! I often say that one of the roots of organizational disfunction is that we all start selecting into different crowds in about middle school, and then never talk or go to each other's parties again until somehow we're expected to work together seamlessly when we lurch from school into professional life. My only competitive advantage? I love parties, and I'll go to anyone's.
There's a great deal of happiness to be found in not being too particular about what you find interesting, don't you think? So often, that's what the meetings are for: to show everyone that yes, somehow the other planet also has something interesting on it.