Great meetings aren't just about getting people together. They're about creating the conditions to think better, challenge assumptions, and accomplish what we couldn't achieve alone.

Every now and then, you find yourself in a meeting you genuinely don't want to leave.

Not because the conversation is particularly entertaining or the facilitator has some magical ability to keep everyone engaged, but because something interesting is happening. People are building on each other's thinking. Someone challenges an assumption, another person offers a completely different perspective, and suddenly the group arrives somewhere none of you would have reached individually.

I find those moments fascinating.

Because when we talk about meetings, we spend so much time discussing what's wrong with them. Too many, too long, too expensive, too many people, too little accomplished. And yes, there's plenty to criticize.

But I think we're overlooking something important: bringing people together can be extraordinarily valuable. We just don't always know how to make that value happen.

A good meeting should make something possible that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

And I think that's a much more interesting place to begin.

Being in the same room doesn't make us collectively smarter

There's an assumption we make about collaboration: put enough talented people together, give them a problem to solve, and something good will emerge.

Except it doesn't always work that way.

In a 2010 study published in Science, researchers led by Anita Woolley examined collective intelligence across groups performing different tasks. They found that group performance wasn't strongly correlated with the average or maximum intelligence of individual members. Instead, it was associated with factors such as social sensitivity and more equal distribution of conversational turns.

I love this finding because it challenges our obsession with getting the smartest people around the table.

Having brilliant people in the room is wonderful. But what matters is whether we know how to make use of their intelligence together.

And this is where meeting design gets interesting.

Who gets to contribute? Who tends to dominate? Whose ideas are picked up and developed? Do we create space for people to think before asking them to respond?

Sometimes a simple change, like giving everyone two minutes to think individually before opening a discussion, can completely change the conversation.

Not because we've made people more intelligent, but because we've changed the conditions under which their intelligence becomes available to the group.

Good meetings need a little friction

I'm increasingly convinced that one of the most valuable things a meeting can offer is something we often try very hard to avoid: disagreement.

We love alignment. We love harmony. We love leaving a meeting feeling that everyone's on the same page.

But sometimes that sense of alignment is simply the result of nobody wanting to challenge the prevailing opinion.

Google's Project Aristotle research identified psychological safety as the most important of five dynamics associated with effective teams. People needed to feel comfortable taking interpersonal risks, asking questions, admitting mistakes, and offering ideas without fear of embarrassment or punishment.

For me, this is particularly important in meetings.

If everyone agrees too quickly, I get curious. Have we genuinely explored the alternatives? Is there a perspective we're missing? Or has the group learned that challenging an idea isn't worth the discomfort?

Of course, disagreement for the sake of disagreement isn't particularly useful either. The purpose isn't to debate endlessly or convince everyone to adopt the same opinion.

It's to make our thinking better.

A meeting where everyone agrees isn't necessarily a meeting where everyone has contributed.

Sometimes the most valuable person in the room is the one who respectfully asks, "What if we're wrong?"

The conversation is only part of the work

I've been in meetings where the energy was incredible. Everyone participated, ideas were flying, the conversation felt meaningful, and we all left feeling rather pleased with ourselves.

Then a week later, nothing had changed.

This is where I think we sometimes confuse engagement with effectiveness.

Atlassian's 2024 research involving 5,000 knowledge workers found that 54% frequently left meetings without a clear understanding of the next steps or who owned them.

That's a remarkable amount of collective effort without a clear path forward.

But I don't believe the answer is to turn every meeting into an action-item factory.

Sometimes the outcome is a decision. Sometimes it's a new understanding, a resolved disagreement, a shared commitment, or simply realizing we've been solving the wrong problem.

What's important is that we recognize what the conversation has made possible and what, if anything, needs to happen next.

And when a decision is required, we need to be explicit about how we're going to make it. Are we gathering input for one person to decide? Are we seeking consent to move forward? Are we exploring possibilities before choosing?

Karina Mangu-Ward, in Teams That Meet the Moment, makes a compelling case for deliberately designing the everyday practices through which teams organize, decide, and learn.

That resonates deeply with me.

Because we can facilitate the most engaging discussion imaginable, but if nobody knows who can make the decision, or what happens after the conversation, we're likely to find ourselves having it all over again.

So what makes a meeting worth having?

I don't think there's one universal formula. Different conversations need different conditions.

Sometimes we need structure. Sometimes we need space to explore. Sometimes we need a little productive discomfort, and sometimes we simply need to listen.

But I do think we should become more intentional about what we're asking people to do together.

Not every conversation needs a facilitator. Not every meeting needs an elaborate agenda. And certainly not every problem needs twelve people in a room.

What matters is understanding why we're bringing these particular people together, what they can accomplish collectively, and how we're going to make that possible.

Because meetings, at their best, aren't interruptions to the real work.

They're where some of the most important work becomes possible, precisely because we cannot do it alone.

References & Further Reading

  1. Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups. Science, 330(6004), 686–688. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1193147
  2. Google re. Understand Team Effectiveness. Research from Google's Project Aristotle.
  3. Atlassian (2024). New Research: Better Meetings Start With a Page. Findings from a survey of 5,000 knowledge workers.
  4. Mangu-Ward, K. Teams That Meet the Moment. August Public.

Karina Mangu-Ward, in Teams That Meet the Moment,
- Youtube: https://bit.ly/4dhvPzH
- Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/4coGCrz
- Spotify https://bit.ly/3SPT5hp