Meetings are so notorious for draining productivity that historic sabotage manuals listed them as a tactic of choice. The trouble is, modern meetings often fall into the same traps by accident: too many people invited, vague agendas, and decisions that never stay decided. The result isn’t just a wasted hour, but a feedback loop: too many meetings leave no time to prepare, which makes meetings run longer, which forces multitasking, which makes them even less effective.
In this talk, we show how to break those feedback loops before they start. Using lessons lifted from the old sabotage playbook, we’ll contrast common anti-patterns with practical counter-moves: picking the right type of meeting, deciding who actually needs to be there, shaping the environment and logistics, and closing with action and accountability. The aim is simple: meetings that respect time and deliver outcomes. Or, to misquote Arleen Lorrance, be the meeting you want to see happen.
Learning outcomes
Meetings can be so hazardous to the productivity of an organization that the CIA’s precursor, the OSS, included them in their sabotage field manual. While we may not be called upon to thwart direct enemy action, as meeting facilitators we should run the kinds of meetings we would want to attend. There are many reasons meetings are ineffective, most of which can only be mitigated before the meeting happens. This talk will give you things to consider and do to prepare for a meeting.
Attendees will leave with some techniques they can use today to make the most of their precious time. This is primarily aimed at anyone running a meeting. Facilitators, scrum masters, team leads, and managers most often do this, but anyone attending a meeting could benefit. To misquote Arleen Lorrance, “be the meeting you want to see happen.”