This episode of HBR IdeaCast explores how to run effective meetings, highlighting that poor meetings cost US businesses billions annually and damage morale. Guest Paul English, co-founder of Kayak, shares strategies such as reducing meeting size, having clear agendas, making decisions during meetings, and ending early to reclaim productivity.
Summarized by Podsumo
Bad meetings cost US businesses about $870 billion annually, or 6% of GDP, based on 30% of work time spent in meetings and half being unproductive.
Paul English recommends making meetings harder to schedule, using shorter defaults, and regularly auditing recurring meetings to cut unnecessary ones.
Effective meetings should have two goals: making good decisions quickly and improving relationships among participants.
Amazon's practice of banning PowerPoint and using six-page memos read ahead of time ensures meetings start with everyone informed and ready to work.
In hybrid meetings, having each in-person participant use their own laptop camera creates equality and better engagement for remote attendees.
"If you're running a meeting, there's two goals to every meeting. One is come to good decisions quickly. And the second one... is to improve the relationships of the people in the room."
"Nothing was ever invented with 10 people in the room. I like small meetings. Things are best invented with two or three people."
"The best meeting is either everyone is remote, or everyone is there in person. When you try to do both, half the people are not fully engaged."