s-t-f-u.com/this-meeting
This meeting is a document
If nobody is going to disagree, decide, or create something, you have scheduled a live reading.
Meetings are for the things writing is bad at: disagreement, ambiguity, hard decisions, and repairing trust. Everything else is information transfer, and writing is better at that.
An hour with nine people is nine hours. Nine hours to hear a status update that could have been read in four minutes, at whatever time suited each person.
Why it lands badly
It's the most expensive format
Multiply the duration by the attendees before you send the invite.
It's synchronous for no reason
Information doesn't need everyone present at the same second.
It has no artefact
A document still exists next month. A meeting mostly doesn't.
It defeats the quiet people
The best thinker in the room is often the slowest to speak, and rooms don't wait.
Do this instead
Write the update
If you can write the agenda, you can usually write the outcome.
Keep the meeting, cut the readout
Send the doc first. Use the time only for the disagreement.
Halve it
Thirty minutes produces roughly the same output as sixty. Try it once.
Say what a decision looks like
If you can't write down what you're deciding, you're not ready to meet.
When it's completely fine
Someone needs to disagree out loud. It's sensitive, personal, or a first conversation. There's a real decision with real tension. You're building something together in real time. Or people just need to see each other, which is a legitimate reason — just say so.
Questions people ask
- How do I say this to my boss?
- Don't argue the principle. Offer the doc. "I've written this up — want to read it and only meet if something's off?"
- Isn't some of this just team bonding?
- Yes, and that's a good reason for a meeting. It's just not the reason on the invite.