Tausi Insider

When we complain about wasteful meetings, often we are talking about the weekly gatherings of key managers (or in smaller organizations, the full team) that have noble ambitions but end up being little more than status updates and repetitive debate that doesn’t produce solutions. Consultant Kim Scott thinks we can easily change that. All it requires is taking debates and decision-making out of them. That may seem bizarre, but she argues it keeps the staff meeting from assuming a greater importance – and far bigger agenda – than is wise. She argues an effective weekly meeting has three goals: It reviews how things have gone the previous week; it allows people to share important updates; and it forces the team to clarify the most important decisions and debates for the coming week. “That’s it. It shouldn’t be the place to have debates or make decisions,” she tells managers. “Your job is to establish a consistent agenda, insist that people stick to it and corral people who go on for too...