I’ve facilitated 1,000+ meetings. Here’s why most of yours are failing—and how to fix them

We’ve grown to despise meeting culture, and I understand why. Think about the last few meetings you’ve attended. How many of them felt clear, succinct, like a truly effective use of your time? 

I’ve sat through more meetings than I can count—many of them with half the participants multitasking, cameras on but minds elsewhere. As a certified facilitator who has designed everything from executive offsites to weekly team stand-ups, I’ve learned that most meetings fail not because people don’t care, but because leaders treat meetings as a necessary evil instead of the expensive, high-stakes collaboration moments they actually are. 

“But what can we do about it?” you might lament. “Bad meetings are a part of getting work done.”

While it’s true that meetings are a critical part of doing business, they don’t have to be bad. Here are five of the most common mistakes I see people make when it comes to meetings—and simple fixes you can implement today to start making the most of your meeting time.

Mistake 1: You don’t start with the end in mind

You may think you know what a meeting is for: the title of your meeting explains the purpose or your agenda lays out what you hope to cover. But really, the most important planning step is having a clear vision of the intended outcome of the meeting.

Think about what you want people to walk away from each meeting with. Are they coming away with information? Are they supposed to finish having made a decision? Is the goal to simply introduce a topic and tease out which smaller group should convene for more specific next steps? Are they supposed to have a deeper understanding of their peers’ priorities?

When people know where the conversation is supposed to lead, they can both prepare and participate more effectively. Plus, this makes it easy to close the loop with action items related to your objective (another element of successful meetings).

Action item: As you’re kicking off each agenda item in a meeting, state, out loud, what the outcome you’re striving for is.

Mistake 2: You’re not timeboxing your agenda

We’ve all been in meetings where every agenda item seems to take way too long. You tune out, check some emails, and tune back in only to realize that the topic still isn’t wrapped up and the third person is now “piggybacking” on what the first person said without adding any new or necessary information. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the meeting, you’ve only gotten through two of the six agenda items, leaving the group with a few non-ideal options: schedule an additional meeting, move those points to next week (which further adds to the backlog of agenda topics), or attempt to cover those items asynchronously.

Instead, use timeboxing for every item of your agenda. Your intended outcomes should guide your timeboxing. Exploring a controversial decision that will impact the whole organization? Build in more time for discussion. Running through updates that don’t require much input? Keep those timeboxes tight. And no need to get ridiculous here: If you have three administrative topics at the beginning, you can batch them into a five-minute admin section instead of putting “one minute” next to each.

When you hit that time mark (most video conferencing systems now have built-in timers you can use), you don’t have to stop immediately. Instead, do a check-in to see whether you need to continue. I often use a quick thumbs poll—thumbs up means people want more time on the topic, thumbs down means they’re ready to move on, thumbs sideways means they’re neutral. If most people are ready to move forward, capture the action item and keep going. If you’re getting mostly thumbs up, set a new timebox and check in again when it expires. And if people are slow to respond or give you sideways thumbs? They’ve probably checked out.

Action item: Add timeboxes to every agenda item in your next meeting, and actually check in when you hit them.

Mistake 3: You’re not being exclusive enough

Leaders often invite a core group of required attendees to a meeting, then tack on everyone else as optional just in case they might find value in some small portion of the discussion, or to avoid anyone feeling left out.

You think you’re being inclusive, but what you’re actually doing is cluttering people’s calendars with unnecessary events they feel pressured to attend. Sure, the last five “optional” meetings didn’t yield anything useful for them, but maybe this one will be different, right?

Do everyone a favor: Stop inviting optional attendees. And if you’re marked as optional on a meeting that consistently provides no value, stop going.

There are better ways to stay transparent without wasting anyone’s time. Use an AI notetaker to generate a summary and action items that non-attendees can review quickly. Have someone post key takeaways afterward, especially decisions or information that affects people outside the room. Or invite specific people for specific portions of the meeting when their input is actually needed.

Action item: Audit your upcoming meetings and remove all optional attendees, either making them required or taking them off the invite entirely.

Mistake 4: You don’t do a meeting audit often enough

Finally, with the above implemented, it’s important to keep yourself honest and regularly assess whether the meetings on your calendar are a valuable use of your time. 

A simple question I like to ask myself as I consider my upcoming meetings is: If this meeting was taken off the calendar, what would the meeting attendees miss out on? How would it hinder their ability to do their day-to-day roles and responsibilities? The answer can make it clear which meetings can be removed or restructured.

I also think it’s valuable for meeting facilitators to do a quick gut check at the end of each meeting, asking yourself: 

• Did we make any decisions?
• Do people know what to do next?
• Did everyone participate in some way?
• Did everyone walk away with some benefit?

If your meetings aren’t reaching their intended outcomes, or you don’t know what those intended outcomes are, it might be time to revisit the cadence, attendees, and style of the meeting (or consider if it should be a meeting at all).

Action item: Schedule 30 minutes this week to audit all your recurring meetings using the questions above, and cancel or restructure at least one.