Thread by @johncutlefish

Meetings .... are a great example of something.

In 60m, anyone in the world can access "best practices" re: effective meetings. High quality stories. Theory. Background. Practical guidelines.

So why do meetings often suck? (1/n)

It isn't for lack of information, obviously, so why? Incompetence? Maybe, but I've observed highly competent ppl have highly ineffective meetings, and new grads in their first job have highly effective meetings after reading one chapter in a book. So...(2/n)

HUMANS ARE NOT MACHINES. Great meetings are designed, refined, get repurposed. Meetings are messy. Also...

If ppl are working crazy hours, there's no way they'll be present. If their personal, team, org WIP is super high, there's no possible way to keep it in your head (3/n)

@jasonfried has been talking lately about the importance of writing. But if doing a pre-read is "optional" (or ppl do it and don't actually focus), and meetings never actually resolve anything -- too many elephants left in the room -- no amount of writing will save you (4/n)

I've worked with MBAs in the past that arrived, and -- dutifully -- attempted to "improve meetings" based on the massive amount of reasonable information about making meetings better.

And they failed. Bc they hadn't identified the actual problem (high WIP, low safety) (5/n)

They failed to identify that no human could keep all of the loose ends in their head. They had hit their cognitive limit, w/3d chess becomes impossible.

The MBA spoke about accountability, RACI, notes, action-items...but failed to realized everyone was maxed (6/n)

If attending meetings is equated to being pressured into taking more load on top of your existing load, and talking about stuff that isn't even in play yet, bc nothing is moving ... something is wrong. And/or self-inflicted Tetris playing.

Of course the meeting will fail (7/n)

I remember a team realizing that they needed to repurpose a meeting. From talking about "new" stuff, to providing psych safety and actually working through the "now" stuff... the real impediments. Once they identified one, they made some decisions and ended the meeting (8/n)

That might take 5m. It might take 3hrs. But once they did, they ended the meeting with a by all counts "very short" / "very small" action item. If they could do it then/there, they did it.

By starting super small, they revived and transitioned their meeting culture (9/end)