Meetings get a bad rap. I hear complaints all the time about too many meetings, wasting time, and being a snooze fest. Bad meetings suck. But that doesn’t mean we should eliminate meetings. There are lots of reasons to meet. The key is knowing when to meet and then making those meetings a truly valuable use of time and energy.
Let’s think about four different reasons why a meeting makes a lot of sense:
1. You’re Collaborating
One reason to meet is for collaborative co-creation. You’re working on something where no one person can see the full picture or bring the diversity of thought and perspective that will make something effective.
Sure, there are lots of opportunities for asynchronous collaboration. For example, you can share a Google Doc and invite people to comment. I love that. It can be very effective. But at some point, this linear approach of one person contributing after another lacks the kind of dynamic interplay that great collaboration often requires.
Continue to use asynchronous forms of collaboration. But when you’re faced with more contentious issues or complex situations that require visuals, whiteboarding, and in-depth discussion, move to a meeting. We know that novelty benefits from the body language, gestures, understanding, and context we get face-to-face. When collaborating on something new and novel, when you need to riff and have that spontaneous interplay where one person’s idea creates a new idea that sparks new insights and innovation among other team members, meetings can be great.
If collaboration is necessary, by all means, do a lot of it offline so that team members can work independently at their own pace, but every once in a while, it makes sense to meet to collaborate.
2. You’re a People Manager
In the second scenario, you’re a people manager. Recently, someone asked me, “I’m holding weekly one-on-one meetings with my folks, and I’m worried they’re a waste of time. Should I cancel them?” My response was immediate, “No, don’t cancel them, but think about how you use them.”
One great reason to meet one-on-one is to check in with your report and allow them to share their experiences, what they’re focused on, what they’re worried about, and what needs your attention and consideration or what you need to worry about.
The opportunity to experience nuances in the pitch and tone of their voice, body language, and gestures that you get in face-to-face interactions adds depth. The rich communication you get in a meeting with a direct report is different from what you get when they send you an email about what they’re doing or asking for help.
When this person asked me if they should cancel their one-on-ones, I advised them to be careful. If one-on-one meetings simply become places to check off boxes and focus solely on task completion or delegation rather than meaningful interaction and support, then that’s not a good use of a meeting. That’s a place where asynchronous communication makes more sense. You can use a Slack channel, or have a project login like MS Project, or some other tool.
Think about why you want manager-direct report meetings, and use them as an opportunity for interpersonal connection, check-ins, a chance to understand where each of you is at, talk through difficult things, and share feedback. All of these aspects of interaction are a great use of a meeting that can’t be replicated in an email exchange.
3. You’re in a Matrix Organization
Third, you’re in a matrix organization. What happens in a matrix organization is that we have to do things together. We have common goals, but we have slightly different priorities, we pay attention to different things, we have different expertise, and we often use different terminology. And again, you can do things asynchronously as much as possible. Still, you’re going to need to come together in a meeting from time to time. Occasional meetings are essential to look each other in the eye, to stop and define terms, to clarify places where you might be misaligned, and to pick up on nuances of misalignment that might be missed if you’re just using written communication.
In a matrix organization, in some ways, meetings across departments can be even more important than meetings with colleagues you trust and who share a common language. While you can get a lot done in a Slack or MS Teams conversation, it’s easy to misinterpret written communication in a matrix, so you’ll want to prioritize meetings more often in this situation.
4. You Want a Strong Team
Finally, you want a strong team. The foundation of any trusting relationship is connection and knowledge of each other, and that comes from spending downtime together. It’s the time on the way to and from meetings, as well as the time at lunch. These are opportunities to learn about people, find common ground, understand where you’re different, and how diverse perspectives can enhance both work and conversations.
Meeting to have a forum to build trust and get to know each other as humans is really valuable. Maybe some of your work meetings need to be content-free to give everyone the chance to blue sky about current focuses, upcoming tasks, and exciting projects, and if you have a defined agenda, maybe more of those sessions can be done offline in an asynchronous form. But when we’re together, we can chat, get excited about things, and get to know each other as people. That kind of connection is a really good reason to have a meeting.
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I know we have too many meetings and we really need to pare them back. We need to think about all the things we can move to asynchronous forums, like working on Google Docs and commenting together. But sometimes that’s not enough and we need to come together in a meeting. If we need to collaborate on something urgent, novel, or complex, if we’re managing people and need to foster connection and create a safe space for feedback, if we’re working across boundaries in a matrix, or if we just need to build a strong team, all of these things are worth having a meeting.
Now, if you’re going to meet, how do you make that meeting effective? Check out my next post, The Secret to Hybrid Meetings.
8 Techniques to Make Your Meetings More Effective (Part I)
10 questions to increase collaboration