(This came to me from a CHRO who's trying to streamline meetings - Steve)

Meetings are part of life in every organization—but many of us would agree they don’t always move the work forward the way we intend.

Lately, we’ve been stepping back and asking some honest questions about how and why we meet:

• Does this topic truly require a meeting, or could it be handled more effectively through Slack, email, or another channel?

• Should the person raising the issue always lead the meeting, or is there value in having a neutral facilitator guide the conversation?

• How do we address the unspoken pressure to attend every meeting—out of fear of missing out or being perceived as “out of the loop”?

• At what point do meetings stop enabling progress and start getting in the way of it?

This feels like an ongoing challenge across workplaces, not just ours. I’m genuinely curious—what have you tried that’s worked (or hasn’t)? How do you decide when a meeting is worth it?

Would love to learn from your experiences.